O'Sullivan may need to look abroad to revive career

ON RUGBY:A minute from the end of the Ulster-Castres game in the Heineken Cup at Ravenhill last October, the French team suddenly broke upfield to threaten a try. With Ulster on three tries, Eddie O’Sullivan, who was commenting for Newstalk, opined that this could work to Ulster’s favour. Sure enough, within 30 seconds, Ruan Pienaar was scoring at the other end off a turnover with the last play.

Few characters in Irish rugby provoke such polarised opinions as the former Irish coach and, without a full-time coaching job since relinquishing his position with the USA Eagles after the last World Cup, he assuredly has more to offer the game than stints as a radio co-commentator.

He has considerable experience in the game as a player and coach, but unfortunately his man management skills and off-field dealings haven’t endeared him to everyone in the game.

This dates back to 1996 and specifically to Connacht. O’Sullivan was in place to coach them for what was then a 14-week window at the start of the season. Coming to the end of his sabbatical from teaching, and with the game having just gone professional, O’Sullivan sought a longer-term deal. The IRFU were not in a position to make such an offer and in the stand-off that ensued, O’Sullivan stood down on the eve of the season.

As one member of the Connacht squad put it at the time, “he was here one morning and gone after lunch”. The squad departed to Sweden for a pre-season camp without a head coach and this, ironically, led to Billy Glynn, now the IRFU President, ringing the former Galwegians player-coach Warren Gatland, who agreed to fly to Sweden at a day’s notice.

And so began Gatland’s coaching career in Europe, which would of course see O’Sullivan become his assistant with Ireland at the turn of the millennium before succeeding Gatland less than two years later.

This is not to be vindictive toward O’Sullivan who, assuredly, still has something to offer the game. It is merely to redress the balance. Whether or not Connacht should have let bygones be bygones, it is undeniably the case that O’Sullivan would not have been an entirely popular choice within Connacht as their next head coach.

But in addition to reading newspaper articles and listening to pundits on television and radio, the interview panel charged with finding a replacement for Eric Elwood, (namely Connacht CEO Tom Sears, Eddie Wigglesworth of the IRFU and Conor McGuinness and Steve Cunningham of the Professional Game Board) exhaustively researched all the leading candidates among the 30-plus candidates for the post.

Endorsement

This included canvassing current and past coaches and players, as well as others in the game, from all over the world. Much has been made of the comment by Glynn that the next Connacht coach should ideally be Irish.