Jeremy Davidson feels he needs 'more credibility' for job on home soil

Davidson's coaching career has continued uninterrupted and seemingly unnoticed by Irish rugby for the past 13 years, all of it in France.

COACHING IN IRELAND: Castres head coach Jeremy Davidson would love to work on home soil again. Picture: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

Jeremy Davidson nurses a plastic pint beaker of Guinness under the grandstand at Stade Pierre Fabre. It is the Castres head coach' reward for an indomitable Champions Cup pool performance completed just an hour earlier for a narrow victory over Munster and it is well deserved.

There were enough shortcomings in the Munster performance last Friday night to lay the blame for the 16-14 defeat squarely at the visitors’ dressing room door as they failed to repeat the win they had claimed here in January 2022. Yet Ian Costello’s side was also undone by the remorseless efforts of a Castres pack assembled by the long-exiled Irishman through a some shrewdly acquired imports and carefully selected core plucked from France's second tier, the Pro D2.