A week in the life...
JAMES COUGHLAN sits down with his coffee and nods at the first question. He and his Munster colleagues face Brive away in their Amlin Cup quarter-final this weekend, but Saturday's win over Leinster is still fresh in the memory.
“In the first half we let ourselves down a bit but we redeemed ourselves in the second half - that's the intensity we need to be at.”
There have been suggestions Munster's display has given Leinster's Heineken Cup opponents Leicester, a blueprint for victory. “I’ve heard people say that, maybe it's because Leicester would be broadly similar to us, with a strong pack and so on, but Leinster are a quality team. Beating them in the Aviva isn't going to be easy and if Leicester manage that you’d have to look at them as favourites to win the whole thing. Leinster will look at the video from last Saturday and recognise what they did right and wrong. They'll be all right.”
It must have been quite the nigglefest in Thomond Park? “Funny, I spoke to Denis (Leamy) about that afterwards,” says Coughlan. “We didn't notice anything like that. Genuinely, I don't think there was any slagging, and there wasn’t a dirty poke in the whole game.”
The obvious downside, however, was Paul O’Connell's ankle injury, which deprives Munster of their totem this weekend in France. “It didn't hit us straightaway — we were delighted with the win in the changing room, but maybe an hour or two later, when the euphoria wears off, you realise it’s serious. With ligament damage you don’t know how bad it is until the swelling goes down anyway, so I'd say the scan next week will tell more. At the moment all you can probably see on the scans is swelling near his ankle.
“Whoever comes in, Mick O'Driscoll, Donncha Ryan... they will be top quality.”
So much for the last game. How does this week taper down to the Brive game? “Sunday we did our recovery and a few lads might do some work on Brive. Monday morning most of us go through stuff for the weekend ourselves on video, and then in the afternoon the coaches have stuff for us to look at.
“Tuesday you’ve another training session, and then more video work. Gym on Wednesday, more video work, stay over in Limerick Thursday night then, before flying out to France. By Friday you're into the countdown to the game. You’re looking at clips all week because it's better than spending one long video session getting bombarded. You might only take away a couple of points from that, whereas if you space it out over the week you've more chance of taking it in; the amount of information out there is incredible.”
Obviously the week of a big game it's important not to exhaust yourself mentally by playing it in your head every night. Does Coughlan rely on the pro rugby player's best friend, the DVD box set, for distraction?
“No, I have two kids to do that,” he laughs. “I've enough to be doing with them, they're better than any box set. When I’m at home I'm at home, if you like. Finn is five and Aoibhinn is 19 months, so they don't care if we've lost or if we've won by 50 points. They're great, and it brings you away from overdoing it, thinking too much about sport, when they're saying ‘I want this, I want that’.”
Peppa Pig, all of that? “Yeah, Peppa – ‘silly Daddy’, that's the one.”
On a similar theme, Coughlan doesn't overdo the rugby when he wants reading material.
“I like books on psychology, stuff like ‘Last Man Standing’ about Geronimo Pratt, the Black Panther who was 20 years in solitary confinement. Keep meaning to get the Brian Moore one, but I wouldn't go seeking out rugby books normally.
“That's because when you're in rugby mode, when you're getting ready for a game and so on, it's very intense in that bubble. It's no harm to put it away when you're not preparing for a game. It's great to be able to watch a game, a Super 15 match or whatever, without focusing on what the nine or the 10 are doing.
The Amlin Cup wasn't the destination Munster were looking for at the start of the season, but Coughlan says now it's stamped on their ticket they're going all out.
“Tony (McGahan) has pointed out that Brive may not make the top four in the French league, so this is their chance to win some silverware. Playing in France is never easy and they'll probably look at our game in Toulon as evidence they can show their quality on the European stage. For us, though, it'd be massive to get through. We've drawn a line under Toulon, we're playing the game we're playing.”
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