Alan O’Connor wants to build on Ireland's forward foundations

Alan O’Connor is Ireland forwards coach for the duration of this Championship and he would love for his stint to extend beyond this window.

Ireland's Aoife Wafer and Alan O’Connor during the warm up before Ireland's meeting with France. Pic: ©INPHO/Dave Winter

Alan O’Connor might have been pondering a trip to Bilbao with Ulster later this month. Instead, the Dubliner is busy with events closer to home as the Irish women’s senior team closes out its Six Nations campaign against Wales and Scotland.

The first of those Championship games could hardly be any closer.

This Saturday’s fixture against Wales in Belfast is happening just a ten-mile spin from his coastal home in Greenisland. His wife is local, they have a two-year old and another on the way, and the house prices down south aren’t exactly tempting him away either.

All told, O’Connor spent 13 years with Ulster, transferring from Skerries to the Leinster sub-academy and on to an academy deal with the northern province. His time was ultimately cut short last year when he still had another season left on his deal.

He seems fine with that.

“Money just went elsewhere,” he says.

Others had the same experience. O’Connor was one of eight senior pros cut loose as head coach Richie Murphy went about refashioning his squad last summer. Now Ulster have a Challenge Cup final in Bilbao against Montpellier to come and a big run-in to the URC.

They weren’t alone in being quick to turn the page.

A stint doing some coaching with Ballymena Academy three years ago was the kernel for a more concrete offer when O’Connor’s playing career ended. Now he’s head of rugby development at a school where the principle is an acquaintance of David Humphreys.

It was through the IRFU’s performance director that the next link was made. Pretty soon O’Connor was sitting down at an Applegreen motorway station with the Ireland women’s head coach Scott Bemand. That was followed up again with an offer of more work.

Currently serving as forwards coach for the duration of this Championship with a senior team that lost Alex Codling to Munster at the end of last year’s World Cup, he would love for his stint to extend beyond this window again.

“Being involved with Ireland is class. Whenever they put it to me, I was like, ‘I'd love to be involved’. Anything with Ireland, the country... As a player it was always the end goal, trying to play for your country, represent your country.

“I never got there. I was announced in a couple of extended squads, but that was it. Never actually got in, never actually played. But to be involved with Ireland in any way is an honour, and I'm buzzing to be here.” 

It’s all happened so quickly. It was January before he got to work with the players for the first time and that was just for a quick day-and-a-half camp. What he saw was a squad that had benefited hugely from Codling’s work so there was no change for the sake of it.

Ireland’s pack has held its own for large parts of a campaign that has so far tested them with an opening loss to England in front of over 77,000 at Twickenham, a home win over Italy in Galway, and a defeat to the French at a raucous Stade Marcel Michelin in Clermont.

“I'm looking to build on what's already there in terms of the foundation that they've put in in the past while.” 

If he’s very new to all this then there was always an element of the coach in him. Ireland hooker Neve Jones can recall him doing some stuff with her Malone RFC team when she was still a teenager. That was ten years ago now.

And O’Connor’s days on the park feed into this as well. He spent years running Ulster’s lineout and that’s a role that calls for players to stand up in front of a room and explain to your peers what it is need to do in some detail.

“I’m trying to twist it in a way and make sure they're buying into it and giving them ownership over it as well. That's probably the main thing because once you're in it, it's easy. When you step back and you're telling people what to do then maybe it is a bit harder.” 

His own playing days aren’t fully behind him.

There is an invitational game up north that he has an eye on later in the year, but nature may have been telling him something when he broke an elbow playing for Ballymena in Division 2A AIL against local rivals Banbridge this season.

He’d made the commitment on the back of ankle surgery last summer and with his tank still full enough of energy and enthusiasm. It all happened on the back of his own chop tackle and, fair play to him, he finished the game before making for A&E.

“Rugby's a tough game no matter where you're playing, isn't it?”