Unlike most countries, Ireland’s blazers (who gave themselves a self-congratulatory 5 pages in the Bok match programme) ignore the (professional) RWC as a marker in the national teams development, preferring their school chums favourite tournament – the braying old Six Nations.
Thus after 2007, Ireland endured Eddie’s swansong, and after RWC11, while other countries started afresh with a 4 year plan, the IRFU stumbled around the like amateurs they are with a contract through to the 2013 Six Nations. The year 2012, once the glow of the Argentina game fades, will be recalled as a year marked by operational disasters and on-field listlessness as the team slumped into the last months of Deccie’s contract. Organisational mishaps have followed Ireland around and been allowed to fester.
When Deccie came on board, he brought a crisp and fresh management team with defined roles – Les Kiss and Gert Smal were a breath of fresh air and for all the talk of Deccie getting the luck that Eddie didn’t, the famous Gary Player quote deserves to be recalled – the more Ireland practised the luckier they got, and a fully deserved Grand Slam was delivered through innovation and hard work. Post RWC11, that coaching team has evolved into something of a dogs dinner – Les Kiss gets shunted around, Gert Smal’s role is unclear, and Axel Foley and Greg Feek get drafted in and out to fill in gaps.
The nadir was the Mick Kearney’s first week as team manager in January 2012 – his first act was to get slapped down by the IRB for suggesting Barnes had admitted Fez’s tackle shouldn’t have been penalised in the Wales game. It was not the most auspicious start to his new job, but was symptomatic of a set-up which was seemingly intent on continuously criticising match officials.
The penny-pinching that characterised Ireland’s efforts in the dawn of professionalism reared its head again this year. For the end-of-season tour to NZ, a small squad was selected despite the inevitability of injuries – no lessons were learned from 2010 when armies of players came out one at a time. Before the final test in Hamilton, the players had to check out of their hotels in advance to save a nights room charge, and Paddy Wallace was grabbed from a Portuguese beach and fast-tracked into the side, with wholly predictable results.
The story in the Sunday Times last week where O’Reilly revealed the turkeys at Lansdowne Road might be on the verge of voting for Christmas is long delayed. The appointment of a professional director of rugby with a meaningful role would be a hugely welcome development – the present structure in Ireland is not fit for the purpose of producing consistently well-prepared and successful sides. The idea that Deccie has to sit in front of some amateur volunteers and justify his selection and tactics for a Test match is a sepia-tinged anachronism in this, the 18th year of professional rugby – we have been critical of Deccie for his selection and tactics, but we don’t envy him for having to deal with the old farts of Lansdowne Road. Without brushing over the work these unpaid volunteers do, this is a job for a professional.
Perhaps the most important function of the new role would be managing the relationship between provinces and national team. The head coach having to enforce the Player Welfare rules with provincial coaches has surely not helped Ireland’s cause over the last season or so, particularly as the dichotomy between their relative performances has emerged. We’ve said before that Ireland going down the road of Country vs. Province can only end in failure, and that remains the case. Taking the head coach out of the firing line might also negate the need for the media to peddle this agenda, which has become especially trying. At one point in the last month an interview with Eoin Reddan was headlined ‘Reddan Defends Provincial Success’. Such silliness has to end.
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