RUGBY/MUNSTER HEAD COACH VACANCY:TONY McGAHAN'S departure to take up an attractive offer as assistant coach to Robbie Deans at the Wallabies – though with a young family, utterly understandable after eight years in Japan and Ireland – would have come as a setback to the Munster hierarchy's long-term planning.
After all, they had offered McGahan a two-year deal which had been revised to one year with an option of another, thereby enabling him to continue his deft handling of a tricky transitional phase, while also allowing Anthony Foley to continue his development before succeeding McGahan.
This would have constituted a smooth transition akin to when McGahan took over from Declan Kidney after two-and-a-half seasons as defence/backs coach in which Munster won two Heineken Cups.
McGahan guided Munster to the first of successive Heineken Cup semi-finals in 2008-09 with a thumping 43-9 win over the Ospreys, but things began unravelling as soon as the Lions promptly plumped for a record eight of their number, as Tomás O’Leary and Jerry Flannery were struck down with injury and Alan Quinlan was suspended.
In the ensuing two years, seven of that starting line-up have suffered long-term injuries, three have retired and Paul Warwick has departed (with O’Leary set to follow Lifeimi Mafi to Perpignan). Even so, their achievement in claiming a second league title under McGahan last season was largely ignored due to a first failure to reach the Heineken Cup knock-out stages in 13 seasons and an Amlin Challenge cup semi-final defeat at home to Harlequins.
This season, Munster won all six pool games, despite McGahan giving Heineken Cup debuts to nine players and retaining only five players from the starting line-up that day against the Ospreys. They also sit third in the Pro12, with a game in hand.
As Munster’s search is still in its infancy, all speculation about the Queenslander’s successor is just that. Yet there are pointers in their previous four appointments in the professional age, two of which were Kidney (first time round he was third choice to two Southern Hemisphere coaches), along with Alan Gaffney and McGahan.
The successor will be appointed by their Professional Game Board, of which chief executive Garrett Fitzgerald and financial controller John Hartery are the main players. It also seems highly likely McGahan, along with Paul O’Connell and Ronan O’Gara, will be consulted.
Put yourself in Munster’s position and, presumably, they would prefer a like-for-like replacement for McGahan, ie an experienced head coach of at least Super 15/Heineken Cup level whose expertise is back play; all the more so if backs coach Jason Holland moves on at the end of his contract next summer. Providing a fresh voice with fresh ideas while also understanding the Munster zeitgeist might be no harm. Either way, this would allow Foley’s succession pathway to continue.
The candidates are manifold, but starting with the Irish ones, Eddie O’Sullivan is best equipped, available, and would no doubt be keen, but has little provincial experience and is not a fresh voice.
Conor O’Shea ticks several boxes, and Harlequins’ win in Thomond Park underlined his credentials, but he recently signed a new two-year deal at the Stoop.
Similarly, Michael Bradley and Mark McCall are under contract at Edinburgh and Saracens. Mike Ruddock and Niall O’Donovan are available but are ex-forwards.
A bolter, of sorts, could be former outhalf Paul Burke, who met his Irish wife Hilary while with Cork Con and Munster, and who has been four seasons on the Leicester backroom staff as kicking coach and backs coach.
Munster could come up with a more leftfield solution, like Michael Cheika and Joe Schmidt at Leinster, as Ulster are seemingly on course to do. (Former hooker Matt Sexton, now with the Canterbury Crusaders, has been linked with the job.)
Of the bigger names from abroad, Nick Mallett is apparently nailed on for the England job, and while John Kirwan recently expressed his interest in the Ulster vacancy and is in Dublin today, his provincial head coaching experience is limited after extended stints with Italy and Japan.
No, of the big names the one outstanding, hands-on candidate, is Wayne Smith. At the top end of the coaching game for 16 seasons, in three years at the helm he guided the Crusaders to successive Super titles in 1998 and ’99, was All Blacks head coach for two years, coached in Europe with Northampton for three years and was backs coach with the All Blacks for eight years, culminating in their World Cup triumph last November.
Soon after, Smith cited an escape clause in his two-year contract with the Waikato Chiefs in expressing his interest in the English job before recently ruling himself out. He possibly wouldn’t be released until August or September, but one ventures the unforgettable Munster-All Blacks game of November 2008 in Thomond Park would have made a favourable impression on him, as would Munster’s brand name.
That said, the Munster job is not without its flaws. For starters, there is the logistical nightmare of having a squad of 45 or so and a staff of 20-plus who move between Cork and Limerick. Then there are the expectations of regular success.
And, of course, as a coach with a World Cup winner’s medal, Smith would not come cheaply. But there are good reasons for that.
