THE SAME ARDUOUS commute, the same odd job title, but Stuart Lancaster gives every reason to believe Leinster can deliver a change in fortunes under his watch this season.
On a biblically wet day in Dublin early this week, Lancaster joined fellow members of Leo Cullen’s backroom team Girvan Dempsey, John Fogarty and Emmett Farrell, and it was necessary to contemplate the gloomy state of Leinster’s trophy cabinet since 2014.
Three years on from Matt O’Connor’s Pro12 success, it’s been a fifth-place finish, a final defeat and semi-final exit – the latter at the end of a season with unavoidable coaching changes.
Having turned down the opportunity to take charge of the Queensland Reds last year, Lancaster was ready and available to step into the breach when Kurt McQuilkin had to travel home to New Zealand last September. It wasn’t a decision that took him much deliberation time back then, and it was even easier to agree to remain on as senior coach of the province through to 2019.
Arriving in to a new environment with the season in full swing comes with serious challenges of course, so wearing the harp from day one of the 2017/18 campaign has allowed Lancaster delve down much into deeper detail.
“I arrived on the Monday and we played Glasgow on the Friday,” the former England coach says matter-of-factly in St Mary’s clubhouse, under which Leinster will face Gloucester in a pre-season friendly tonight.
“When I came in it was more about trying to improve the systems and putting my philosophy on the systems, where as now (in pre-season) it’s about improving the individual skills, which has led into the systems.
“I’ve been able to spend a lot of time on the core skills: catch-pass, decision-making, attacking at the line and how to do the things which are individual to unit developments.
“When I arrived last year it was very much to develop the system. I put more time (now) into individual players, more time into the development of the leadership group and more time into the game management side of things – when to play and when not to.
“First priority (last season) was to talk about the defensive system. Whilst it was very effective in a lot of Pro12 games, in big European games they lost quite heavily to Wasps and Connacht pulled them apart in the (Pro12) final. So I wanted to address that to start with. I was trying to get up to speed with the gameplan and then adapt the attacking gameplan to suit.
“There was an element of, in the first half of the season, I’d focus on that and then I’d concentrate more on individuals. To grow them as individuals and then the culture and identity can follow on the back of that.”
Last season, we spoke to Lancaster about his unenviable commute from Leeds to perform his duties in Dublin as he has chosen not to move his wife and children. Even with a more permanent position secured in Clonskeagh, that situation has not changed, though he laughs when he’s asked if it was a case of ‘if it’s not broke…’
I wouldn’t say it’s perfect, but it works for the family. I’m pretty much spending five nights a week away from home and doing it for 10-11 months a year. It is tough, the commute, you’re up early. I’m a regular at Dublin airport and Leeds-Bradford airport and have my fingers crossed at the weather and everything else.
“But so far so good, it’s worked. It works for the family and that’s the most important thing. Certainly after finishing the England job the priority was to make sure – certainly until the kids got to university, they’re 16 and 17 now – I’d give them as much stability as I could as a dad, yet still get a job to make it work.”
There is another aspect of Lancaster’s role that is far from normal and straightforward, but made to work by Lancaster and Leo Cullen. The small matter of whether it’s the head coach or Lancaster as the senior coach who is able to pull rank or be the recognised leader of the backroom team.
It’s a matter the coaches continually brush off and quickly stress that it’s a collaborative team effort off, as well as on, the field.
In midweek, Jack Conan happened to mention that his summer work-ons from Joe Schmidt were communicated to him through Lancaster. Is that the sign of the real boss? By then the former England head coach had already signalled that it’s Cullen that must give the go-ahead on team selection each week, albeit after Lancaster takes a lead on the team’s on-field training sessions.
“At that point (on an average Tuesday) Leo has finalised the selection decisions. He makes the final decision, we’ve all got our view, and then my job is to make whatever decision is made work.”
He adds: “one of the advantages of the job I do now is that Leo would spent a lot of time with players who aren’t being picked. With the size of the squad, everyone’s disappointed if they don’t get picked. So Leo at some point has to go around and say ‘you’re not playing this week, this is the reason why’.
“So I’m spending a lot of time with players who are getting played and that’s a complete contrast with England, where I was doing Leo’s job.
“I don’t worry too much about titles. It’s more for your clarity on the role… it works well for us and it was fine by me, which was the most important thing.”
Until the latter weeks of last season, the collaborative approach worked a treat for the eastern province. Lancaster’s commitment to practicing unstructured attacking situations helped them light up the league during the Six Nations window and then power past Wasps in the Champions Cup quarter-final.
They gave Clermont Auvergne an almighty fright in the semi-final down in Lyon too, but after looking set to top the Pro12 approaching the play-offs, they ran out of momentum, allowing Munster take the summit and affording Jonathan Sexton a four-week lay-off between Champions Cup and Pro12 semi-final.
It was cruel to define the season with a toothless defeat to 14 Scarlets. And the error count left a bitterly disappointing taste to linger over the summer months. The Yorkshireman looks back on that Pro12 semi-final loss with a lament that his charges ‘assumed’ a breakthrough would appear rather than actively earn the right to force victory.
“Al the basics had to be better that day,” he concludes. And that’s exactly what he’s spent his summer months working on.
Leinster (pre-season v Gloucester)
15. Rob Kearney
14. Hugo Keenan
13. Jimmy O’Brien
12. Isa Nacewa (Capt.)
11. Dave Kearney
10. Ross Byrne
9. Jamison Gibson-Park
1. Peter Dooley
2. Bryan Byrne
3. Michael Bent
4. Ian Nagle
5. Scott Fardy
6. Josh Murphy
7. Jordi Murphy
8. Max Deegan
Replacements:
16. Sean McNulty
17. Ed Byrne
18. Vakh Abdaladze
19. Oisín Dowling
20. Peadar Timmins
21. Charlie Rock
22. Cathal Marsh
23. Ian Fitzpatrick
24. Oisín Heffernan
25. Mick Kearney
26. Will Connors
27. Barry Daly
28. Adam Byrne
29. Fergus McFadden
30. Jordan Larmour
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