MILTON HAIG, ON the other end of a Zoom call all the way from Tokyo, is laughing at some memory this writer has yet to become privy to.
The Suntory Sungoliath head coach has taken time out of his busy schedule to chat about Graham Rowntree, and their days working together with the Georgia national team. The42 has just asked Haig how Rowntree, a man big on the idea of team identity, went about immersing himself in Georgian rugby culture.
“I spent eight, nearly nine years there and I never got a tattoo.” Haig explains. “He had the Georgian emblem tatted on his arm!
“He likes a cigar and he likes a drink, and Georgia has good wine so me and him would have a few drinks and be smoking a cigar and he’d start showing me his tattoo!
“He really loved the culture, and he loved the fact that the Georgians had this identity around their scrum and being hard, big forwards. He linked to that straight away.”
Identity. Culture. The crest on a jersey.
For some coaches they can become buzzwords, but for Rowntree they are the whole point of doing what he does for a living. That’s why the general consensus appears to be that Munster have chosen wisely in promoting their forwards coach to the top job for next season, with Rowntree in line to step into the hot seat Johann van Graan has decided to vacate this summer.
Having come up through the hard, demanding surroundings of a ruthless Leicester Tigers environment, it’s no wonder Rowntree gets Munster.
John Wells has had a front row seat for much of Rowntree’s development as a rugby man. First as a teammate, then as a coach, and finally as a colleague.
“I know he’s at a club he has a lot of respect for, because we had that respect for Munster as players and coaches in our Leicester days,” Wells says.
We played Munster in the European Cup final in 2002, I’m actually sitting here looking at a picture of it now, then we lost to them in 2003 (quarter-final). On both occasions, both teams were niggly, belligerent… My feelings on both Leicester and Munster are very, very similar – both are clubs that want to do whatever it takes to try win the game, but a lot of that is down to physical and mental toughness.”
Wells represented Leicester over 350 times as a player and was well-established in the team by the time a young Rowntree came onto the scene. In the mid-2000s he stepped up to coach a Tigers side in which Rowntree was by then a senior figure. The pair then worked together as part of the England coaching team in the late 2000s and early 2010s.
“As a player he was just a very, very enthusiastic and committed Leicester man,” Wells continues.
“We had a lot of success in the late 1990s, early 2000s… There was obviously Jonno (Martin Johnson), Backy (Neil Back) and the Lewis Moodys of this world that went on to be the big names so to speak, but it was probably fair to say that the likes of Darren Garforth and Graham Rowntree had as much to do with the success, but it was very understated because of the positions they played.”
Rowntree enjoyed a decorated playing career before making the step into the coaching world in 2006, spending one season as assistant forwards coach with the Tigers. After 19 years with Leicester, he then took on a job with the RFU’s National Academy, before quickly climbing up the ladder again, joining the England set-up in the summer of 2007, working as a specialist scrum coach while Wells oversaw the forwards.
“Up until that point I wouldn’t have known what Wig was going to do beyond his playing career,” Wells says.
What I did realise very, very quickly was how impressive he was when he was with players. He was very organised, very meticulous, and he was very good at getting them to sit down with him and go through stuff.
“What really impressed me was his relationship with the front-rowers. In some ways, it’s quite easy to sit down with six guys and help them along, but you’ve got to find a way of getting that same message through over and over again in very tense situations.
“He did a fantastic job of getting players onside, and that’s the part that has come through all the way through his coaching career. He wouldn’t have got the opportunity with the British and Irish Lions if he hadn’t got good man-management skills or the ability to build those relationships with players. He is incredibly well-liked by whoever he gets an opportunity to work with.”
Rowntree had a few more stops to hit before arriving in Munster, taking in roles with the Lions (2013 and 2017) and Harlequins before a surprise move to Georgia, where he worked alongside long-serving head coach Haig, who left Georgia and joined Japanese side Suntory after the 2019 World Cup.
“The Georgian manager and myself flew over to London to have a catch up, and we sat in a coffee shop and just had a chat for about an hour,” Haig says. “As soon as I walked out the door and said to the manager ‘That’s the guy we want’.
Here’s a guy that has represented the British and Irish Lions, he’s coached the Lions on two tours, played for and coached England, but he struck me as a pretty humble sort of person, despite his big reputation. A really grounded sort of guy with no airs and graces about him. I knew instantly that we’d hit it off and get on together as a coaching group.”
Rowntree worked with Georgia for two years as forwards coach, and quickly established himself as a popular presence around the camp.
“The Georgians are not quick to trust people,” Haig says.
“I knew his reputation would give him instant credibility, but the other thing you’ve got to work hard at with the Georgians is you’ve got to be a good person, and that was another reason they fell in love with him straight away. They saw not only was he this big name coaching our scrum, he was also a really good guy and they really took to him quite quickly.
“He’s a big name. He could have probably picked any number of places he wanted to go to but here he was in Georgia, basically bleeding the Georgian jersey. That just said everything to the players, really. On a daily basis, he used to show them quite clearly that he was there for the right reasons.”
That popularity around the training ground is something various members of the Munster squad have touched on since Rowntree first arrived in Limerick back in 2019, and it’s been notable how many young players in particular have made reference to his ability to form good personal connections within the playing group.
“He knows the right things to say at the right time, and that’s a big skill in itself,” Wells says.
“You can be the best technical coach in the world, but if you don’t get the information across in a manner which is conducive to the individual being able to take it on board, then all that technical experience is wasted.
Wig has that ability to be able to get what needs to be said over to a guy. Sometimes it may be a technical thing, sometimes it may be a straight talking to. With some guys, if you tell them off – for want of a better expression – they get really uptight and defensive. I’ve seen Wig tell guys they need to sort themselves out in no uncertain terms, and the guy is going away after, wanting to do something about it.”
“A young guy in a team or an older guy near the end of his career, he can relate to both ends of that spectrum really, really easily,” Haig adds. “I think that’s why a lot of players like him. It doesn’t matter who you are, he just treats you the same really.”
As both men explain, away from the personable, helpful coach who is able to throw his arm around a player, there’s also a highly driven and motivated competitor.
“He’s very understated, but he’s incredibly driven and he wants to be the best he can be at anything he turns his hand to,” Wells adds. “I think that always wanting to do well is a bit of personal pride, but also to show people ‘Yeah, we’re not a big name, but we can do a good job’.”
“He’s a very funny guy, doesn’t mind taking the Michael out of himself,” Haig continues.
So he has that side, but he also likes his own company. He’s mad on a watt bike. He can easily spend two hours cycling, just pushing himself. Some of things he used to do a watt bike were just nuts. I used to look at the guy and think he was crazy, but it’s just the way he is. He’ll put his airpods on and away he goes, he’ll listen to stuff or watch the computer, but two hours will go past and he’s cycled 35-40k and he hasn’t even thought about it really.”
Rowntree himself has also been quick to point out the similarities between the Munster who currently employ him and the Leicester he knew and loved. On the day the province confirmed him as their new head coach, he described it as his ‘dream job’. Few clubs beyond the four corners of Welford Road offer the same sense of heritage and place.
“At half-time in games, I’d come into the room or we would just be about to go back out for the second half, and I never really had to say anything because he would basically be the guy that would be talking to them,” Haig says.
“And generally it would be about who we were, and representing ourselves, the jersey and the country well. I’d walk out and say ‘OK, well I don’t need to say anything because this guy has just said it all perfectly’. I could absolutely see that going to Munster – who have a massive heritage – that would be a culture he would really fit into and love.”
The big question now is how he will handle the step up to his first shot at a head coach position, and what a Graham Rowntree team will look like. He’s already made some shrewd moves regarding his backroom staff, signing up a popular Munster man in Mike Prendergast as his new attack coach, with another Munster legend, Denis Leamy, believed to be lined up as defence coach.
“One of the things that the players at Leicester always used to talk about was never being outworked,” Wells says.
“And yes, we didn’t win every game, but no Leicester team ever wanted to go onto the pitch and play half-arsed or not work hard enough. If a team was going to beat us, they would have to be an incredibly hard working team. You had to be prepared to work hard, whether that was in the gym or in the physio room or on the pitch. There was no room for shirkers, guys saying they were ‘a bit sore here’ and that type of thing. If you were that way inclined, you weren’t taken to in the group.”
“The first thing he’ll ask for is to make sure that they give everything when they go out,” Haig adds.
He’s very, very experienced and been in some really good high performance environments, so the thing he will expect is that every time they pull on that jersey, they give everything they have got for that 80 minutes. That will be the non-negotiable for him.
“What he’ll also expect is that you work really hard at training and know your shit; so you know exactly what is expected of you for this particular game in terms of the way we want to play and the tactics etc, and your role within that.
“He’ll also say to them to make sure we have some fun when we’re on the training field, but when we need to knuckle down, we knuckle down, because that’s the type of person he is.”
“I watched the Exeter versus Munster game (at Sandy Park), and it showed the dressing room at half-time, and Wig remonstrating with the players,” Wells adds.
“That’s a brilliant example of where he needs to go to the next stage. We’ve talked about his ability to say the right things at the right time in a calm environment when there’s no tension or anxiety, but there’s also that ability to say the right things when everybody is under pressure.
“There’s no doubt Munster played in a different way after that talking to. They were a changed team. Having had certain words said to them, they changed their focus for that second half, and that probably won them the two legs, because Exeter could have scored another couple of tries and then it would have been a different second leg. The impact he had on that game, albeit small and maybe for just a minute, minute and a half, had a massive impact.
“That is typical of a guy that knew the standards at that stage weren’t high enough.”
“Certainly he’ll have high expectations of his players, but I think also if it doesn’t go well, he’ll be the first person to grab you around the shoulder and say ‘Don’t worry about it, we did our best’,” Haig says.
“And that’s probably the bit… As long as we have done everything we could have, but we still get beaten by a better team, it won’t worry him. He’ll just look forward to the next challenge.”
“He’s had to do the hard yards and complete a number of coaching gigs and serve his time to get this job,” Wells adds.
“He’s not an old man, but there have been lots of guys getting these types of jobs in their late 30s or early 40s, like Steve Borthwick at Leicester for example, but Graham has had to do it the hard way.
“That probably epitomises a lot of what I know about Graham.”
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