Reddan sees no reason to look back in anger

SIX NATIONS CHAMPIONSHIPIreland's scrumhalf has proven himself since his days with Munster, writes Johnny Watterson

SHAUN EDWARDS didn't change Eoin Reddan's career around, but Shaun Edwards helped. Edwards was the catalyst. But Eoin Reddan changed his career from a bench position in Munster to a starting role for Ireland at Croke Park.

Reddan decided to go to London and seek a new rugby life with Edwards. He decided in 2005 that his rugby needed restoration, different infusions and it was the Welsh defensive coach who cooked up the recipe.

This week Eddie O'Sullivan may have reason to thank Edwards for his seminal work in transforming the hesitant Reddan in to the controlling, breaking, single-minded boss at the back of the scrum.

When Reddan was floundering in Munster, current Welsh coach Warren Gatland, who was leaving Wasps, marked the cards of the incoming head coach, Edwards, about the Irish player he'd been courting. Edwards warmed Reddan's ears and from two games one season with Munster, Reddan clocked up 27 games with Wasps.

The former Crescent schoolboy, almost overnight, had become a regular Premiership player and was knocking on the Irish door.

"The thing about Shaun is that no matter how hard he's been on you, you'll realise he is trying to make you a better player," says Reddan. "If you are the type of guy who doesn't react well to criticism, and think someone's out to get you, then you won't work well with Shaun. I think genuinely deep down he wants to make you a better player and I think that's his little secret.

"I had dealings with Warren on whether I was coming (to Wasps) or whether I wasn't. I hadn't gone and then the year he (Gatland) left he said to Shaun 'keep an eye out for Eoin, he was keen the last time,' which I was. But Matt Dawson went there and they didn't want me any more. Shaun had a look at a few games, rang me and said 'if you come I think I can do a few things with you and help you out'. As a player I felt I was really struggling at the time. I thought I was missing something. I couldn't really work out why I wasn't playing the way I'd like to play.

"It was nice to hear that someone had spotted something that they thought I'd be better at . . . you might say 'oh Munster didn't use you'. But I wouldn't buy into that. I think I was a different person and a different player than I was a year later. So I wouldn't be blaming anyone other than myself in that regard."

What changed Reddan into the player who supplanted Peter Stringer in France at last year's World Cup is a combination of things, not least of all the confidence with which Edwards empowered him. Reddan remembers travelling on the Wasps team bus last season to the Heineken Cup final.

"I remember sitting on the bus trying to gauge how I felt about it," he says. "But I felt less pressure that day than I did playing away to Ulster in a Celtic League game with Munster. The Heineken Cup was probably my 30th game. You develop confidence yourself."

In the few matches he lined out for in Ireland, Reddan felt his career hinged on how he played. The pressure to produce an eye-catching performance was, he felt, so overwhelmingly linked to his future that in his head he had increased the demands tenfold.

"I wouldn't blame anyone but myself for playing two games (with Munster)," he says. "But you think those two games are the be-all and end-all. You think your whole career rests on it and maybe it does. On your 25th game, you know you've played well for 24 of them. You are concentrating on playing your position, not 'oh my God, my whole career is on the line'."

Now Reddan's evolution has come full circle and he hopes to become the nemesis of the former Wigan and Great Britain rugby league star that helped craft him. Edwards has brought a new design to the Welsh defence to such an extent that the scrumhalf believes "someone who knew nothing about rugby could watch a game before he was there and watch a game after and know the difference in how they defend".

World Cup-winning English scrumhalf Matt Dawson claimed that it was a "crime" England didn't sign Edwards, who was formerly schools captain on both the England League and Union teams. The British Rugby League team also wanted him as coach but he declined the offer.

"Obviously the guy really has brought in a new way to defend," says Reddan. "He helped me a lot on different aspects of the game."

There is an evident respect for the 41-year-old, who remains Reddan's club coach in London.

The 27-year-old knows that dominating his Welsh opponent, Ospreys' Mike Phillips, would not only please his Irish boss O'Sullivan this weekend, but also impress his Wasps foreman, who was so instrumental in him making the grade with the Irish team in the first place.