A trip inside the world of Irish rowing

On a pleasant day, the view from the National Rowing Centre is picture postcard perfection.

Rolling green hillsides fill the frame to the left and right, Farran Woods leaning in from one side, and then the pièce de résistance, the massive spread of Inniscarra Lake glistening in the centre, serene and soothing.

Things looked slightly less inviting last month though as Colm O’Connor’s visit to the Lee Valley coincided with the arrival of Storm Darwin, with the wind measurement system clicking dangerously close to hurricane levels as the angry waters churned like a gigantic washing machine stuck on a spin cycle.

But even if the weather outside was frightful, it was still business as usual in the gym, as the country’s best and brightest were put through their paces.

Morten Espersen walks into and executive boardroom at Rowing Ireland’s Headquarters and exudes the coolness which seems programmed into the DNA of Scandinavians.

It’s hard to believe the Dane is in north of sixty given his youthful appearance and passion with which he talks about a sport that has dominated his life and taken him, literally, around the world.

He needs two hands to count the number of Olympic Games he has attended yet despite such experience he didn’t need much convincing when Rowing Ireland went in search of a High Performance Director.

“I have always had an eye on Irish rowing from my time in Denmark. The Irish culture and way of thinking is very similar to what I am used to,” he explained.

“But the other factor is that Irish athletes and coaches have always been very nice to me. It is like a friendship which has been growing over the years. I believe that Ireland can achieve better results and that is why I came.”

Ah yes, better results. It doesn’t seem that long ago when the exploits of Irish rowers was making the mainstream news. In the 1996 Olympics, at Lake Lanier near Atlanta, the lightweight coxless four of Tony O'Connor, Neville Maxwell, Sam Lynch and Derek Holland were beaten by less than a second for the bronze. Eight years later at the Athens Games, the lightweight four were sixth.

But then, nothing.

Irish rowing tumbled down the rankings and far from the glare of media and the masses.

Espersen has heard the stories, theories and rumours of why that came to pass. But he’s not going to get dragged into that. That past, he feels, is somebody else’s business.

His role is about the here, the now and the targets which loom, none more so that the 2016 Olympics in Rio.

What he brings to the table, apart from that glittering resume, is a mantra of inclusiveness between all strands of the rowing community be that the best of the best in the High Performance Unit in Inniscarra right down through every link in the chain of command.

Ironic isn’t it that a sport which is all about everyone pulling in the same direction has been beset with problems of unity of purpose.

“If I can make Irish rowing more inclusive then we will go into competition as an army. It sounds maybe naïve but I think it is a possibility.

“I have done it in Australia, in Denmark and now hopefully here. The strength of anything is the sum of the parts.”

Perhaps a review of Esperen’s achievement can put his confidence into perspective.

The 61-year-old served as HPD in Denmark from 1993 to 2001. Denmark has had great success in the last two decades: their premier crew, the lightweight four, took three gold and two bronze medals in the last five Olympic Games, while the lightweight double scull took gold at London 2012. Fie Udby Erichsen also took a silver medal in the women's single sculls in London.

Now he hopes that he can sprinkle that magic on Irish waters.

“My attitude was completely different to what had been done the last eight years. What was part of the job description was that I should go more actively to the clubs and the regions and the coaches. That is basically what I started last year and had tremendous success. I am building up a huge network of coaches who are involved with the National Rowing Centre and am trying to get Rowing Ireland back achieving what they can achieve.

“Ireland, like Denmark, is a small country. Danish rowing had extremely good successes when I was in charge and in subsequent years. I can’t see why Ireland can’t do that.

“Actually I think there is better potential here when I look around. But people don’t know about it. I can look at the amount of coaches, the attitude the coaches have at competitions, and the athletes that are around.

“Those are basically the ingredients. The equipment is just as good here as anywhere else. You can train here all year round and that is a big advantage.

“I was at the national championships here in Cork last year and I’ve been around to regattas and I think they are building a good genuine club scene in rowing.

“But to take that to the international level I have to get those coaches involved in the different regions (singing off the same hymn sheet) and that is what I am been building on.

“The last couple of years, there had been some obstacles and people were not really engaged in it. That was one of the problems.”

Again Espersen doesn’t get drawn into the rights and wrongs of what occurred before he arrived in Cork.

All he is focusing on is how that disconnect between HQ and grassroots can be rectified. At this stage of his life he doesn’t need the glowing plaudits and teary tributes that go with achieving success.

Instead he wants to put the blueprint in place that allows all the component parts share in that success which he is convinced is just around the corner for the sport in Ireland.

He laughs when the Irish mentality towards individuals embracing success and isolating failure is mentioned. It is he smiles the same in Denmark.

“My attitude and approach is very simple: I tell the coaches ‘you can be part of the success’.

“When you are part of winning medals with Rowing Ireland you will get more success whether you are in a club, university, and so on. Your programme will go, you can use it as a stepping stone.

“That is the carrot. I have to manage the system but I am happy if we have coaches, being the ones who coach to success.

“For instance, Dominic Casey who is the coach down in Skibbereen and has done a marvellous job there. His guy, Paul O’Donovan won a bronze medal in the World U23 Championship last year.

“That is fine for me, as it will build that club. I am trying to work with coaches so they don’t see me as the top figure. Or their enemy.

“Because once you pick athletes from their coaches, do they like that? They will see you as the enemy. So instead of having them working against me my job is to have them working with me.

“And then I can have much more people working in the same direction. That is already happening because I have set up a group in Dublin, Galway, Limerick, Belfast and Cork.

“Of course I can’t promise all ten coaches to have a gold medal around their neck but some will succeed. I know that for sure. If the heart is there and if people want it badly enough then you can’t stop them.

Espersen doesn’t attempt to hid his disappointment with the funding coming their way from the Irish Sports Council.

But he is a pragmatist and understands only he, and his competitors, can get the revenue river running again.

“No. I am unhappy,” he replies when the ISC grant allocations are raised. “But I have to go on with the job. We in Rowing Ireland receive extremely little funding. But I wouldn’t blame the ones who make that decision because they can only make that decision based on the results. I know it will be an uphill struggle but I know that Ireland have done it before and will do it again.

“I am not going to be sitting around and moaning. There are some positives though – last year we had two people carded by the Irish Sports Council, this year we have five. And in Northern Ireland we will have three or four, last year we had two. So it shows that things are picking up but at least the athletes will get some relief.”

Espersen doesn’t mull too much about why things are the way they are. Instead his focus is what he can shape or control. When the conversation switches to rowing’s place in the Irish sports psyche behind gaelic football, hurling, soccer, rugby and so on, he clinically smashes that theory and the suggestion that we should feel sympathy for him and those involved battling against the tide of popularity.

“I lived in Australia working as a coaching director for four year and you had a similar situation there: They had the Aussies Rules, rugby, rugby league and so on. You can’t just sit there and say I feel sorry about that… I can’t change gaelic football or rugby. What I can do is look into where we can get on with the job and fight for it. People are popping up all the time. In Denmark we had the same problem, handball is extremely big sport, volleyball and basketball, then you have soccer.

“Rowing in Denmark is not a particularly high profile sport but it delivers results and it is well funded - much better than here. But that funding is based on results. It can happen here. I can’t see why it wouldn’t. And that is what I am fighting for. There is no big magic about it. It is like building a business organisation. Instead of having money as a profit having results and medals and continuously having that are the profits.”

So now that he has the template in place, what is the end result - what does Espersen deem as ‘success’?

“The ultimate success would be winning medals at world championships and of course also Rio in 2016. An Olympic medal is the ultimate thing. I am sure it will happen. I know there has been none in rowing in Ireland. I can’t promise you that in two and half years but I am sure if this progress goes on it will happen. Whether it is in two and half years or in six years in Tokyo it will happen. The athletes are there, if we can get the coaches working right I am sure we can deliver. Denmark won three medals at the Olympic Games in London. Ireland has the same type of population – I can’t see any reason why we can’t. But it takes time. You have to be a little patient.”

We didn’t have to wait long for the reminder of the All Blacks dramatic November win over Ireland in our conversation with Rowing Ireland’s Lead Coach Don McLachlan.

McLachlan, a proud New Zealander (aren’t they all) is trying to explain how his country are consistently punching above their weight in rowing terms.

Despite a smaller talent pool than Ireland, New Zealand have won 17 Olympic medals in the sport since 2000.

“There is no massive secret. But there is a mass mentality about the way we approach any physical activity. But our total population of rowers in 2,500 in New Zealand (Ireland’s is between 3 and 4,000). And yet they won a huge number of medals at world and Olympic level over the last number of years. The philosophy behind what they are they trying to do is a tough competitive mentality. It is kind of never say die.

“You saw the way the All Blacks refused to give in against Ireland in the Autumn International Game. That is the mindset plain and simple. All Kiwi kids are brought up in this competitive hotbed – there isn’t sports for fun, you go out to play to win. I started playing rugby when I was seven, and every New Zealand boy does and it is part of the ethos.”

And he sees some similar traits in these parts.

“I must admit when I saw one of the jobs coming up in Ireland around seven years ago I was very keen on it because there is a lot of similarities between the countries and between the people. A lot of Irish are tough, tough characters. There are incredible facilities and great water here, all those sort of things can make a successful rowing nation. When I saw the job come up this time, I jumped at the opportunity. It is brilliant.”

As McLachlan grew his attention shifted from rugby to rowing and led him to the national squads. Then in the late nineties he suffered a career ending injury which caused him to refocus on his direction in life.

So he strapped a rugsack onto his back and headed for England with plans of a six month jaunt around the UK. And then?

“I ended up teaching in a school and running the rowing programme there. Things started snowballing from there. It has been a long extensive journey.”

Ireland is the newest destination on that journey. And he recounts an interesting example of how one success can change an entire country’s mindset towards a sport.

“In New Zealand, when I was rowing, the country wasn’t that hugely successful at that time. Then one guy came along, Rob Waddell and he won the Olympic medal in the single sculls at the 2000 Sydney Games. (As an aside, Waddell, a two-time world rowing champion, switched to sailing for Team New Zealand’s 2003 and 2007 America’s Cup campaigns)

“Off the back of what he did, there became a huge raft of people to win medals at world and Olympic level. People could see that it could be done. The guy that trained Waddell was a really tough guy but had a programme which worked and was pretty simple. And people bought into it. Now it is this huge thing but it can be all traced back to that one win.”

And McLachlan, whose wife Mary is a High Performance Coach with Rowing Ireland, is convinced that a Waddell style success could ignite the sport here.

“I feel we are at that point here, if we can build something: once people understand and believe what can be done, you would be amazed what can be achieved. But that pathway is the key thing. People are buying in. We are pretty inclusive in terms of what we are about. Obviously we have a small number who train here in the National Rowing Centre.

“It will come down to really hard graft. There is no magic bullet. There are short cuts. I just believe you have to graft as hard as you can for as long as you can and you will get there in the end. If you go to Ballincollig (the closest town to Inniscarra) now, I guarantee you that there could be two or three people that could be an Olympic Champion. It is not specifically one person that has all the traits, it is about getting people involved in a process where they can express their talents.

At the end of the day it is a hell of a sport, it is unlike anything I know. You have to be insanely dedicated, we are training four – six hours a day, seven days a week. Every session it is about trying to move on, move on and move on. And when it gets to the tough point, are you strong enough to press through it?”