Garrett Fitzgerald outlines Andy Farrell’s Munster role

Munster chief executive Garrett Fitzgerald has confirmed that the co-opting of Ireland defence coach Andy Farrell as a temporary consultant to the Munster coaches will see him link up with the squad about two days a week, with no involvement on match days. Nor did Fitzgerald envisage this in any way undermining the role of head coach Anthony Foley, who still has the offer of taking up the one-year extension to his contract.

“There’s no change to the coaching structure,” stressed Fitzgerald. “We’ve brought Andy in as a consultant to work with the coaching team, predominantly; to assist them, to have a fresh voice in there, to look at what they’re actually doing, to see if it can be tweaked.

“At this time of the season, that’s the right and professional way of looking at it. You’re not just going to change everything. He’s on a part-time capacity because of personal things that he’s doing himself. It suits us and it suits him, so it could be one day one week, two days another week.

“There are weeks in the period before he takes up his IRFU position where we don’t have a match, and we may use that. There is no change in our structure, Anthony remains as head coach. Andy is working with them and started today on that.

“We’ll do two days a week initially, to see how that goes, so that he may have a day while the full team are in camp, a full training day and a review day. That would give him a chance to meet with coaches and everything. The plan is a max of two days a week, then we’ll review it and see how it works.”

Nor will Farrell’s advisory role be confined to his area of expertise, namely defence. “Any input he has is not specific to defence or attack, it’s an overall thing. It could be the overall game plan, it could be meeting with the defence coach, the attack coach, everything like that. There is no specific plan, it’s general and I think his background is he’s well qualified. There’s no specific function.

“The plan at the moment is purely preparation and mid-week planning. Obviously, match-day analysis is easily transferred to people from preparation you have done during the week. We don’t envisage him working on match day at the moment.”

Fitzgerald, who came aboard with Munster in 1999 and is thus the longest serving chief executive at any of the provinces, did not see the hiring of Farrell as undermining Foley, who welcomed the idea, and his assistants in any way.

“I wouldn’t look at it that way. You could look at it if you wanted to see it that way, I wouldn’t. First of all, Anthony very much welcomed the idea and is totally supportive of it as he has been when other people have come in at different times to help and review situations.”

"We don't see it that way, and from the discussion myself and Anthony had with John Kelly, he's delighted with it. He sees it as an opportunity to learn off a past player and a past player who has coached up to the highest level."

Furthermore, Munster’s desire to exercise the option of a one-year extension onto Foley’s two-year deal remains intact despite a run of six defeats in their last seven matches, which has seen them knocked out of the European Champions Cup at the pool stages for the second year running.

“As I’ve said in previous media days, Anthony had an option on his contract and has been offered an option on that. He specifically asked that it be parked, as he wanted to concentrate on team performance and he’s not in any rush at the present moment to do that. We’re quite happy at the moment to let it be as it is. The most important thing is team performance.

“He’s been offered the renewal of it. All the head coaches provincially are IRFU employees. So in conjunction with the IRFU and following reviews that would take place in any normal employee situation, obviously we feel he’s the right person at this stage to do that. In any employment situation, people may get a change of minds themselves for different reasons, or pressure. But that’s the way we see it at the moment.”

As regards his own role, and whether Munster had done enough during the years of bounty from 1999 to 2010, when they reached the knock-out stages of the Heineken Cup every year, including four finals and two Cup wins, to prevent their evident decline of latter years, Fitzgerald admitted: “I’ve been frequently asked that question.

He added: “If you look at what Munster did over the good years, we developed a stadium that cost €39 million that has only €9 million owed on it after about 10 years. Lots of people would like to be in that position.

“Part of the long-term payment on that is the renewal of season tickets in two years’ time. Would we prefer to have more of the debt paid off? Yes, but as regards to a scaling of a debt over a 10-year period, to only own €9 million on €39 million, that’s an unbelievable position to be in and we have to thank everyone that helped us with that.

“It does put a drain on cash flow, and the IRFU have helped us in that situation to make sure that we’re able to do some of the things I’ve been asked about it [recruitment]. We have put in two new pitches at Thomond, we have put in a new facility in Cork, we are in the process of building a new training centre. We have constantly invested in the game, which you have to do.”

“The business we operate in is very difficult to plan for. You plan as much as you can. When we won our first Heineken Cup, I don’t think some people in the room even knew who Toulon were. They were in Pro D2 at the time, I think.

“It’s a completely new market, it’s a completely new television-funded market that is now at nearly €75 million in France. I think it’s up to £40 million sterling in the Aviva Premiership. I think we’re at about €12 million for the Pro 12. It’s a completely new market that’s ever changing and you throw in private investment with that.

“I think no matter how much you do and how much you plan, it’s such a changeable feast it’s very hard to keep up with it. The difference in funding is television and private investment. There are plenty of players in Ireland on competitive international market rates that are happy to stay here, but it’s competitive and I think we’ve done really well.

“We’ve invested in the game, but at the present moment it’s a challenge and it has been for a lot of other businesses. The IRFU have been really supportive and helped us, they’ve helped other provinces too and will continue to do so.”