IRFU offer Kidney a glorified desk job

Gerry Thornley/On Rugby: At face value, the IRFU's statement yesterday regarding the creation of a brand, spanking new role for Declan Kidney in their coaching scheme of things smacks of an IRFU solution to an IRFU problem.

Normally bland affairs, which are kept to a minimum, this is a meatier statement than most though, as is often the case, there's more fun to be had reading in between the lines.

Let's, for a moment, disregard the waffle about the newly-devised performance manager - age grade rugby (can anyone decipher exactly what this role will entail, least of all the putative performance manager himself?). First and foremost this statement, while not actually stating as much, confirms what has long since been known. That the Eddie O'Sullivan-Declan Kidney dream ticket has never actually worked, and that the head coach no longer wants his assistant coach around after his contract expires at the end of the season.

Intriguingly, the IRFU statement never actually states that Kidney's existing contract will not be renewed. It's as if, amid the union's wonderful far-sightedness, they cannot bear to face up to this minor detail, and it is not until one reaches Kidney's own comments in the final paragraph that this is stated in black and white.

While acknowledging his appreciation of the union's offer, a "disappointed" Kidney pointedly stresses this new role is not a hands-on coaching portfolio per se, and that therefore he feels entitled now to look at all options facing him.

Comments attributed to Philip Browne, the IRFU chief executive, also strongly intimate that were a full-time coaching role to become available while Kidney was, eh, performance manager, then it would be his. In other words, hang in there Declan, and maybe the Irish job, or one of the provincial jobs, might be yours in due course?

On the day it was also confirmed Alan Solomons would not be renewing his contract at Ulster at the end of this season, clearly Kidney is not being earmarked for that impending vacancy. It was always unlikely Ulster would want him or vice versa, and besides, the Irish under-21 manager Mark McCall is probably being lined up for the job, though whether he is quite ready for it is another matter. Ideally, a year or two down the track one ventures.

Kidney, the IRFU and everyone else can patently see there is no other impending vacancy as a head coach at the other three provinces. Alan Gaffney and Michael Bradley, who are doing splendid jobs at Munster and Connacht, have another year to go at each province, while Gary Ella is in the first of a three-year contract at Leinster.

Having guided Munster to two Heineken European Cup finals, this is now the third season that Kidney has not been a head coach. Furthermore, Kidney clearly never had the hands-on influence which, say, O'Sullivan himself had under Warren Gatland, or that Alan Gaffney and Willie Anderson have in turn had at Leinster, or Niall O'Donovan and Brian Hickey in turn at Munster and so on.

A professional coach cannot really afford to be off the treadmill for three, four or more years.

Kidney clearly feels this would be the case as well. Indeed, to remain on the treadmill, he would probably be better off returning to teaching at Presentation College Cork and coach a club side in Cork or Munster, than sitting in an office "designing, developing and implementing plans, process, strategies and systems".

Alternatively, of course, the English club scene is likely to see quite a merry-go-round by the end of the season, and if certain club owners weren't already aware of Kidney's impending availability, yesterday's statement will certainly have alerted them.

It is entirely right and fitting O'Sullivan should decide who his assistant coach should be. (He should have been allowed that choice at the outset). But in another interesting aside the statement confirms that O'Sullivan has no plans at this present time to fill the position of assistant coach, which seems to suggest he intends not to have an assistant or backs' coach per se.

For a coaching structure that was always lauded for its attention to detail and the placement of specialist coaches in all areas, curiously the ticket seems to be dwindling, with scrum coach Tony D'Arcy removed and Kidney about to have no replacements as such.

Meantime fitness coach Mike McGurn (a popular figure missed by the players) remains in fully paid limbo amid a bizarre stand-off by the union over a newspaper article, while Dr Liam Hennessy indefinitely takes to the training ground.

With regard to the assistant coach, and the coaching of the backs, not much will change however. It is clear from the few occasional training sessions which remain open, and from player feedback, that Kidney's role was more of a behind-the-scenes mediator, motivator and sometime player confidant. In that regard, some of the players will miss him but the moves and the overseeing of them have been very much in O'Sullivan's domain.

And what, finally, of the performance manager - age grade rugby?

It looks vague and hurriedly devised. Isn't the "new position", for developing players in the age groups from school leaving to 21 years, i.e. 17-18 to 21, effectively already the job of the IRFU academy and the national elite player development manager Mark McDermott?

Is there, in all of this, a legitimate concern within the union about how the academy has been decentralised and watered down? How would the new performance manager liaise with McDermott, the national coach development manager (Stephen Aboud), and the regional development officers in charge of the academy's subsidiary foundations, not to mention the underage teams such as the Irish schools, which remains an independent fiefdom.

Is there a compelling need for it? If so, how come the job spec wasn't outlined before and made public?

In the heel of the hunt, and in the unlikely event of Kidney declining to take up this glorified desk job, will it still be filled?

One doubts it.

gthornley@irish-times.ie