The inside view on rugby’s new normal: Do you call the plays in secret behind your hands?

Les Kiss, Sean O'Brien, Dan McFarland, and Stuart Lancaster share their thoughts on the changes involved in professional rugby's return

London Irish head coach Les Kiss. Picture: PA

With only one more week to wait for the return of professional rugby to these shores — Leinster meet Munster to restart the Guinness PRO14 — the resumption of the Gallagher Premiership in England this weekend should give us a preview of what to expect from the game in these strange times.

But no-one really knows how it’s all going to look. Simon Lewis and Brendan O’Brien have been asking some influential figures in the game this week to have a good guess.

Les Kiss (London Irish head coach):

Now you’re on the cusp of the restart, it must be hugely exciting?

I don’t usually get butterflies this early in the week, but every now and then a butterfly floats in there and adrenaline pumps. It’s exciting and it’s a positive nervousness for everyone. I don’t know what type of rugby we’re going to end up with.

It’s going to be harder grounds. The heat here has been oppressive. There will be a bit of rust and there’ll be a lot of plans go bust in one game from where people think they are, but hopefully we’re on the right side of the ledger in that.

How will it pan out with no crowds and all those protocols?

I wasn’t really sure where that would go, but when I watched some football, the true competitor comes out regardless of what you’ve got around you. There will be a challenge certainly for some teams that get behind on the scoreboard early.

They can’t rely on a big hit or referee decisions that a crowd reacts to get them back their emotional energy and their attachment to what’s important to them is going to have come from somewhere else and that’s inside.

Are you worried about injury risks with such an intense schedule after such a long break?

To tell you the truth, no. Coming from the Irish system, which I was embedded in for a long time, and Declan (Kidney, director of rugby) obviously as well, understanding how to balance the playing/training time, the recovery time. I think we can back ourselves to get those things right.

I hope we just don’t jump to conclusions that if there’s a few injuries it’s because of the long break. You’re going to have injuries anyway.

Let’s give it some time to make sure we’re not jumping to conclusions too early. If there are major trends maybe we’ll have a look at it.

Sean O’Brien (London Irish captain):

London Irish captain Sean O'Brien. Picture: INPHO/Roger Evans

Have you prepared for playing in empty stadia?

We’ve spoken about it and some of our training sessions of late have been quite simulated to a matchday, with that intensity. You have to create your own kind of environment and atmosphere. The other thing you have to be aware of is how you’re speaking to each other because it might come across on mics etc. so that part is going to be a bit different as well. And with Covid as well, it has its own challenges. I think there’s something about gum shields, spitting, and bits and pieces like that, things that are kind of the norm to a lot of players.

We have to be very careful with now.

Will it neutralise the effect of the ‘away’ game?

You go somewhere like Bath and they’ve a big following and now that they’ve no crowd, it does level it out a little bit. We’d probably have 500 or 600 going to that game. It’s strange that there will be no atmosphere in the stadium, only what we bring ourselves. It does level it out a little bit.

Dan McFarland (Ulster head coach):

Head coach Dan McFarland during Ulster squad training at Kingspan Stadium. Photo by Robyn McMurray for Ulster Rugby via Sportsfile

How do you deal with a game behind closed doors as a team?

We’ve done a lot of our training inside Kingspan here so a lot of that would have been done at match intensity in the stadium which is obviously empty.

The other aspect of it is that we have a little way that we approach away games where we talk about taking our own atmosphere with us.

That obviously doesn’t rely on a Kingspan crowd or any crowd at all. When we go to play the Scarlets we don’t want to think about their atmosphere, it is our atmosphere. That comes from the communication between the players, the way they connect on the pitch, the sort of chat that we have and it will be that which drives us.

Stuart Lancaster (Leinster senior coach):

Senior coach Stuart Lancaster, left, during Leinster squad training at UCD. Photo by Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile

You know the Premiership well, will you be keeping a close eye on it this weekend?

The big challenge for the Premiership is how do you play. You’d have to research it yourself, but I think it’s nine games in six weeks. Fixture-list-wise you play Saturday/Wednesday, Saturday/Wednesday.

That is going to take some managing. From a director of rugby point of view, a head coaching point of view, that’s internally a big thing going through the coaches’ minds — how to manage that period.

There will be no crowds here or in England. Have you discussed the psychology of that?

Yeah, we have. A lot of our training takes place behind closed doors.

A lot of our internal competition that we generate is there so the players are used to training and putting performances in training sessions without people watching.

We trained last week at the RDS, as an example, with a referee to replicate what it looks and feels like. We have talked about it.

You can look at examples from German football which was the first one back and there were stats about more away wins.

I was watching Leeds Rhinos (last week) at home and they lost 48-0 against St Helens.

It will be different but it is up to us to generate our own atmosphere, energy and enthusiasm because normally you rely on that RDS or Aviva crowd to help you with that.

And the Premiership players have been warned to mind their Ps and Qs

It will be fascinating, won’t it, because it’s not just the Ps and Qs.

It’s the calls as well. Do you do them in secret behind your hands?

It will be different. We need to be respectful of each other as much as we can. They are a very polite group!