Key questions: Who takes over the Ireland reins? Does Rog makes the coaching ticket cut?
FOUR QUESTIONS: As Andy Farrell is announced as the B&I Lions head coach, who will join his backroom team and what threat do Australia pose to his Lions. Pic: ©INPHO/Dan Sheridan
It was in Australia in 2013 when a fresh-faced Farrell etched his name into British & Irish Lions folklore with a spine-tingling speech during a meeting before the deciding third Test.
Still a relatively inexperienced coach, Warren Gatland had by Farrell’s admission, taken a punt of the former Rugby League legend by appointing him Lions defence coach alongside more experienced assistants Rob Howley and Graham Rowntree. Yet Farrell made his mark on that team room and in the minds of Lions supporters who would see him in full flow on the end of tour video, most notably the line: “There is no tomorrow. We are taking them boys to the hurt arena this weekend.” So, can we expect a reprise of “the hurt arena” Down Under next year?
“I’ve grown up since,” Farrell said yesterday. “It won’t be as dramatic. No film star roles from myself. Just making sure the team comes first.”
Currently without a coach following Eddie Jones’s short, disastrous tenure when Australia crashed out at the pool stage for the first time in their World Cup history, Wallaby rugby is at an all-time low, struggling for bums on seats and armchair viewers.
It doesn’t look much like the ultimate challenge Lions’ Test series should be but Farrell is confident an incoming head coach, potentially a certain Joe Schmidt, can put some sparkle back into the green and gold jersey and the players can rise to the occasion and make the most of their once in a generation opportunity to face the tourists.
“It’s a fact that they will,” the new Lions head coach said. “It’s the pinnacle for them as a rugby-playing nation. It’s the same for them as it is for us. They will 100 per cent get this right.
“We all know that deep down. We’re all looking at it as, you know when someone is wounded then people get their heads together to get things right. It’s not just huge for Australian rugby, it’s huge for the country and what the Lions will bring, so they 100 per cent will get it right.’
The 2025 Lions coach, twice an assistant under Warren Gatland in 2013 and 2017, knows how important it will be to get the right coaching blend to tour next year and win a Test series.
“The challenge is that there’s a blank canvas and an organisation in front of the organisation that needs to be built. And that’s exciting for me,” Farrell said. “To build up a schedule, a back-room staff, a coaching team, a playing pool that is extremely talented, excites me.” A big part of his success with Ireland has been the acumen with which he has selected the people to surrounded himself with in the coaches’ box and on the training field with New Zealander and current Leinster attack coach Andrew Goodman the latest canny signing and set to replace Mike Catt in the same role next season.
Farrell said he was in no rush to start assembling his Lions backroom but he will be tempted to dip into his Ireland staff given his close, positive relationships with the likes of former Lions players Paul O’Connell, the outgoing Catt and Simon Easterby while lead analyst Vinnie Hammond performed that role for Gatland on the 2021 tour to South Africa.
He is unlikely not to leave the national team short-handed, though, and there will be pressure to get a geographically diverse staff together. England boss Steve Borthwick, a fellow assistant in 2017, has ruled himself out of the running while Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend was Gatland’s attack coach last time around. Nor is there any rule which means Farrell must select current Test team coaches, raising the possibility that Munster head coach Graham Rowntree could reprise his Lions coaching career or that double Champions Cup-winning La Rochelle chief Ronan O’Gara could feature. O’Gara, a three-time tourist as a player, has already expressed an interest although when the Munster and Ireland fly-half legend’s willingness to serve was put to Farrell, there was an inscrutable response.
“I believe so,” Farrell said, adding: “There’s always a lot of people to go through the right process and make sure we get the right people for the group is a process that I won’t rush.”
It is unconfirmed but understood that much an on-loan footballer, Farrell’s salary while on secondment from the IRFU will be paid by the Lions.
Farrell will miss next year’s championship, leaving the head coaching brief to one of his assistants, with defence coach Simon Easterby the most likely candidate to hold the fort given his experience in charge at Scarlets and the fact the former back-rower led the Emerging Ireland coaching ticket in the boss’s absence when the de facto A squad toured to South Africa 15 months ago.
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