Home is where the heart is for both Leamy and O'Brien

Leamy’s return as defence coach after hitching his coaching wagon to Leinster for the past three seasons had been signalled for some time.

Denis Leamy during Leinster Rugby squad training session at UCD in Dublin. Photo by Harry Murphy/Sportsfile

The world of Irish rugby seemed to tilt back onto its proper axis on Tuesday with the announcements in short succession that old back-row warhorses Denis Leamy and Sean O’Brien were rejoining their native provinces.

Leamy’s return to Munster as defence coach for next season after hitching his coaching wagon to Leinster for the past three seasons had been signalled for some time but was nevertheless reassuring to Munster supporters when the news was confirmed.

That Leinster turned to O’Brien to fill the vacancy of contact skills coach created by Leamy’s departure was less expected but welcome nonetheless as he calls time on a glittering playing career by hanging up his boots at London Irish.

Both men are going home after stints away that despite being part and parcel of life in professional rugby never quite seemed like they were meant to be, from the outside looking in at least.

Leamy’s star has been rising for some time and now aged 40 the Tipperary man who won a Heineken Cup in 2006 and 08 and a Grand Slam in 09 during a 145-cap Munster career and 41 Tests with Ireland appears primed and ready to take on the first major coaching role of his post-playing life.

He joins the coaching ticket assembled by incoming head coach Graham Rowntree that already appears to have a clear identity to take Munster to the next level after six seasons of South African-oriented coaching under Rassie Erasmus and then Johann van Graan. Rowntree, the current forwards coach, provides some continuity but with Stephen Larkham returning to Australia and JP Ferreira joining his compatriot van Graan in joining Bath this summer, the recruitment of former players Leamy and Mike Prendergast has the whiff of a significant return to the core fundamentals of what made Munster tick in the first place albeit with the added impetus of crucial rugby intellect garnered at two of the very best club environments in the European game.

Leamy, who retired due to a hip injury in 2012 at the age of 30, joins from Leinster, whom he joined in 2019 as an Elite Player Development Officer after seven years cutting his coaching teeth in the All Ireland League with Young Munster, Clonmel, Cashel and Garryowen as well as his old school Rockwell College.

That his coaching potential was apparent from the start is indicated not just by his early involvement during that time with Munster’s age-grade teams and Munster A but by Leinster’s offer of a move away from home turf.

That he impressed his new employers sufficiently to earn a promotion to the senior coaching staff last summer was evident in the tribute paid by Leinster head coach Leo Cullen, who noted Leamy “has added hugely to the group from his many experiences in the game.

“We’re sorry to lose him,” Cullen added, “but we all fully understand his decision to move back closer to family and the opportunity to progress his coaching career.” Rowntree will be banking on Leamy now adding the intellectual property gathered at Leinster, and also during Tipp’s 2016 hurling success when he was a member of that backroom staff, to his arsenal as Munster’s new defence coach and likewise Prendergast’s nous as attack coach having worked at Racing 92.

O’Brien’s move back to Ireland brings another budding coach back into the fold after time in the English Premiership and can only be a good thing for homegrown players to benefit from an immensely experienced operator whose career saw him Test-capped by the British & Irish Lions in both 2013 and 2017.

In recruiting a former team-mate who won three of his Heineken Cup winners’ medals under captain Cullen and a fourth with the former skipper as head coach, the current boss clearly believes he has unearthed another coaching gem in O’Brien.

“We believe he has a very bright future in coaching and I think it’s a win-win for both sides to have him back here,” Cullen said of the new appointment.

Rowntree and Munster will be having similar hopes for Leamy.