Hugh Hogan is one of three new faces, alongside Alex Codling (forwards coach) and Gareth Steenson (kicking coach) in the revamped Ireland women’s coaching ticket from the Six Nations Championship.
Scott Bemand (head) and Denis Fogarty (scrum) remain from the previous iteration.
The acclimatisation process – this is Hogan’s first time to coach in the women’s game – has been swift. Six weeks since his introduction, he’s been entrusted with defence, while also dabbling in a little contact and breakdown work for which he was celebrated during his time with Leinster, where the players raved about his tuition.
Since then, he’s enjoyed coaching roles at the Scarlets and Tokyo Suntory Sungoliath in Japan before accepting his new position.
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It’s been an accelerated challenge as the coaching team has worked with an extended squad that includes new faces and a cohort from Sevens to prepare for Saturday’s game against Australia in Belfast, after which a squad for the WXV1 tournament in Vancouver will be named where Ireland face New Zealand, Canada and the USA.
“I think it’s brilliant, my experience has been hugely positive,” said Hogan.
“Scott’s [Bemand] driven a really enjoyable environment and he’s made everything about the pitch. The players have a great understanding of that, so we focus on what’s most important which is our quality training. We want to compete on the pitch.
“And from a coaching group, our job, our role is really to challenge the players in that environment and make sure there’s strong support so they can get to meet that challenge. I’m very fortunate I guess in that Alex Codling I knew from before, Denis Fogarty I knew before, without having coached with them, so there was personal connection.
“I’ve got to know Scott pretty well in the last couple of months. The most enjoyable coaching groups for me are the ones that are collaborative, and I think that’s a place that we’ve got to now, quite quickly.
“Three years ago, I left Ireland to go and coach abroad. I had brilliant experiences in both Wales and Japan. I can honestly say I’m a much better coach for the experience.
“I was cognisant at Leinster that I was very fortunate to continue to learn in a great environment from great coaches and with great players. But it was always part of my vision really to try and challenge myself outside of that environment. Without doubt, it has helped me to become a better coach.”
Despite this being his first foray into coaching a women’s team, he stresses he doesn’t differentiate in terms of content, focus or intensity.
“I’m working with a rugby team. We’ve a brilliant group and I think as I said before, they’re inquisitive, they’re incredibly hard-working and they want to learn quickly. They’re very adaptive as well, I give the players a lot of credit.”
Hogan has also been working on contact/breakdown technique, along with the other coaches.
“I do some of the work around the contact space, our ball carrying and the breakdown. I’ll be honest, Alex is very experienced in that space as well. We are collaborating on that area, myself, Denis and Alex are all across that together, which is great. As one of us is focusing on a part of our core, you also have eyes on a part of the game that is hugely important, on both sides of the ball.”
Ireland’s likely captain next Saturday, Edel McMahon, explained that they were quick to pick up on Hogan’s expertise and also that the new coaches have built on existing game patterns.
“We picked his [Hogan’s] brain on the first Tuesday we were in, we were doing some jackal work. We are trying to see if we can apply that on the pitch.
“The new staff have just added layers on to what we already have in place. We’ve still got the same coaching cues, still going after the same kind of pitch map. Just like you say with Hugh, he’s adding more to the breakdown.
“Codders [Codling] is really helping push on our lineout now again. It’s something we’ll try and use as a weapon, but they’re just building on layers to what we already had. They’re great.”
Australia’s most recent outing was a 62-0 defeat to New Zealand. Ireland have studied the game tape. McMahon said: “There are elements of the game that we can go after. The pressure that New Zealand put on them even just to exit. We have electric people who can make them turn over the ball.
“We want our wingers on the ball, we want to get our fullback on the ball and then we can exploit the space. We spoke about things that we can exploit in their game. I am pretty confident in what we watched, that we can go after them.”
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