He keeps a low profile, he says coaching courses blinded him with science, he's not the main man in the operation, yet no less than Declan Kidney and Brian O'Brien, success has an uncanny habit of following Niall O'Donovan around. And maybe that's what he has more than anything else. He's a winner.
O'Donovan is your typical Limerick/Munster rugby shrewdie. He's embarrassed by claims made by others that he's the best forwards' coach in Ireland. Though Shannon and Munster packs have regularly come up with some of the best lineout variations of recent times, O'Donovan doesn't regard himself as a great technician, though he's clearly a very good tactician. He reads opposition teams intuitively, and he's always spoken with clarity about the game. Like Kidney and Brian O'Brien, he's a pragmatist who doesn't spout philosophies about 15-man rugby, gradually creating a climate where players do what they are capable of doing, all the while extending themselves. Most of all, he's a loyal lieutenant to Kidney, which is perhaps his biggest virtue within the Munster Brains Trust.
Interviews are rare, though for this one he went out of his way to meet at Thomond Park and lead the way to his and Kathy's lovely house, `Lazy Acre', a couple of miles out in the country.
He admits he prefers a low profile. "Well, I would prefer to give whatever limelight is there to the people who deserve it, and that's the players. I'd have no doubt in saying that. It's true of any team I've been involved in, and I've been lucky enough to have a lot of good players." And it's also true that Kidney is the main man on the coaching ticket. "Declan is the fellow who spearheads the whole thing. He's the fella who takes the flack if something goes wrong, so it's only right that when things are right he gets the credit as well." There's also a degree of pragmatism in O'Donovan's outlook, for although he is effectively a part-timer working to all intents and purposes as a full-time assistant, this still allows him a degree of autonomy from the precarious career of a rugby coach. "This year has been more or less full-time, between my involvement with the Munster team and the Irish A team. I've been going now since June 1st, so this is 50 weeks, non-stop. It has been full-time, there's no two ways about it. But I like the idea of having my own business and my own independence from it. That way, it's still something I knock great fun out of. I like the way it's panning out at the moment. Who knows, in two years' time I might think differently. But I like to have something separate so I can walk away from it if I want to."
Speaking for the management ticket, O'Donovan says: "The philosophy is that we don't have philosophies, I suppose." "We have an idea of what way we want to play and what we want out of everything but we don't actually hit them with philosophies. The driving force behind this has been the team, what they want out of it, how they see themselves. We don't sit down and say we're going to play 15-man rugby and lash everything off the top and run it wide or whatever. We don't have anything like that. We play to whatever strengths we have. How would he define his own role in all of this? "I would say my role is to give as much support as I can to Declan, whether it be through training sessions or while I'm sitting at home here. The more problems I can help solve underneath Declan, gives Declan more time to deal directly with the players. Brian (O'Brien) would probably see himself in the same way. Everything is geared towards making sure the players are right and if the three of us work as a team then that makes it easier for the players." The biggest, most formative influence on O'Donovan's approach to the game was undoubtedly Shannon for the best part of three decades since joining them as an eight-year-old. He's from the parish - his father had been on the first Shannon team to win the Munster Senior Cup in 1960 - and ulimtately O'Donovan played for 15 years on the senior team.
He was in the vanguard of Shannon's initial wave of success in the late 1970s and early 1980s and the big number 8 seemed forever to be their leading try scorer. "Deadly from six inches," as he puts it. That he seemed their primary weapon says much about their less than expansive style. My life was nothing but Shannon and when I finished up playing I don't think there was anybody else left for the coaching job, because we had gone through a kind of a lull. We were nearly relegated the year before I took over as coach and again the year I took over as coach, just in case you thought it was all rosy."
He'd learnt from the coaches he'd played under - his first was Brian O'Brien. Shannon have never looked outside for a coach and even though he'd taken the Shannon under-18s, O'Donovan claims he "hadn't an iota" when he took over in 1993. "My first introduction was doing a Level Two coaching course up above in Clongowes and I remember coming out of it thinking: `I've played for the last 20 years but I know nothing about that game,' because I had been baffled by science." But Ray Coughlan came up and helped him muddle through, as he'd have it. O'Donovan says people lose him when he gets technical, but for all this self-deprecation he oversaw a remarkable transformation at a transitional Shannon from relegation strugglers to four-in-a-row record-breakers (44 wins out of 48). O'Donovan doubts it will ever be bettered.
He cites the quality of the players and the back-up (Brian O'Brien and Bobby O'Brien, amongst others) and the captains (Niall O'Shea, Conor McDermott, Pat Murray, Anthony Foley) he had during that time. "Briano is huge. Nobody could put words on the effect he's had, on Shannon, on Munster and on Irish rugby over the years. The effort he puts in is enormous. Brian and I would always say that as a coach, if the people around you don't want you to succeed, then you're not going to."
The ensuing turnaround in Munster's fortunes since he and Kidney and O'Brien linked up has been equally dramatic, if not quite overnight. O'Donovan attributes this to the advent of professionalism. "Guys who started full-time training three years ago took a year or two to get used to it as anybody would with any job. The first two years were a shock to the system. Now they're in control of being a professional rugby player."
That Munster have now gone an extra yard beyond the other provinces is down to "nearly the perfect blend. You have old heads, and young fellas integrating so well, and they'll meet in 20 or 30 years time and be friends. The bi-location in Cork and Limerick actually adds to the craic. That's what makes the team. If they were living with one another they'd get bored." We'll possibly never see their like again. Keith Wood, for one, will be returning to Harlequins. Mick Galwey and Peter Clohessy can't have too many seasons left, and professionalism seems to heighten a team's turnover in personnel. This team will almost certainly never take the pitch as one again.
"There's no point in doing what we've done, going to Saracens, Colomiers and Toulouse and win all these games, without having that belief to do it now. We need to fear them, because we're up against, a very good side. And that fear will make us that bit tighter I reckon."
Will Munster win? He pauses for a while.
"I think they deserve to win. The one thing I've said to them is that they've worked harder than any other side to get where they are today. The bottom line is that with 10 minutes to go they can stand up and say `we deserve this'. So if you deserve success, you'll get it."
