Melrose takes his place out west

RUGBY NEWS: Gerry Thornleytalks to Connacht's new Sydney-born backs coach about the challenge ahead

AS INTERESTING as the new playing acquisitions at Connacht, of course, is the presence of local hero Eric Elwood as director of rugby, and the specialist coaches who have been brought in. Mike Forshaw, a former rugby league player, is defensive coach; Conor McPhillips will ease the load on forwards coach Dan McFarland as the province’s first video analyst; while Brian Melrose, a former Australian under-20 and sevens coach, is the new backs coach.

Ask Melrose why he took on the job at Connacht and he says simply: “Because they asked me.

“Just the opportunity arose to coach in a professional league and it was too good to miss. Coaching club rugby in Sydney is fine, but the opportunities in professional rugby are limited to just four teams in the Super 14.”

Melrose has hooked up with the Cinderella province of Irish rugby, who have finished bottom for the last three seasons and not only are the most underfunded squad in Irish rugby, but probably in the Magners League.

“It’s a massive challenge but I came into this with my eyes wide open,” he says. “We’re up against teams with better resources, but it is what it is and maybe we can change the way the players think about themselves and others think about us. Without being disrespectful, if you’re at the foot of the table we’ve got to try and change the way we’ve played. I want us to play with more ambition but without being reckless. The pitch measures 100 by 70 metres and it’s there to be used.”

He is very much a rugby son of Sydney. As an outhalf cum inside centre he played over 380 club games for Paramatta, Eastwood and Western Sydney Rams, playing on until he was 36 in the pre-Super 14 era.

“I was from a family in which all my brothers were very, very good players – international and provincial level players,” he explains. His brother Tony won six caps for the Wallabies in the late 1970s. “We’re just a family that loves the game and I’ve always been involved and loved it.”

It was while becoming a mentor to the younger players at Western, among them former Connacht and Irish winger Matt Mostyn, that the idea of coaching first came to him, and it was “Wests” who gave him his first opportunity. He moved on to take over and revive the fortunes of Manly. There he unearthed another former Connacht player, Paul Warwick, among others.

Then the Waratahs came calling, and in his two years there, as backs coach to Ewen McKenzie, the New South Wales franchise reached the play-offs twice running, ultimately losing 35-25 to the Crusaders in the final in 2005 and by 16-14 to the Hurricanes in the semi-finals in ’06. This, in turn, made his “release” – with a third year remaining on his contract – all the more perplexing, not least to him.

“It was quite a hiccup in my career. The why, or where and all that sort of thing is for other people to decide, but it wasn’t what I had expected after the team being more successful than ever,” he recalls.

You probe some more and he chuckles ruefully: “I’ve never commented on it and I guess you just got to wear the hits. It was very disappointing, but that’s just the way it was. It made it difficult.”

Since then Melrose has mixed coaching in Sydney, with the Rams (unearthing the likes of Lochlan Turner, Kurtley Beale and Ben Alexander) and Eastwood, in between coaching the Australian under-20s (coincidentally, a counterpart with the Irish under-20s at the Junior World Cup in Wales in 2008 was Elwood) and the Australian sevens. He’d also been lined up by an English Premiership side, only for that to fall through when the head coach was sacked.

He puts it down to the ebb and flow of being a coach. “I would have sought jobs in Australia in the Super 14 there and sometimes you’re not the preferred candidate and then you’re not the preferred candidate’s preferred assistant,” he explains wryly.

Connacht’s thin-ish resources are being stretched from the off, with Johnny O’Connor (back) joining John Muldoon on the sidelines for the first three weeks of the season. And there are question marks over several others – Frank Murphy, Cillian Willis, Sean Cronin and Keith Matthews – prior to their opening game against the Dragons on Saturday at the Sportsground.

But all this is part of what he calls the biggest challenge of his career. “I’m excited about it and like everyone I’m nervous about doing a good job,” he says candidly. “All you can do is bring everything you’ve got. I know that’s a very basic answer, but you’ve just got to lay yourself there. You try and bring some fresh ideas – that doesn’t mean they have to be ridiculous ideas or off-the-wall – but I suppose I’ve a few different ways of doing things.

He talks of helping to generate a “tremendous attitude”, allied to working on the skills of the players. “With a bit of openness and realistic honesty people want to improve and you create an environment where you can enjoy that. It doesn’t matter whether it’s professional or amateur, you’ve got to create a place where they’re stimulated to learn and improve. Hopefully we can add something there and see where we get to.”

RUGBY WORLD CUP WARM-UP GAMES

THE STADE Velodrome in Marseilles will be the venue for the away leg of Ireland's two World Cup warm-up matches against France after the IRFU yesterday confirmed that Murrayfield will host Ireland in the first of their four preparatory Tests in August next year, writes Gerry Thornley.

As they did ahead of the 2003 and 2007 World Cups, Ireland will play Scotland in Edinburgh on August 6th as part of their build-up, which will be concluded against England at the Aviva Stadium on August 27th.

Next year, though, Ireland will also play the French twice, with the second game at the Aiviva Stadium on August 20th, the day before Ireland's squad of 30 is announced.

A week before, France will host Ireland and, according to French sources, indications are the game will be at the Stade Velodrome, home of the reigning French footballs champions Olympique Marseilles, which has become something of an iconic rugby venue for lex bleus in recent times on foot of their beating the All Blacks, Australia and South Africa there since the turn of the Millennium.

Scotland v Ireland, Murrayfield Stadium, Edinburgh, Saturday August 6th, ko TBC; France v Ireland, venue TBC, Saturday August 13th, ko TBC; Ireland v France, Aviva Stadium, Saturday August 20th, ko TBC; Ireland v England, Aviva Stadium, Saturday August 27th, ko TBC