Doak plays it cool on Ulster coaching role

Neil Doak may have ambitions to become a head coach but that does not necessarily mean he would be comfortable succeeding Mark Anscombe at Ulster in the near future.

The province’s backs coach is clearly highly thought of in IRFU circles, having worked with the Irish Wolfhounds in recent seasons alongside Anthony Foley, and led this season’s successful Emerging Ireland tour to Romania with Dan McFarland. Yet after a summer of upheaval at Ravenhill, with David Humphreys departing as director of rugby, followed hot on his trail by the exit of head coach Anscombe, 42-year-old former scrum-half Doak appears reluctant to throw his hat into the ring for the head coach job in Ulster.

Instead he is far more comfortable assisting interim director of rugby Les Kiss in preparing Ulster for the season ahead.

Ulster wrap up their pre-season programme on Saturday with a trip to Tallaght to take on Leinster before opening their Guinness Pro12 campaign at Scarlets in Llanelli seven days later. Speaking at the league’s official launch in London on Tuesday, where he deputised for Kiss as Ulster’s coaching representative, Doak sought to avoid talk of him replacing Anscombe.

“I am in the business of trying to challenge myself and I obviously have designs to become a head coach,” he said. “It might be at Ulster, it might be elsewhere. Hopefully there will be opportunities across the board.

“I don’t know (about now). I don’t know, I’m just trying to prepare.”

Asked whether he was on chief executive Shane Logan’s radar, Doak replied: “I honestly haven’t a clue. You’d have to ask him about that.

“At the moment we’re just trying to make sure we start the season well and we have the foundations in place and make a really good challenge for the league this year.

“It hasn’t been really that much different (since Les came in).

“It’s probably a slightly different scenario with regards to David (Humphreys) would have probably looked after a lot of the media stuff and the background staff organisation over the last while, while you’d just be focusing on the rugby side of things.

“This is what we have been doing over the last six weeks and just trying to make sure we are in the best place we can be at the start of the season.”