Declan Kidney is in danger of beatification without recourse to the Vatican. If Munster win their Heineken European Cup semi-final against pretournament favourites Stade Francais in Lille this afternoon, the 41-year-old former teacher risks drowning in a sea of superlatives.
The very thought would appal him. Kidney eschews the spotlight, insistent that the media glare descends on the players, playing down the role of coach, anxious to deflect the bouquets towards others. He is intensely private, yet unfailingly generous in terms of donating time to those he trusts. It's not pseudo modesty, rather an insight into the man and coach. He once insisted: "If we [Munster] were a wheel on a roll, then I'm not the hub. I'm just one of the spokes." His assertion will not sit easily come 4 p.m. Irish time today if a Munster team, with just one competitive match in eight weeks and four of the starting 15 carrying injuries of varying severity, somehow usurp the Parisian aristocrats on French soil.
No, then it will be a case of "you can run but you can not hide"; the media, supporters and players raising the plinth ever higher. Kidney will do his best to arrest the personal hyperbole, verbally bathe in the happiness of players and fans, sparing a thought for the vanquished. Leeds United manager David O'Leary is only in the ha-penny place when the humility factor is broached; Kidney's is the more natural to boot.
He will not carp about the vagaries of fate, seek solace in the ready made excuse of fractured preparation. He will be ruthlessly positive, something he will try to communicate to the players. Success has courted Kidney from the time he stepped forward as a fledgling coach to the Presentation Brothers College, Cork, under-13 team as a callow 19year-old. A former pupil at the Cork college, he was a keen student of the sport, a love instilled by his late father, Joe, a past president of the Dolphin club who would take him to watch three matches on weekend.
Kidney would play a schools match on the Saturday morning, watch the Dolphin firsts in the afternoon and on the Sunday morning and afternoon take in thirds and seconds matches respectively. It could have been destructive, risking saturation and the potential extinction of a boyhood crush. As it transpired, it nurtured an embryonic coach. Brother John Beacher, Des Barry and Christy Cantillon were early influences.
"I look back on that as very informative because you saw it done well on a Saturday afternoon, you saw it done differently on a Sunday morning and you saw fellas trying to do it well on Sunday afternoon." He returned to Pres Cork having earned a H Dip at UCC and initially taught commerce before taking over as a career guidance teacher.
The latter incarnation educated him in the art of dealing with individuals. His man-management skills, his ability to extract the best from those individuals while inculcating a team ethos, is celebrated by those who have come under his direction. One Leinster player who briefly experienced his coaching at Ireland A-level explained: "I have worked under six or seven coaches in my career, recognised as some of the finest coaching in Ireland, yet I wouldn't hesitate to say that he was the best.
"He makes you feel good about yourself, asks only that you enjoy yourself and demands simply that you try and do your best. It sounds simple, but if you look at what he has achieved, then you can see how effective it proves." Kidney's curriculum vitae in rugby is little short of phenomenal. At Presentation Brothers' College, Cork, he won four successive Munster Junior Cups and then four Munster Senior Cups in five years.
He coached the Irish Schools to a Triple Crown (beating England, Scotland and Wales) and led them on a tour of New Zealand, winning seven of nine matches. He guided Ireland to a FIRA Under-19 World Cup Final triumph, beating France in Toulouse in the final. One cameo from that tournament highlights his fascination with detail. It was quite chilly and given that the teams would have to stand around for five minutes while the national anthems were played, he asked them to wear tracksuits.
Before Munster's European Cup semi-final against Toulouse in Bordeaux last year he told the players to do their prematch warm-up in front of the opposition fans: he reasoned that the deafening abuse once experienced would then seem insignificant come game time. Ah yes, Munster. He was not the first choice for the position, elevated only because others rejected IRFU overtures. The players of the time were initially sceptical, fearing a school-mastery approach: a night on the beer, so legend would have it, dissolved any misconceptions. A historic three interprovincial titles in succession; last season's European Cup final appearance, and now once again at the penultimate stage of the tournament.
HE ALSO managed to squeeze in a Triple Crown with the Ireland A last season. While the players are the most strident advocates of his telling input into sundry achievements, Kidney is adamant that it is those on the pitch that make the difference. "The coach doesn't win matches." His philosophy is simple: to hand control to the players out on the pitch, surreptitiously. "We are an intelligent people. We are lucky that we are well educated from the age of four to 18 and we are able to make decisions. That is important on the pitch, where players have to think for themselves. I'd be silly to take that away." Irrespective of what his future may hold, he harbours three aims in a rugby context:
"To try to enjoy myself, because if I'm not seen to enjoy myself then the players can't be enjoying themselves;
to help the players try and achieve their own targets, and to win. But in that order." Today in Lille, the walls of the Munster dressing-room will be adorned by sheets of A4 paper, probably with words like attitude and discipline, in big block capitals.
Shortly before the game is due to start, Kidney will leave his players to focus on those final minutes. He will walk to the sideline, familiar baseball cap covering the headphones that allows him to communicate with his fellow management team members, Niall O'Donovan and Jerry Holland.
Win or lose, all he will have demanded of the players is that they enjoy themselves, tried their best and not be afraid to take risks. It is all that he asks of himself.