RUGBY: GERRY THORNLEYtalks to the committed backrow who has worked diligently during his career to finally force his way into the big-game frame for his beloved Munster
IN A Q and A with the Munster website a couple of seasons ago, James Coughlan’s advice to any aspiring young player was simple. “Never give up,” he answered, and if ever an Irish player embodied those three words it is Coughlan himself.
Having starred with Dolphin in their Division Two promotion campaign five seasons ago, he was 25 when he made his debut for Munster over four years ago, was 26 when he finally earned his first full-time contract and, having turned 30 last Thursday week, is about to start his first back-to-back Heineken Cup games.
Coughlan is the classic illustration that sometimes the old cliché applies, that good things do come to those who wait. Although it’s not as if he was doing nothing for those five or six seasons after a celebrated Irish schools career when he fell off the Munster radar. This season he passed a century of AIL appearances with Dolphin, during which time he also played for the AIB Irish club side, and he has scored 38 AIL tries for his club.
Coughlan is a stand-out example for any player who may have missed the boat at academy level but still has aspirations to make it as a professional, particularly to AIL players in their early or mid-20s. Without a hint of arrogance about it, that would be something that sits fine with Coughlan himself.
“There’s always going to be one or two fellas that slip through the net, but there are some fantastic players in the club game and a lot of it is down to the opportunity. You’re put into a professional set-up, you’re training every day, you’re eating the right stuff, you’re getting the right rest, you’re doing the right things and doing the skill work every day that we do with ‘Dutchie’ (Jason Holland) and Ian Costello. I’m sure there are a lot of fellas there who, given the chance I was given, would be in the same position I am in now. A lot of it is to do with luck, but the club game is the heart and soul of Irish rugby.”
Many players in his position might have packed the game in by the age of 25. He’s always loved playing and never countenanced giving it up. “Obviously when you see players like Denis (Leamy) and Stephen Keogh, who are my age, playing week-in, week-out for Munster, you kind of scratch your head a small bit.
“But Dave O’Mahony at Dolphin got me training and as fit and as healthy as I could have been as a club player, because it is extremely difficult – and I’ve said this before – I’ve great respect for those lads who go to work, then eat a sandwich, get in the car and go training and are not home ’til nine. It was just a case of keep going and getting some bit of recognition.”
It helped that the then Munster coach, Declan Kidney, was an ex-Dolphin man and attended a few of their games. The assistant coach at the time, Jim Williams, always slagged Coughlan that the only reason he was getting picked was because he was Kidney’s son.
The first few months were something of a culture shock for him, he admits. “The lads have done the conditioning and the weights for a couple of years ahead of you. I was lucky too that the World Cup meant there were games for me.”
Coughlan had been working himself at the time, having left college with some accountancy exams still to complete.
“An accountancy practice isn’t the most exciting job in the world so I went ‘repping’ for a while with 02 when Deccie called. The money wasn’t great but I had to take the chance. It was something I was looking to do since I left school.”
Growing up, playing sport was all that interested him, although originally it was hurling and football with Glen Rovers, along with soccer, basketball, tennis and hockey which grabbed his attention.
“A couple of my mates were playing rugby so I said I’d give that a shot as well. I suppose it was an excuse to get a half-day on Wednesdays.”
The eldest of four, he admits his parents, Kevin and Eileen, were baffled when Coughlan tried his hand with the Old Christians club in Mayfield – the nearest club to where he grew up in Ratchooney. His family bloodline had been more hurling and soccer, while his dad, along with his uncles, had been a sprinter with Moss Finn in the Leevale club, which must partly explain Coughlan’s speed.
On going to CBC Cork, he hooked up with a team that went through six years unbeaten, winning a Junior Cup and completing a third Munster Schools’ Senior Cup – himself, Pat McCarthy, TadhgDaly and Owen Daly playing in all three senior triumphs. Donncha O’Callaghan was part of the first cup-winning side, when Jerry Flannery was in the opposition team with St Munchin’s. “Garret Fitz(Gerald) was our coach and he had us well and truly prepared. We knew exactly what we were doing the whole time.”
There followed a couple of games for the Irish Schools, along with the likes of Leamy, Shane Jennings and Gavin Duffy, when they beat Wales and England. On going to university he played with UCC before joining Dolphin at 20.
“Con would probably have made more sense rugby wise at the time, but my friends were playing with Dolphin, so that was it to be honest with you. I wasn’t really thinking about Munster.”
Though happy with his lot, it was his misfortune to be a backrower, and a backrower in Munster at that. Alan Quinlan, David Wallace, Anthony Foley and Jim Williams were the men in situ then, and along would come Leamy and others.
“It’s an Irish thing,” he reasons. “We’ve a huge amount of backrowers, and I think that’s just because of our build in general. A lot of fellas, especially in Munster, won’t just play rugby; they’ll play hurling and football as well, and you end up playing backrow because you get the mixture of everything. It’s a genetic thing as much as anything else, because we’re not a particularly tall race. Backrow suits the Irish physique.”
And it has its good side too.
“With the likes of Quinny and Axel (Foley) and Wally and all those, if ever you needed someone to look up to there was a queue of about five or six of them there. I would never have thought that I’d be playing with Quinny and Wally and Axel and Denis. Sometimes you have to look around and scratch your head and go ‘how the hell did I end up in here too?’”
Pulling on the famed jersey for the first time, albeit in an understrength team which lost away to the Cardiff Blues, was memorable. “It was a proud day for my parents because they’ve been there and washing my gear since I was eight or nine. And you’ve under-10 and under-12 and under-14 coaches looking on thinking ‘I coached him’.”
After that breakthrough season on a development contract (2006-07) only three of his 20 appearances in the following season were in the starting XV, one of which was the epic against the All Blacks. His approach then was to continually implore Tony McGahan and Laurie Fisher as to what he needed to do to improve his game. “Tony and Laurie were sick of me and they’re probably only picking me now so they don’t have to put up with me,” he jokes.
He says he had to improve a bit of everything, but mostly accuracy, mostly accuracy at the breakdown and lineout time. A foray into the Irish sevens set-up assisted his skills too. Coughlan helped Ireland to qualify for the 2009 World Cup in Dubai where they produced the shock of the tournament in beating Australia before the rigours of nine games in three days in temperatures ranging from the late 20 to the mid-30s took its toll in a defeat to Zimbabwe.
“We were just knackered and sunburned. The long rangy fellas from Zimbabwe were well able for the heat. But a brilliant experience. We were treated like kings, staying in the Atlantis Palm, a seven-star hotel with all the works that go with you. And apart form anything else it was an opportunity to represent Ireland in a World Cup.”
“It’s an under-utilised thing in general. Like, there’s so many young fellas not playing enough rugby,” he says. “It’s something that we could use to give a guys a feel at international level. It improves everything. The tackle contest is so intense, because if you miss a tackle basically it’s seven points every time. And it’s the awareness of space, because the pitch is huge when there’s only 14 of you out there.”
The last few years have been good in many ways, as he and Katri have two young kids, Finn (4) and Aoibhinn (16 months). A bright, thoughtful lad who is completely into the Munster zeitgeist, it says something for his ever-improved standing amongst the coaching staff that he captained Munster in their recent win over Australia. There was also his Heineken Cup debut in the quarter-final win over Northampton last season.
“But sometimes those ones look after themselves, because you don’t need to be hyped up for those. I’m sure when I’m retired they’ll be the special ones but winning away to Ulster a couple of weeks ago, that was as good a feeling as we’ve had in a long time,” he says in reference to a sleeves-rolled-up win without 21 players for one reason or another.
Fitter than he’s ever been, the long wait for these good times only makes him appreciate this more. “It is a special place and we know that. It really is a case that when you’re in it, you give 100 per cent, because you’re not just representing yourself, you’re representing everything that’s gone before you and everything that will come after you.
“You don’t want to let anybody down. You can go to the shop and if you’ve had a shit game you’ll be told about it. And it’s doing it for yourself too, because I’m the one that’s doing all the training, I’m the one getting the shit kicked out of me on a weekly basis so when I put it on I try to make the most of it.”
Being hyped up for today’s renewal with the Ospreys oughtn’t to be a problem either. He agrees it’s a must-win game against a “quality” team stuffed with Lions and All Blacks. “All our games from here on in are must-win, and that’s all we’re worried about. If we can control ourselves and control the controllables then we’ll be okay, and if we win our three games regardless of what else happens we’ll top the group.”
In that aforementioned Q A, when asked which person in the world he’d most like to meet, he answered: “George Bush.” Huh? For fear of starting off the interview on a bad note, this one was left to last. Eh, explain yourself Coughlan?
“There’s a couple of questions I wanted to ask him politely,” he chuckles. “I’ll leave it at that.”
Good answer too.
James Coughlan
DOB: 9th Dec 1980.
Height: 1.85 m (6 1).
Weight: 107 kg (16 st 11 lb)
Position: Back Row.
Munster debut: Sept 06 v Cardiff Blues.
Honours: Irish Schools, Irish Universities, Irish 7s.
Club side: Dolphin (played 103 games, 38 tries).
Munster: 57 caps (5 tries).
