Stuart Lancaster insists loyalty lies with Leinster until the summer

Lancaster’s role at Leinster allowed him to reconnect with life as a coach on the training ground after his GM role with England, but the urge to be the top man again never left him

TICKING CLOCK: Leinster coach Stuart Lancaster announced he will be leaving the province at the end of the season to join La Rochelle. Pic: INPHO/Ben Brady

Stuart Lancaster has been good for Leinster and the reverse holds just as true. The soon-to-be Racing 92 head coach made that perfectly clear time and again on Monday as he spoke about the reasons behind his decision to leave the province after what will be seven years come the summer and take on the reins in Paris.

The former England boss has commuted over and back from his Leeds home since joining as senior coach this very month in 2016 and he can put his hand on heart and declare that there hasn’t been one time that he has found himself not wanting to get on that plane and fly to Dublin.

He has kept a notebook from day one with the many lessons learned in the job: the type of thing that had never crossed his inquisitive and creative mind before. He added another one to the list only recently. That was number 158. Leinster, he said, “has really made me the coach I am really”.

The phone wasn’t hopping after his England team failed to emerge from their pool at the 2015 World Cup so the call from Leo Cullen and the resultant offer of a one-year deal was manna from heaven. They’ve won four league titles and a Heineken Champions Cup since, losing two European finals in that same time.

So, why leave Leinster and why now?

Timing had a lot to do with it. Being out of contract next summer was a start. He’d been approached plenty of times before but none were considered when he had time to run on an existing deal and Racing hit the sweet spot when ringing back in June.

That allowed him to pop over to France for a conversation and a tour of a club he had spent some time with as a consultant before joining Leinster. Yannick Nyanga, now coaching their espoirs, acted as interpreter and Jacky Lorenzetti made it clear they wanted him. Badly.

“What was different about what Racing did, as opposed to other clubs, was they said, ‘we want you to come, we’re not scouring the world, we’re not casting the net wide or just gauging interest’.” 

It worked.

Cullen said yesterday that this day was all but inevitable.

Lancaster’s role at Leinster allowed him to reconnect with life as a coach on the training ground after his GM role with England and all the bells and whistles and the spotlight that came with that, but the urge to be the top man again never left him.

If coming to Ireland was breaking new ground then he wasn’t done seeking adventure and he name-checked Ronan O’Gara – who dropped him a text on news of his four-year Racing deal yesterday – as a coach who had quit his comfort zone for new worlds.

“There definitely was an itch to scratch there for sure but also I look at the Top 14 and one week you’re playing against Toulouse away, the next you’re playing against La Rochelle at home and then you’re playing Lyon away, say, and then you have got Toulon at home.

“It is a big, exciting competition and the challenge of coaching a team over there is significant for me, a) because of the quality of players and the quality of the tournament, the ambition of the club, and b) the language as well.

“That is going to be a real challenge but for the development of my own coaching and to not finish your career with regrets, thinking, ‘I could have done this or I should have done that’, that was probably the biggest driver that in the end convinced me to take the opportunity.” 

Another plot twist is the small matter of two Heineken Champions Cup meetings between his current club and his next one in December and January. That and the imprint he will hope to have on Racing long before he starts officially.

There will be a coaching ticket to finalise, players to be recruited and even lodgings to be okayed in the coming months but then he won’t be the first player or coach to have a new employer in place long before he is done serving another.

“You’re right, of course there will be decisions, but it will have no bearing on the fixtures because the only thing I want to do is win with Leinster,” he insisted. “There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind.

“We obviously came up just short last year in Europe, heartbreakingly in the last play of the final, and with the final being in Dublin as well, plus the URC disappointment we had, there’s absolutely no doubt in my mind where my loyalty will be.”