Ford takes top Saracens job

FORMER Ireland defensive coach Mike Ford will be named as Saracens head coach when he returns from the British and Irish Lions tour to New Zealand.

Ford announced his decision to quit his post in Eddie O’Sullivan’s coaching set-up in May and it was assumed he was simply turning his role as defensive co-ordinator and skills and back play coach into a permanent one. Instead, Ford yesterday revealed he is widening his coaching remit at the Guinness Premiership club and has already been influential behind the scenes in luring Great Britain rugby league star Andy Farrell to join him there following his high-profile code switch, while going back to one of his former clubs Wigan to recruit Australian strength and conditioning coach Nigel Ashley-Jones.

Ford’s influence almost certainly paved the way for Ireland hooker Shane Byrne to turn down an IRFU contract offer and leave Leinster for the London club on a two-year deal, although the Lions midweek coach declined to confirm that publicly.

“I’ll be the head coach at Saracens,” Ford said yesterday. “There will be me and (previous head coach) Steve Diamond as the director of rugby. It will be announced when I get back. We’ve had Andy Farrell sign for us, we knew each other from rugby league and me being there was a big influence on him coming to Saracens.”

Ford has long been frustrated by his pigeon-holing as a specialist defensive coach and he said the Saracens role offered him a great opportunity to break out of the niche.

“Defence, defence, defence, it’s all me and defence but I study attack more than anybody because that’s my job. I was quite happy and settled to do four years with Ireland, but I don’t want to be seen as only a defensive coach; I’ve really got a bee in my bonnet about being seen as a guy who can only coach defence and I got an offer from Saracens, that’s my next step.”

Ford, 40 this year, has come a long way in rugby union since leaving his coaching job at hometown rugby league team Oldham and hooking up with Ireland as Eddie O’Sullivan’s defensive coach ahead of the 2002 Six Nations. Back then a coaching gig with the Lions was about as far off the radar as the former rugby league Lion could possibly imagine.

“Being here on a Lions tour is something I never thought about. I only had a six-month contract with Ireland and all I wanted to do was prove to myself that I could coach at that level. Then I got another 18 months up to the World Cup and at that time I still probably would have gone back to League if I had got an offer.

“The World Cup changed all that because it was such a massive event and I realised then just how big rugby union was on the world stage, which I hadn’t before.”

While the Lions tour is in danger of imploding following Test hammerings in consecutive weeks from the All Blacks, Ford’s role as defence coach of the midweek team alongside Ian McGeechan and Gareth Jenkins has been a successful one. Going into this morning’s final midweek game against Auckland, the try count had been very low, just three conceded in the six midweek games, Ford insisting on including Argentina in that statistic.

“The opposition has obviously not been as tough as it has for the Test teams but I’ve been pleased because the other thing you have to take into account is that the midweek team have not been in the Tests and we’ve had to pick them up spirits-wise and try and get the best out of them when they are a bit down.

That’s been another challenge for the coaches in order to get the performances up there.

“Last week against Manawatu it was quite easy because they were so eager to prove a few points and I think Clive is leaving a couple of places open for this Saturday which is quite a good motivation for the players to do that.”

Ford hinted that splitting the coaching set-up into two distinct teams had been problematic. “It’s been difficult,” he said. “We knew how the two would pan out in terms of the coaching teams and the time we’d have with the players, but I think one of the unfortunate things is that we have been two separate coaching teams; unfortunate in terms of sharing ideas and properly preparing the Test team with every coach’s ideas involved.

“I was talking to Phil Larder yesterday and our rest days for the midweek team were the Test team’s main days and vice versa, so it has been difficult. But that’s for the coaches. I think for the players it’s been great because they have the ideal preparation. I can analyse the Auckland game as best I can and concentrate on that and we can review games as well. So for the players, which is the most important thing it has been ideal, with each coaching team concentrating on their particular game.

Given the problems he suggested, Ford says the coaching teams are “coming off the same page.” “Obviously with Gareth and Geech and myself, we’ve got our own little way of coaching and that’s because we’re more relaxed. People say that because there’s not so much pressure but I think it’s simply the way we coach.

“Would it have been different if we had been coaching the Test team? I don’t think it would have, it’s just the way we coach, so it’s a bit disappointing. The only other way it could be done is to have a head backs coach, a head forwards coach and a head defence coach; we do every game together but the head guy in each position delegates the other one to do it at certain times. That’s possibly another way to look at it. So Phil Larder might say to me, ‘you review the Test for them and present it to them while I concentrate on the next one.’”

That way you could integrate the coaches. “If you ask the players I think they would say they’ve been happy with the way the midweek team has been prepared.”