O’Sullivan happy to live American dream in peace

‘I’ve never enjoyed the media spotlight,’ former Irish coach Eddie O’Sullivan insists. The US rugby coach spoke to John Riordan in New York.

TIME away from the media spotlight has been kind to Eddie O’Sullivan but he knows that less than a year from now, it’s going to crank up a notch.

While the US Eagles coach insists he is unfazed by the irony of a Rugby World Cup opener against Ireland, the Youghal native is ready for the return of a familiar glare.

O’Sullivan and his Eagles squad flew into London yesterday for a four-match tour that will fly well under the radar of the autumn internationals series.

“Maybe a lot of people won’t agree with me but I’ve never enjoyed the media spotlight,” he told the Irish Examiner. “I always felt that was the hard part of the job.

“Getting the book (Never Die Wondering, 2009) written, I was able to close that chapter in my life. I always felt that there was a bit of a caricature of me out there and I thought that if I wrote the book, and if I was honest and up front, and I believe I was, well then people could read it and say ‘yeah, the caricature was right’ or ‘no, they depicted you differently’.

“I’m glad I did it and it’s gone. Now that I’m in America, it’s great. In Ireland, it’s hard to go anywhere without people recognising you. That’s not a bad thing, 99.9% of people have been very pleasant to me. Even after the World Cup, I met a lot of people who sympathised with me.

“I can go anywhere I want in America and the odds of anyone knowing me are nil unless it’s an Irish person. I’m completely unknown here and it’s great.”

The Pool C clash will take place in New Plymouth on September 11, 2011 so Americans will be forgiven for missing what will be a landmark day for O’Sullivan 19 time zones away from his office in Boulder, Colorado.

Even the coach himself has chosen to look beyond it, eyeing up a more important showdown four days later.

“It’s always strange to coach against Ireland and it always will be,” he admitted, pointing out that his first game in charge of the Eagles was against Ireland in California in May last year.

“But we’re focused on the second game against Russia. That’s in New Plymouth as well. For us, for it to be a successful World Cup, we have to beat Russia.”

Still, O’Sullivan does acknowledge that the ghosts of RWC 2007 will follow him and any survivors in what will now be the opposing dressing room. So how does O’Sullivan view the progress of the Irish setup since he resigned in 2008?

“I’m looking forward to the autumn series and the Six Nations to assess them properly. The first year when they won the Grand Slam, they saw an opportunity and they took it. They got across the line and I’m delighted that they did because it would have been a travesty if that group of players didn’t get a Grand Slam.

“After that, Declan has been transitioning guys and it’s hard to say at the moment where they are because if you look at the summer where they had so many injuries, he had to go to New Zealand with a lot of new faces. The good thing for him is that he has a lot more (selection) headaches. That’s what you want. A lot of the young fellas who went to New Zealand pitched up very well. It strengthens the depth of the squad”

In the midst of a second stint with the Eagles where he was forwards coach in the late 1990s, knowing the lay of the land has benefited O’Sullivan. So too has his all-American coaching staff, part of a commitment to leaving a legacy behind.

“It’s enjoyable being back. Being here before was very useful. If you’re coming into this job cold, it takes quite a while to get your head around how things work here. People don’t realise when they think about USA rugby that number one, it’s not a country you’re dealing with in terms of managing the game, it’s a continent. We have players from as far away as Hawaii.

“It’s a big challenge but having been here before and knowing what I was getting myself back into was a huge advantage. When I got here I was hitting the ground running. I didn’t have to find my bearings, I had a lot of contacts here, I knew how the game worked and I was straight into it.

“There’s no doubt the game has changed here and it has changed on a couple of fronts. The big growth area that I’ve seen in the 10 years that I was away has been the growth in the college game.

“In Ireland, young players go into the Academy system, while here, the best place for emerging talent is in colleges. If we can get eight to 10 strong programs in the country, it’s not there yet but it’s going that way, then it would make a massive difference to the Eagles.”