Brumbies considering move for Ireland’s backs coach Gaffney

IRELAND backs coach Alan Gaffney yesterday emerged as a shock candidate for the vacant coach’s job at Australian giants the Brumbies.

The former Munster and Leinster supremo’s IRFU contract runs out at the end of the World Cup in New Zealand this October and in recent days he has been linked with the head coach’s job at Edinburgh.

However reports in his homeland yesterday identified Gaffney as the primary challenger to South African World Cup-winning coach Jake White for the prized Brumbies post in Canberra.

The big-spending Brumbies have been in a major rut since claiming their only Super rugby crown in 2004, failing to qualify for the finals in the seven seasons since, and sacked coach Andy Friend just two rounds into this campaign.

Were Gaffney to be appointed, it would mean that one of his last meaningful tasks as Declan Kidney’s right-hand man would be to plot the downfall of a host of the stars he would coach in Canberra, with as many as eight Brumbies expected to be in the Wallabies side that will face Ireland in Auckland in the second World Cup pool match.

Gaffney also remains close friends with Brumbies skipper Rocky Elsom — yet to play this term because of a niggling injury will also captain Robbie Deans’ side in New Zealand — from the flanker’s glory-filled season at Leinster. His candidacy could be good news for former Ireland boss Eddie O’Sullivan, who is also understood to be on the Edinburgh shortlist along with departing Munster forwards guru Lawrie Fisher, himself a one-time Brumbies.

Meanwhile World Cup organisers yesterday finally confirmed that Ireland’s potentially pivotal closing pool stage clash with Italy in Dunedin will be played at the controversial new Otago Stadium.

The venue — the world’s first full enclosed grass stadium — has been blighted by construction delays, forcing New Zealand chiefs to keep the aging ‘House of Pain’ at Carisbrook as a back-up venue for all matches staged in Dunedin. However final checks in recent weeks let organisers yesterday give the stadium the green light for its four scheduled games.

“The Otago Stadium operators have provided us with the assurances we need for us to now be confident that the new venue will be ready to deliver on its tournament obligations,” said RNZ 2011 chief executive Martin Snedden.

Tournament directors yesterday confirmed the locations for the five pool stages that had to be moved away from Christchurch after the city was crippled by last month’s earthquake. As expected the opening game in Ireland’s Pool C — Australia v Italy — has been moved to North Harbour Stadium in suburban Auckland — a decision which means Australia will have an uninterrupted lead-in to the showdown with Ireland the following week, also in Auckland but at the much bigger Eden Park.