A parting shot at Cup glory
IT will be with heavy heart that Alan Gaffney packs his bags and returns to Australia, but he still hopes to leave a rich legacy behind him in Munster.
Like the Heineken Cup.
When he arrived three years ago Gaffney didn’t know what to expect but was aware that, after the Declan Kidney and Niall O’Donovan era, he had a huge act to follow.
“It would have been much easier joining a team at the bottom of the pile rather than one that had generated so much enthusiasm around Europe for the Heineken Cup or indeed, had enjoyed so much success without ever winning the competition. They weren’t quite at the top but they weren’t far from it either.
“The challenge was to take them on and try to take them the extra yard. If things had gone really badly I would have been seen as an abject failure but the prospect of keeping them where they were, or push them that little bit further, was something that really excited me.”
Gaffney hasn’t moved them that extra step in terms of European silverware, but he has doesn’t see his time as a failure and still believes Munster can satisfy their hunger for success.
The matter of moving from Dublin 4 to the working class backyard of Limerick was never a worry for him.
“I came from a good family but from a very hard part of Sydney. The silver spoon was a long way from my mouth and, any breaks I got came from educational achievement.
“I was lucky enough to be allowed attend one of the better schools in Sydney. That gave me my first introduction to rugby and a good standard of education. It all started happening for me when I was 12 years old.”
Gaffney enjoyed his time in Dublin, but in Limerick he found kindred spirits.
“The difference is the camaraderie that can’t easily be expressed in words. I feel if you’re accepted in Munster, in Limerick, then you’re one of them. That’s what I hope has happened.
“Whether family is the correct word to use, that’s the way it feels, that I’m surrounded by people I have deep feelings for. It’s more than just a job.”
He found a similarly honest work ethic in his squad of players.
“It’s all about pride, belief in themselves and belief in their colleagues. It’s about respect, for themselves and the opposition. If you don’t give the opposition respect then you don’t have what it takes to make a team.”
Gaffney would, however, be the first to admit that everything in the Munster camp isn’t perfect.
Beneath the top tier of players, there are problems in certain positions. Gaffney accepts the accusing fingers over a few poor signings over the last three seasons and agrees with critics that Munster, as a team, is not blessed with blinding pace.
“I would agree to a point. We have some very good players but pace is not one of our major assets. We don’t score many tries from a long way out, whereas some other European teams do. We have trouble scoring opportunist tries because we haven’t got the real blinding pace to always get the ball from one length of the field to the other.
“If you look at a guy like (All Black winger) Joe Rokocoko, he can take opportunities that maybe we can’t. We’ve got to work very hard to score tries and the frustration is not finishing enough of the chances we create. Having said that, there is a huge amount of talent in the side and sometimes talent is much more valuable than just sheer pace.
“I don’t think we lost the two last Heineken Cup semi-finals because of a lack of pace. Maybe a couple of fast players might have turned those games for us but then maybe if we didn’t have such talented footballers we would have been beaten by more.
“We got beaten by Toulouse by a kick from the touchline, we got narrowly beaten by Wasps in a classic. Ultimately, I put that down to a bad call by the referee when Donncha O’Callaghan was binned. We were 10 points up when he was sent off and I think the referee lost the plot in relation to that incident. It was a tough call, it was our second penalty on the ground for the whole match and they had been penalised eight times before. To me, that was the turning point of a game we could so easily have won.”
Whatever happens this season, Gaffney is delighted to be involved in the last eight of the tournament again.
“I think it shows that Munster are still right up there and I have no doubt they are capable of defeating Biarritz. We have listened to a lot of talk about star-studded opposition but Munster have faced daunting prospects in the past and come out on the right side.
“This is a top class tournament and you’re going to meet top class opponents if you hope to win it. It won’t be easy, but this Munster team won’t throw in the towel just because of the opposition or the venue. They’ve been through the mill often enough to know they can overcome any problems.”
One of Gaffney’s strengths as a coach throughout the years in Australia, Leinster and Munster, has been his ability to communicate with the players.
Munster captain Anthony Foley has promised to give him a send-off to match no other and described him as the “ultimate player-friendly coach”.
One would love to be a fly on the wall when he meets up again as Wallaby assistant with Australian full-back Chris Latham, given the foul-up two years ago when Latham was on the verge of a Munster move and then changed his mind.
“I coached Chris at Under-21 level and I did want him to come to Ireland. That deal appeared to be done and dusted but he changed his mind. I was certainly annoyed at the time, not a bit happy the way things were handled.
“It was frustrating because we lost the opportunity to bring other players to Munster. It was fortunate that Cully (Christian Cullen) became available and the trauma of it all ended there and then. People at home might be whipping up some controversy about what might or might not be said when we meet, but it will be ‘Hi Chris, good to see you, haven’t seen you in a long time’ and that will be the sum total of it. He’s a good guy, a nice guy and a great player.”
If Gaffney owes a debt of gratitude to Eddie Jones for bringing him back home on a national contract - the ultimate aim of any self-respecting coach - he also has regard for beleaguered Scottish coach Matt Williams.
“People say what they want to say about Matt, but he gave me my first shot at coaching outside club level. I barely knew him to say hello when I got a call from him asking me to join him at the Waratahs. It was basically part-time stuff for me back then in 1997, I worked in my real estate in the morning, would take a squad session and then go back late afternoon to my day job as such.”
Williams was also responsible for Gaffney’s move to Ireland.
“That’s when he gave me another opportunity and it’s something I have never, for one second, regretted. It has been a great five years here, first with Leinster and now with Munster.
“The memories will live with me for the rest of my life. Whatever may be said about Matt Williams, he gave me the opportunity to do what I’m doing now.”
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