Ireland forwards coach Paul O’Connell will be sticking with Ireland. For now. The former Irish lock, who spent his entire professional playing career with Munster, was unequivocal about where his priorities lay.
Speaking at the Irish training base in Dublin, O’Connell said he had no interest in coaching his former cub following the abrupt departure of Graham Rowntree last month.
That is perhaps just as well as head coach Andy Farrell goes into his final game with Ireland against the Wallabies on Saturday before taking on the head coaching job with the Lions for next summer’s 10-match tour of Australia. Farrell will not be with Ireland for the 2025 Six Nations but will return after the Lions tour.
“No, I have no interest in it,” said O’Connell of the Munster job. “Certainly, in the short-term anyway. I just hope they get the right man.”
A more pertinent consideration for O’Connell is Joe Schmidt’s arrival as head coach of Australia and what surprises he may have in store for the home side. Schmidt left the Irish coaching job in 2019 after six years in charge and three years before that was the transformative Leinster coach.
A stint with New Zealand Super Rugby side, the Blues, and a position with the All Blacks, kept him in touch until the Australian job arrived earlier this year as he succeeded Eddie Jones.
O’Connell came under Schmidt’s influence towards the end of his career with Ireland. The Kiwi was Ireland’s 2015 World Cup coach, when O’Connell’s international career came to an unfortunate end following a severe hamstring injury in a pool game against France.
“I suppose I was older when Joe came to Ireland. He’s a fantastic coach,” said O’Connell. “He was very successful with Leinster and very successful with Ireland and still has a bit of an influence in here in terms of how we play the game.
“I enjoyed it. I was probably hanging on a little bit and I was able to find my niche in what he was doing. I enjoyed how we played but I probably enjoyed how he coached more than anything. I think one of the things he was good at is letting you know what he expected of you, then you could go and chase that down.
“You knew that if you delivered A, B and C, you had a good chance of being picked. He was very clear in how he coached. I think coaching had moved on a lot but we were still relying a little bit on emotion at times whereas he was technically very good.
“Everyone talks about his detail. He has very good teaching principles. He wouldn’t just tell you what he wanted you to do, through the sessions he would actually give you a pathway of how to change the habit or getting better at something. That was a really enjoyable aspect for me.”
O’Connell has borrowed from that experience and has come to rely less on emotion now than he used to with players. They continue to use “bits and pieces” of what Schmidt brought to bear when he was coach. Both players and coaches also continue to use Schmidt’s language , particularly around the breakdown area.
“Everyone is probably doing some kind of version of the same thing at the breakdown anyway, but we still have bits and pieces of the language that he used to use,” said O’Connell. “That was a big part of how he coached.
“He was the first ever coach really that I experienced that was very consistent in how he spoke about various parts of the game and because of that you had real clarity in what was expected in different parts of the game and the ruck was no different.”
Ireland will meet Schmidt’s Wallabies on Saturday with several players unavailable. Jamie Osborne, Ryan Baird, Tadhg Furlong and Jacob Stockdale are all out for Ireland’s final match. Fullback Osborne came off in the first half of Ireland’s game against Fiji last weekend due to a head injury.
Ulster winger, Jacob Stockdale, also hobbled off in the second half of the game, while Baird and Furlong were not included in the match day squad.
“Ryan Baird took a bang to the head but I think he’s okay. He’s just returning to play,” said O’Connell. “Tadhg Furlong, it’s his calf and Jacob Stockdale obviously hurt his hamstring. [Ciaran] Frawley was badly winded but okay. Sam Prendergast is fine too.”
O’Connell also dispelled concerns over Furlong’s injury. The tighthead prop had previously missed games because of a hamstring injury and has missed the entire current international window.
“I wouldn’t say there is concern,” said O’Connell. “There is frustration for him. He is a young, fit guy, so he will come right. It’s hard when you come back in and you get injured and you’re out again. It’s difficult. I don’t think there is any concern, we just want to get to the bottom of it sooner rather than later for him.”
