KEITH EARLS HAS backed the “incredible appointment” of Andy Farrell as Ireland’s defence coach, expressing his excitement at the possibility of working with the Englishman.
Earls’ Munster coach, Anthony Foley, has also stated his belief that Ireland have made a strong choice in Farrell.
The IRFU yesterday sprung a major surprise in announcing that the former England assistant will join Joe Schmidt’s backroom team, beginning his contract for the June tour to South Africa.
The 40-year-old lost his job with England after their World Cup failure last year, but Earls is hugely positive about the news.
It’s massive. When I heard, it was exciting,” said Earls yesterday. “He’s a fella I admired as a rugby league player, as a rugby union player and as a coach with what he’s done with the Lions as well.
“I suppose he seems to have this persona, this confidence about him. Any team he works with seems to want to run through a wall for him.”
Farrell will not be officially in situ when Ireland face England at Twickenham on 27 February, meaning the prospect of him plotting against his son, out-half Owen, will have to wait until 2017 if it is going to happen.
“It’s probably going to be interesting the week of an England game, playing or coaching against his son, but he’s a professional fella who will go about his business,” said Earls of that prospect. “Hopefully I’ll get a chance to work for him, it’d be great.”
Several Ireland internationals worked with Farrell on the 2013 Lions tour, Earls’ good friend Paul O’Connell among them.
Having professed that Farrell’s appointment was as surprising to Ireland’s players as the rest of us, Earls said he contacted O’Connell when the news broke.
“I asked Paulie what he was like. Paulie had great praise for him, hopefully I’ll get to work with him.”
Munster head coach Foley is a man who has worked in the Test arena before, taking over as Ireland’s forwards coach during the 2012 Six Nations when Gert Smal had to be relieved due to an eye condition.
Foley also went on Ireland’s tour to North America in the summer of 2013, serving alongside Les Kiss on that occasion. The Munster boss has respect for Farrell and says that is shared around the professional rugby world.
“Coaching, playing… he’s come from a rugby league background when Wigan were a force,” said Foley. ”It was him and Shaun Edwards that were the driving force behind that from his late teenage years. So he’s done it all the way through and he got into coaching, came into union and excelled at that too.
“He’ll have an opinion. He won’t come in there and go through the motions. He’s worked with Warren Gatland in the Lions and all the feedback from the players who have worked with him has been extremely positive.”
Farrell’s background in rugby league clearly influences his thinking on union, though he has been in the 15-man code since joining Saracens as a player in 2005.
Ireland previously had a rugby league-raised Englishman as their defence coach, with current Bath head coach Mike Ford having made a big impact on his arrival here in 2002.
“You go back to when Mike Ford came over to us and set the stall out with Ireland and it was a rugby league-type defence that was put into a rugby union set-up,” said Foley when asked how important Farrell’s league background is.
There was a lot of figuring out that went on in the early stages around that. From his [Ford's] point of view, back before all that and new stages came through, it was ‘make it up as you go along.’
“Club rugby, early provincial rugby, early international rugby was all ‘get around, work harder,’ then when the systems started to come in, it took fellas a while to get into the habit of using it.
“It’s well established now and its origin would be a league focus.”
The hope for Schmidt and Ireland is that Farrell can make as big an impact as Ford did in his stint.
