Straight-talking Kiwi sees bright Ulster future

The new Ulster coach Mark Anscombe has a hard act to follow but he's excited and looking forward to his new challenges, writes GERRY THORNLEY

IF THE truth be told, Mark Anscombe was not a wildly popular choice as Ulster coach, least of all in replacing a popular native like Brian McLaughlin, who helped guide his province to the Heineken Cup final. Which didn’t make it an easy act to follow either.

“But the thing is we haven’t had any silverware,” responds Anscombe immediately. “The last time we won silverware was 2006. We made the Heineken Cup final, but we didn’t win it and we didn’t make the league play-offs, so there’s lots of areas that we can still be better at.”

Uppermost amongst these, he says, is the development of indigenous talent to strengthen the Ulster squad, a valid point when one recalls how Ulster didn’t employ one replacement in the quarter-final win over Munster at Thomond Park.

Ulster also fell away in the league, witness the 36-8 defeat in their final Pro12 game at the same venue four weeks later with just two of the same starting XV in their 10th league defeat of the season, before a 13th loss overall followed with the 42-14 final defeat. Anscombe is not expecting Ulster to reduce their losses from 10 to three this season. Also noting how Leinster are hit even harder by international demands, he says: “How do they do it? By growing their depth, and that’s what we have to do if we want to compete with them consistently.”

Nor can Ulster wait until the cavalry arrive. They begin their league programme with three of last season’s semi-finalists (Glasgow at home, the Ospreys away and Munster at home) before two more away games, and in addition to their nine Irish summer tourists, neither the prodigal Tommy Bowe nor Stephen Ferris will be fit for the first game or two at least.

Furthermore, the hugely influential Ruan Pienaar is with the Springboks for the expanded Rugby Championship, the last round of which sees South Africa host the All Blacks in Johannesburg in October, six days before Ulster host Castres in their Heineken Cup opener.

Pienaar’s normal understudy Paul Marshall is “another week or two away yet” after an elbow operation that was put back until after the New Zealand tour, and with Paddy Jackson now the first-choice outhalf, Ulster look particularly callow at half-back.

Yet an “excited” Anscombe cites how scrumhalf Michael Heaney (21), a short-term signing after stints with Belfast Harelquins and Doncaster, has “taken his chances” to date and notes that five of the backline which finished against Leicester last Saturday “were only in school two years ago”.

Akin to Munster’s Rob Penney, who emulated Anscombe in guiding New Zealand to the Under-20 World Championship last summer, Ulster’s new man also has a reputation for developing young players. Anscombe’s coaching career dates back to his time with Old Wesley in 1994/95 and 1995/96, when finishing sixth and eighth of a 10-team AIL first division, and last Tuesday’s league launch in Glasgow permitted Anscombe to renew acquaintances with his tighthead prop at Welsey and now the league’s chief executive John Feehan, and Phil Orr, a board member.

“I got a phone call out of the blue. It was the right time and the right place. I wasn’t looking to go overseas but it just worked for us. Our kids were young and it was a good time to take them away. Rugby was different then. I had a great time in Dublin; absolutely loved it. The people were outstanding and hopefully I’ll get down to Dublin some time and meet up with some old friends.”

From there, he became Director of Rugby at Moseley, who finished eighth in what was then Premiership 2 in 1996/97 before going into administration in January 1998.

Anscombe returned to New Zealand to coach Auckland Colts and the Auckland Development Team, and was assistant coach at North Harbour and head coach at both Northland and Auckland, while also working as an assistant coach with the New Zealand Under-20s before becoming their head coach last year. Under his watch Auckland finished fifth, fourth and fifth again in 2011, which saw him released, while the Under-20s won the 2011 IRB Junior World Cup helped by a man-of-the-match performance by Anscombe’s son Gareth.

“Obviously you’ve got to have a passion for it to survive it,” he says of coaching “because you have your highs and lows.” He takes particular satisfaction is “seeing individuals grow”, specifically “guys I’ve had dealings with who’ve gone on to become All Blacks. Other highs have been winning the World Cup with the All Blacks under-20s and championships back home, while the lows are the losses and the politics of the game. That’s worldwide and you can’t get away from that. You’re in a fickle industry. They’re the battles you have and sometimes as coaches I suppose when things go wrong you get into a bit of isolation and feel as though the world’s after you. You’ve got to have a bit of a hide to survive.”

Peter Thorburn, who coached Anscombe in his Auckland playing days and went on to become an All Black selector, and Bryan Williams were among the biggest influences on him. He has a reputation as something of an old-school, straight-talking Kiwi coach and he’s not inclined to disagree. “Yea, I suppose I’m a pretty honest, straight shooter. The environment is important to me and the philosophy of having a good environment and getting people to be accountable. They are things that are important to me and what I try to create in a working environment.”

Ask him why he took the job and he says: “Because they are a club with aspirations. If you see where they’ve gone in the last couple of years and the development of Ravenhill, the players that are coming through and where the organisation is, I think it’s an exciting time and it’s exciting to be a part of it.”