On a cold, gloomy midwinter day in the Australian capital, Andy Friend turns up in shorts, a peaked cap on his head and looking as fit as a flea. We meet for a coffee in the Crew Espresso Bar, about 50 metres along from the Lions team hotel, where we’re served coffee by Darragh, a barista of Irish heritage who coaches Gungahlin Eagles women’s team, the club where Mack Hansen played.
Hansen also did his electrician’s apprenticeship under Darragh. Both he and Friend confirm that Canberra’s prodigal son this week was “hopeless” at that before deciding he’d try to play rugby instead.
While head coach with Connacht, Friend had watched Hansen play for the Vikings, a Sydney-based representative team, and then again with the Brumbies.
“I remember thinking, ‘this kid is good. Every time he touches a football, he’s got something about him’.”
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He rang Hansen’s agent and talked to the player on Zoom. His son happened to work at a bar Hansen frequented.
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“About three days later, my son calls and goes ‘what are you talking to Mack Hansen for?’. I asked him how he knew I was talking to Mack Hansen and he said, ‘because he drinks at the bar every day’.”
Friend admits Hansen quickly proved to be even better than he realised when he arrived at Connacht. He drove to a pre-season friendly between Leinster A and the Connacht Eagles in UCD.
“Within five minutes, he did this shimmy thing and scores this try. As he comes back with his head gear on, he goes, ‘was that good mate?’. I asked him if he could do it again and he goes ‘righto’. About three minutes later he did the same thing again and Mark Sexton, our attack coach, and I agreed this kid’s really good. He just has this way of moving his hips and doing something I haven’t seen many people ever do before.”
The Connacht-Canberra link has never seemed stronger than this week, what with Finlay Bealham also back in his home city. A fullback in his playing days, Friend himself would have played against the Lions in 1989 but he ruptured his knee at the bottom of a ruck playing for ACT Kookaburras against Fiji two months beforehand.
He underwent knee surgery twice more before retiring in 1994 and moving into coaching, which suited his Aussie wanderlust.
The second of three boys, his father worked for the Australian department of finance and the family moved from Canberra to Melbourne, Switzerland and London (twice), either side of Friend going to school and Canberra University, before working on a sheep-rearing farm in central New South Wales.
That’s where he met Kerri and after a year doing a graduate diploma at the Institute of Sport, they moved to Sydney, Tokyo, back to Sydney and London (as head coach at Harlequins), Canberra for three years (as Brumbies head coach), Tokyo for four years (coaching Canon Eagles and Suntory Sungoliath), Sydney for two years (with the Australian Sevens) and finally Ireland (with Connacht).
A primary reason for coming home is that his father Brian and mum Prue live in Canberra, as does their younger son Jackson and his wife and two little girls. Their other son, Josh, lives in North Carolina but is returning to Australia in November.
He coached the Brumbies women’s team this year, finishing in April, and now concentrates on his own business ‘Performance Friend’.
“I coach coaches and leaders in how to unlock potential,” he explains, and is currently working with the Wallaroos, the American Eagles, in water polo, and in businesses such as a day care centre.
For all his wanderlust, Friend epitomises the fierce sense of loyalty Canberra people have to their oft-derided city.
“Everyone asks where you’re from and when you say Canberra it’s, ‘oh, shithole’. And I go, ‘oh, you’ve lived there, have you?’. And they go, ‘no’. ‘Well then, shut the f**k up. You’re just jumping on the bandwagon with every other p***k’.
“We get four seasons, which is lovely. I like the cold. I like the leaves falling from the trees after they’ve turned yellow and red. It’s beautiful. And then I like spring when it all comes back again. I like walking up the hills when there’s snow on the ground. I like building a fire and drinking whiskey outside. It’s great. You can’t do that in Queensland.”
The five-year stint as Connacht head coach remains the 56-year-old’s longest stay in one place, along with the first five years of his life here.
“It suited us and I reckon we suited them. We just loved our time there mate. It was just a beautiful way to finish my pro coaching.”
Connacht had a winning ratio in each of his five seasons and qualified for the Champions Cup four times.
“I’m really proud of it and, as you know, you’ve got to fight for everything there. You had a group of people that found a way to get things done. And I loved that about it. It doesn’t need to be all bells and whistles. You just need a group of people that believe in something, and they’ve got a common focus and have a go.”
He describes the arrival of Stuart Lancaster as Connacht coach and the pending completion of a 12,000-capacity Sportsground as “brilliant”, adding: “I think it’s a real credit to Willie [Ruane] and his board and what they’ve done.”
Andy and Kerri intend to return to Galway in December 2026. “I want to see it packed, get an interpro derby maybe and see the people of Galway and Connacht actually have this amazing facility.”
Friend is also enthused by the coaching ticket under Lancaster of Collie Tucker, John Muldoon and Rod Seib, the attack coach from the Brumbies who is already in Galway and furthering the Canberra/Connacht link.
“He (Seib) is understated. He goes about his business but builds lovely relationships and rapport with players. He has a very sharp attacking mind and I think he’s going to be great.
“Ambition, belief, community are the three words they use, and during my tenure there, Willie was really strong on nailing down this Connacht style, which I love. Connacht play an open style of football that’s ambitious and potentially a little bit risky.
“But here’s the key thing. The indoor facility is great, but don’t stop training that style outside, because that’s your point of difference.”
After Connacht, Andy and Kerri drove around Europe in a motorhome with a comfortable bed, a ‘garage’ for his mountain bike and racing bike, “and a big fridge so we can have cold beer and wine”.
They’d done 70-80 nights around Ireland before adding 180 nights taking in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Czech Republic, Austria (his favourite), and France to watch the Tour de France. “There we met some blokes from Slovenia, so we went to Slovenia.”
They went back to Italy, had a week on a yacht with friends in Greece, and returned to France for the World Cup, before they drove back to Ireland, sold the motorhome and came home.
This week he’s also caught up with Bealham. One day Bealham’s wife, Sarah, gave Kerri a picture of Friend in his days as Brumbies head coach handing him a jersey when he was a schoolboy.
“He’s just a beautiful bloke and then the whole Viking look. He cracks me up. He’s an absolute joker, dry as a bone but he can play footy and he’s one of the great stories.”
Friend’s own story isn’t half bad either.
