O’Connor to be named new Leinster coach by the weekend

Leinster actively sought a coach with similar qualities to Joe Schmidt. The new coach, believed to be Australian Matt O’Connor, will be announced today or tomorrow.

While the club had to accelerate their search as soon as current coach Schmidt was appointed successor to Ireland’s Declan Kidney, Leinster wanted a similar style coach to the 42-year-old Schmidt, who has led the team to two European Cup wins.

"This time around we are looking at a similar type of coach to Joe because that's what we need," said Leinster manager Guy Easterby.

"We need that detail, that energy, challenging the players, the energy that someone brings. All those things are important to us now to allow us continue move forward. We are not going to be able to get an exact replica but we know we are looking for a coach with a similar skill set to Joe.

Next level
"In the past it was clear Cheks (Michael Cheika) did an unbelievable job in getting us right, getting us to a certain level but we knew that to go to the next level we needed a different type of coach.

“Cheks did an unbelievable job getting the infrastructure right . . . He was the one to take the decision to walk away himself because he’d realised he’d done his job here.”

A number of senior players that most likely included Brian O’Driscoll, Leo Cullen and Jamie Heaslip met with O’ Connor as part of the selection procedure. The same process was used when current coach Schmidt was lured from Clermont. The new coach has not yet spoken with Schmidt, but a meeting is expected to happen before he arrives in Dublin to take up his position when Leinster pre-season training begins in July.

In a happy coincidence O’Connor, on some time off, happened to find himself in Ireland last week when his club Leicester had some downtime.

“The senior players have met with Matt O’Connor. Matt was on a week off last week as Leicester weren’t involved with Europe and he was over here anyway,” added Easterby. “They met with him last week and that was a process we went through with Joe as well. That’s part of our protocol in trying to identify the right candidate.

“It is something that does work for us. I think the players, because they are an experienced group, they have a good idea of the type of coach that will continue to move us forward.”

Leinster have not denied O’Connor will be named. Easterby, however, was cautiously steering clear of making any announcement until “all of the i’s are dotted and the t’s crossed.”

“We spoke to a couple of people and we’ll have a further announcement on that in the next couple of days,” said the former Irish scrumhalf.

“We certainly met Matt but we haven’t done any deals with him. We’re the number one-ranked team in Europe and we are desperate to continue to move forward and I think that the coaches that we spoke to are pleased that they were approached about the job.”

Easterby added the players, did not have the final say in the selection process.