Kidney holds off classic field

JUST ONE more award and he will equal the record of four times winner Jack Charlton. Not that ‘one-upmanship’ has much of a place in the mind of the ever humble Declan Kidney, who yesterday claimed the Philips Manager of the Year award for the third time. Kidney has now won the annual prize twice with European champions Munster – in 2006 and 2008 – and this year as Ireland’s Grand Slam winning coach.

“The likes of Brian Cody, Jack O’Connor and John Oxx are amazing managers and coaches in their own right and it is just a massive honour for me to be even mentioned in the same breath as them,” said Kidney.

“Maybe I’ll have a chat with them later on and pick up a few more tips from them. But I would see this (award) as a reflection of the team.

“We’d 50 odd players involved with the Churchill Cup, the Six Nations and the November series and in the management team there are 18 people so I’m just lucky to be sent out to collect the trophies.”

The choice of Kidney further illustrates how far rugby has come up in the consciousness of the public and media alike in recent times. This year he beat off other worthy nominations such as Kilkenny’s Cody, who won his fourth successive All-Ireland title with the Kilkenny hurlers and Kerry’s O’Connor, who took his winning team to Croke Park after they had been written off as likely champions.

There was also trainer Oxx, who won this year’s Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, Epsom Derby, English 2,000 Guineas, Irish Champions Stakes, Eclipse Stakes and York’s Juddmonte International with Sea The Stars in a sensational season.

Going back to 1985, when Irish rugby coach, the late Mick Doyle, earned the award, the sport had won it only once before Kidney and that was in 2004, when Eddie O’Sullivan filled an 18-year gap.

This year Kidney bridged an even bigger span when Ronan O’Gara landed Ireland’s last points of the match and Welsh outhalf Stephen Jones left his penalty just short in the climax to the Six Nations Championship. Jones’ miss meant Ireland clinched the Championship and a Grand Slam, which they had not won since 1948. Whatever way you look at it, that wasn’t a bad showing for Kidney’s first attempt, having been appointed to the Irish job in 2008.

Now the Irish team is in transition but a recent win over world champions South Africa has continued to move the squad in the right direction with younger players coming through.

“I think when younger guys get a go in a senior side and they perform well that’s all that you can hope for,” he added. “When you finish a match and the players know there is more left that gives us cause for hope. But then all the other sides will have been looking at what we do and we will become the most analysed side going into the Six Nations because that goes with the territory. If you have success the following year you are a target. The challenge is to translate that experience we’ve got through Heineken Cups to the international arena and to know space will be tighter.

“In the next six months we go to London, Paris, New Plymouth and Brisbane. They are four of the toughest matches you can get in world rugby. That is a fresh challenge for us because we know when we go to play those teams that they will be ready for it because of what we won last year and that goes with the territory and should help us improve.

“We can either let it help us improve or submerge us. The thing is to look forward to it, face the challenge head-on and see where we stand at the end of it.”