ASK IRELAND’S PLAYERS about Gary Keegan’s influence behind the scenes and their reviews are nearly always of the rave variety.
The ‘performance coach,’ as Keegan terms his role, has been with Ireland part-time since 2020 and then joined full-time from the start of the tour of New Zealand last year. These days, he’s said to be central to everything they do.
Keegan’s work focuses on the mental side of the game. He built his credentials by helping to turn Irish boxing into an Olympic medal factory, while he helped Dublin to become a powerhouse in football. He runs his own business, Uppercut, who provide high-performance coaching to organisations beyond the sporting field.
He’s also part of the IRFU’s professional games board, a key decision-making group within Irish rugby, and worked with Leinster in 2017 and 2018. But most of his time these days is spent on ensuring Ireland are in a good headspace for going after World Cup glory. And Keegan believes this Irish group have the traits to pull it off.
“I think apart from how we play the game, apart from the skill set that this group have from one to 15, it’s potentially our ability to adapt, to not expect things to go smoothly, to have the resolve,” said Keegan yesterday at Ireland’s training base in Tours.
“The road can be rocky at times but there’s no need to panic, just get on with it, things happen, just get on with it. I think they’ve built that mentality over the last three and a half years and hopefully it continues to serve us well in this tournament.”
This was Keegan’s first time speaking to the media since coming on board with Ireland and it was impossible not to notice the similarity between how head coach Andy Farrell speaks and what Keegan had to say.
It’s patently clear that the pair of them are completely aligned and work closely together even on the language that’s used within Ireland camp.
As Keegan discussed his reasons for belief that Ireland can do something special in this World Cup, he underlined that Farrell’s leadership is crucial.
“I think the person at the forefront of the group, it’s important that he has a very clear sense of what he’s trying to achieve and he has a very clear sense of where he wants to take the team,” said Keegan.
“And it doesn’t happen overnight. It’s taken three-plus years to build the environment and build the belief in the group in terms of what we’re collectively trying to achieve and he’s been consistent and constant in his approach to that and I think we all take our lead off how he’s leading and managing the environment.”
Keegan said Farrell is 100% convinced his team can make history at this tournament, even if the Ireland performance coach knows that the hard work hasn’t even started.
“It takes a leader who wants to do that,” said Keegan of Ireland breaking the glass ceiling of a World Cup quarter-final and going on to win it.
“It takes a leader who has the confidence in himself to want to break the mould and to want to reach for the stars. Because if he’s not convinced that it can be achieved, it’s very hard to convince everybody else that it can be achieved.
“We’re not expecting the paths to be clear or easy. It’s not meant to be because it wouldn’t be worthwhile if it was. My career has been involved in breaking moulds, that’s an exciting thing to be part of and I think we have that within this group, for sure.”
In the past, Irish teams have been perceived as being mentally overwhelmed by the challenge of the World Cup. The IRFU’s review into the 2019 campaign concluded that one reason for the disappointing Irish effort had been “performance anxiety.”
Keegan said he’s convinced that Ireland can handle any such mental challenges now. He describes how important it is to “wash it out” on a daily basis and not allow natural or automatic negative thoughts to spiral out of control.
Ireland’s environment is a very open one, he explained, and they discuss any such feelings either in their collective meetings or on a one-on-one basis with Keegan.
“There’s always a danger that we’ll carry the memory, the trauma of a previous experience into a similar experience in four years’ time,” said Keegan.
“This group has gone beyond that and due credit to the players, they’ve opened themselves up.
“They’ve had an opportunity to access new tools, new thinking, new strategies and they’ve gone about implementing that into their practice on a more daily and weekly basis. It’s a different group because it’s a different environment under a different leader.”
Ireland have been on a hot streak since Keegan started full-time, winning their last 14 games in a row as they’ve clinched the series in New Zealand and then a Grand Slam.
Along the way, he has been cognisant of ensuring the Irish players don’t fall into any lull brought on by consistent success.
“The Irish never get ahead of themselves,” said Keegan. “As a nation we are grounded, we’re hard working and I think that has served us really well.
“You’ve got to respect what’s in front of you because if you don’t it’s going to teach you a lesson.
“And we drive that message into this group, we’ve got to respect what we face next and we’ve also got to accept the conditions that a tournament like this will throw at us, and I think that is why the group have become quite adaptive over the last number of years.”
Keegan will be key to Ireland managing the choppy waters in this World Cup.