Kidney tightlipped as big names ‘not interested’ in Irish job

DECLAN KIDNEY was tightlipped at Musgrave Park on Saturday when questioned about his interest in the vacant Irish rugby coaching job.

A familiar, slight smile was momentarily visible before he simply responded that: “I have a game against Connacht on Friday and that will be my full focus. My focus tonight was on Ulster. My job is to get Munster up to the best of their ability and that’s what I’ll do again for Friday.”

Asked again whether he was available or not for the Irish job, he walked on without as much as a “no comment.”

Presumably, he believes that answering any question on the subject might in some way impact on his preparation of the Munster team for a series of highly important games highlighted by the Heineken European Cup quarter-final against Gloucester at Kingsholm on Saturday week followed a week later by a clash with Leinster in the Magners League at the RDS.

Insiders, however, claim Kidney is keen to succeed O’Sullivan and will make his interest known in the fullness of time. With several of the more favoured candidates, most notably Australian Pat Howard, South Africa’s successful World Cup coach Jake White, and John Mitchell, the Kiwi coach of Super 14 side Western Force, ruling themselves out of the equation, the IRFU may well be glad to have a coach of Kidney’s calibre available to them at the end of the deliberation.

“I’m contracted to Western Force right through to 2011, so the timing at the moment is not ideal, but never say never,” Mitchell said. “My gig over here is building a brand new club, which is really only two and a half years old. And it’s probably the greatest challenge I’ve had to date. . . We’ve started off from scratch, which is not something that you often get the opportunity to do as a coach. We’re also building a club in a state that is not traditionally strong for rugby. It’s very AFL-dominated, a bit like the parts of Ireland that are dominated by hurling and Gaelic football. I have ambitions to work at Test level again but it’s not something I’ve thought about recently. I’m relishing this job too much.”

Matt Williams, formerly of New South Wales, Leinster and Scotland and now at Ulster believes Kidney is the right man for the job.

“That’s not my call but on a personal basis, Declan is a wonderful bloke, and if anyone deserves to coach Ireland, he does,” he enthused. “He’s won a European Cup, he’s been an incredible servant of the game and he’s been assistant coach at national level.

“As an old adversary, I couldn’t think of anything more fitting in his career.”