Stuart Lancaster joining Leinster

[Lar]

Hahaha

[riocard911]

"...help Leinster become a dominant force in Europe again".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0D4cqprjio

Promise made. Promise fulfilled. Chapeau, Monsieur Lancaster!!!!

[mfjoc]

A genuine nice guy
I was in Kielys after the game on Saturday and he was there with his family.
He had no problem with posing for photos with fans or with us announcing that he was our favourite Englishman.

[Dave Cahill]

From yesterday's (London) Times

Stuart Lancaster interview: ‘After World Cup defeat I heard my daughter crying, I was powerless’

Stuart Lancaster reveals the impact England’s World Cup failure had on his family

It is 10.30pm on October 3, 2015. The home dressing room at Twickenham is empty. The players and staff have left for the team hotel at Pennyhill Park. The room is dimly lit, shadows dancing against the wall. Bits of tape are strewn across the floor, the debris of a match that finished hours ago. Alone, lying on a bench, is Stuart Lancaster, eyes staring at the ceiling.

The evening has been a blur. It was obvious that England would be eliminated from the World Cup at the pool stage against Australia when Owen Farrell was sent to the sin-bin ten minutes before the end. Lancaster, the head coach, the man who had spent a lifetime dreaming of this opportunity, tried to retain his composure from his position in the stands as the clock ticked down.

After the match, he conducted a press conference, fielded questions about his future, aware of the condemnation likely to follow. Guilt and crushing disappointment were at the forefront of his mind, but also he felt concern for his family. When he finally got to his phone he rang Nina, his wife, who had attended the match with Sophie, his daughter, and his parents to check if they were OK. They were in the car, travelling home, and he could hear his little girl quietly weeping. His heart almost froze.

I am sitting with Lancaster in a hotel in Leeds. He is wearing a blue shirt and jeans, his eyes looking into the middle distance. “She is such a strong girl — she was 15 at the time — but I could hear her crying in the car going home,” he says. “The family knew how much this meant to me, how much it meant to the country. Dan [his son] was back in Leeds that night, because he had a rugby game the following day, but I knew he would be feeling it too. I just wanted to protect them from it, but I felt powerless. I knew they would be wounded by what was coming. I said to Nina, ‘Please just look after the kids.’ ”

It is difficult to convey what it is like to be caught in the headlights of national vilification. Perhaps vilification is too strong a word, but Lancaster endured a torrid press. His coaching was questioned, his methods mocked. Senior RFU officials started briefing against the man who was still, officially, their head coach, hoping to ensure the fallout from the World Cup crystallised around just one man.

“I went back to Leeds after the final match against Uruguay [the last pool game, effectively a dead rubber, which England won easily], then went to Cumbria,” he says. “There is something about wanting to get back to your roots. I went back to my school, St Bees, on the west coast. I just wanted to go to a place where I knew I was happy. I walked around the grounds. My parents had taken the caravan to a site in Lorton. I was in this tiny caravan on my own for two nights. My mum said something that stuck with me: ‘I know you are 45, but I just want to defend you from the attacks.’ I said, ‘Mum, it’s fine.’ But I could see the pain I was causing them. They were in their mid-seventies. It was awful for them to see me getting spoken about like that. That was weighing on my mind as the review was taking place.

“There is a little pub called The Wheatsheaf. I went in there and had a few pints, started to get my head clear about what had happened under my watch. What could I have done better? My wife is different to me, she likes to share when problems hit her. I like to spend time on my own, taking notes, going for walks, thinking things through, and this gave me the space. I walked up St Bees Head and I am literally in the middle of nowhere, walking towards this lighthouse, when this guy goes, ‘Are you Stuart Lancaster?’ ‘Yeah, I am, funnily enough.’ He said, ‘I’m so sorry.’ I smiled. ‘I know,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry, too.’ ” Lancaster is very different from his headmasterly image. He is warm, kind, spirited. I talked to former players, staff and fellow coaches to get a sense of how he is perceived by those who know him best. Words like “honourable”, “considerate” and “generous” were common. Danny Cipriani, who Lancaster didn’t select for the World Cup in 2015, said: “You will not meet a more decent man.”

The other perspective that unifies opinion is that Lancaster is a superb coach. He is now a senior coach at Leinster and helped to lead them to the European Champions Cup this month, the most prized trophy in club rugby, and on Saturday overcame Scarlets, the defending champions, in a thrilling Guinness Pro14 final. Players and staff have spoken almost unanimously about the powerful impact of Lancaster’s coaching. Johnny Sexton, the Leinster and Ireland fly half, said: “He did an unbelievable job at England that gets overlooked because of one result. A result that could have gone another way against Wales [in the World Cup]. But things work out for a reason and we might not have been European champions if England had not lost that match.”


The RFU review process after England’s elimination reached its conclusion in November 2015. “I knew that the board meeting was the night before, so I dropped Sophie and Dan at school and sought out the deputy head,” Lancaster says. “I asked him to keep an eye on them because the news was due to break at lunchtime. Before I left the house, Nina asked, ‘Do you think they will ask you to leave the RFU completely?’ I doubted that I would keep the top job, but I was confident that I could perform a different role for England. I said to Nina, ‘I don’t think so.’

“As I walked out of the school, Ian Ritchie [then the chief executive of the RFU] phoned. ‘You need to step down as England coach and leave the RFU completely,’ he said. It was a huge blow.”

Lancaster was unemployed, with the RFU committed only to paying up his notice period of 12 months. “It was tough dealing with the fallout and waking up without a sense of purpose,” he said. “You are so busy as head coach; your mind is caught up. I threw myself into coaching in the community around Yorkshire in the schools and clubs. I did sessions at Harrogate and Morley. I took the Yorkshire Under-15s for that season. It was the best thing I did, and it was great to be asked. Remember that is where I had come from. I have coached at every level, from under-6 upwards.”

All this, and more, Lancaster did for no charge. He gave talks to Britain’s chief constables, to teachers, to fellow coaches. In January 2016, he went on a tour to the southern hemisphere, visiting 15 organisations as he sought to learn more about coaching and leadership. But these trips cost money, and financial reality was starting to bite.

Lancaster had the option of returning to teaching PE, his first job after leaving university, but he craved a job in coaching, a role that had become his raison d’être. “In the summer of 2016, I said to Nina, ‘If I don’t get work soon, we are going to have to take the kids out of school and move to a smaller house.’ There was no doubt in my mind. The money would have run out by Christmas. You are constantly thinking, ‘What is the best thing to do for my family?’ ”

I ask whether Lancaster feels he made mistakes in the England job. He doesn’t shy away from critiquing himself. “I could have achieved a better balance,” he says. “I should have delegated more of the managerial stuff, like club-country relationships, commercial events, logistical planning. If I become a head coach in the future, I would hire a general manager to do some of that, so I could focus more on the coaching. I should also have gone with a smaller squad in the warm-up camps. When you announce a big squad, nobody knows if they are going to make the final cut. It can feel for a while like a selection camp rather than a performance camp. I made this point to Gareth Southgate, and he took the advice on board for the England football squad.”

I ask about the Sam Burgess affair. “There are a lot of misconceptions about Sam,” he says. “I went to Australia in 2013 on a coach educational trip and I met Michael Maguire from the South Sydney Rabbitohs. As I was walking out of the office, Sam came over and said that he was interested in joining rugby union. The perception was that I had gone to get him, or that Andy Farrell had recruited him. But he came to me. And the truth is that in the warm-up games and the World Cup camp, he played well. Clearly with hindsight if I had known that he was going to go back to rugby league, I wouldn’t have picked him.”

Given everything that happened, I wonder if Lancaster would ever go back to the RFU? He pauses. “I really enjoy club coaching, but you never say never,” he says. “There are people at the RFU who sometimes get in contact, and I will always offer support and advice when asked. There are many good people there.”

Lancaster’s growing anxiety as summer turned into autumn in 2016 was finally relieved by a phone call in early September. “It was Leo Cullen, the head coach at Leinster,” he says. “The defence coach’s sister had taken ill, which opened up a window. When I worked out that the commute from Leeds to Dublin was a 40-minute flight, I knew it was the right job. Johnny Sexton sent me a text saying that the players wanted me. It was a huge relief.

“But I had to hit the ground running. I arrived on the Monday and the second game was on the Friday. So, I stood in front of the group and just said, ‘I think we can win the European Cup.’ And they looked at me as if to say, ‘Really?’ But I knew we had to change stuff. I had clipped up a losing performance in a cup match. I was pretty critical as I reviewed it. ‘What were you doing here?’ I asked. They were taken aback by my mindset to come straight in and lead, but I was ready for the opportunity and I wasn’t going to let it go. By ten past nine on the first day, I was coaching.

“And there was no stopping us. We started developing the defence, then the attack. I was also trying to improve the leadership skills of the group. I did sessions with the academy players, and coached the coaches. I threw myself into it, living in Dublin, and coming back to Leeds for one day a week. That has been tough. Living away from home, missing Sophie getting her GCSEs, missing her driving test, missing Dan’s big rugby games. The commitment is huge, and it is tough for Nina to bring up two teenage kids on her own. But it was the only way to make it work.

“There have been some incredible moments. When I arrived at Leinster, the first game we played was Ospreys at home. When we got into the changing room after the game, Cian Healy stood up and said: ‘OK sing a song. Everyone has to sing a song after their first game.’ So I took my tracksuit top off and belted out Daydream Believer . . . It felt like I was where I was meant to be. With players, helping them improve, building a great team.”

Looking back on his journey, Lancaster has learnt not just about his own character, but the character of the sport he loves. “Even in the darkest hours, there were people who rallied around,” he says. “The week we were eliminated from the World Cup, I had a note from Heyneke Meyer, the South Africa coach who had been involved in the defeat to Japan [in the same competition]. He was going through exactly the same thing. ‘I hope you are OK,’ he asked. It was an incredibly thoughtful gesture.

“I had a good relationship with all the international coaches, because we all know the precipice we sit on. Moments after New Zealand won the World Cup final I sent a text to Steve Hansen to congratulate him. Forty minutes after the final whistle, when he must have been inundated, he replied. ‘Thanks Stuart,’ he said. ‘Hope the family are OK. I am thinking of you.’ That camaraderie is somehow deeper and more important than the rivalry. That is what rugby is about.”

When Leinster won the European Cup, senior players saluted Lancaster, but so did some of his former players with England. “It was so moving to get texts from virtually every member of the management team from 2015, the physios, the masseurs, the analysts, the coaches, the players.” The most powerful moment, however, was witnessing the joy of his loved ones. “I felt this deep happiness for my mum and dad. For Nina and the kids. Nina was there at the match with Dan, and they came down to get a photo with the trophy.

“I Facetimed Sophie, who was at home. She was so upset after the game that knocked England out of the World Cup, and that is something I will never forget. As I was walking down on the pitch, I held up the phone, looked at her, and said, ‘We did it!’ She just said, ‘I’m so proud of you, Dad.’ ”

Lancaster on key issues
How would England have done in the 2016 Six Nations if you had not left the job?
“The context and results would have been very different if I had stayed. Every decision would have been scrutinised, and it would have been difficult for the players. Eddie Jones brought in new energy.”

Is drug-taking a problem in youth rugby?
“Young players need to know that it is not just about size, but speed and agility. The best players at Leinster, such as Cian Healy, have actually lost weight this year. My son is 16 and in an academy. They attend anti-doping seminars all the time. I don’t think drugs are prevalent in English rugby.”

What are your reflections on the crowd at Twickenham?
“The energy at Twickenham was incredible. In some of the games, I have never been in stadiums like it. The France game in 2015, New Zealand in 2012. On their day, they’re the best.”

What did you feel when England went on an unbeaten run after your sacking?
“I felt incredibly proud of the team. The best moment for a coach is awarding a player their first cap. I awarded first caps to three-quarters of that group, players like Jack Nowell and Owen Farrell.”

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/spor ... -xxdj6705l

[MelbourneRebel]

What a man. Enjoy him while we can. Unless he's lined up to be part of the 2020 national coaching ticket I think he will be gone sooner rather than later.

[BlueBlue]

What a man. Enjoy him while we can. Unless he's lined up to be part of the 2020 national coaching ticket I think he will be gone sooner rather than later.

That's right, everyone is racing to leave Leinster. Thanks for the positivity !

[MelbourneRebel]

What a man. Enjoy him while we can. Unless he's lined up to be part of the 2020 national coaching ticket I think he will be gone sooner rather than later.

That's right, everyone is racing to leave Leinster. Thanks for the positivity !

Not sure it warranted that reaction.

Lancaster, in many interviews, suggests he might go back into a top of the ticket job in the future, including this one. His stocks have never been higher. Of course it is a possibility.

[neiliog93]

Excellent interview. Definitely a candidate to replace Joe post-2019.

[blockhead]

Excellent interview. Definitely a candidate to replace Joe post-2019.

If Plumber did take over Ireland after the WC then Pivac would be an excellent replacement, assuming he didn't get the Wales gig.

[OTT]

Cheers for posting that article, good read.

[curates_egg]

It was said legitimately after Schmidt but, if and when he does leave, Lancaster will be an incredibly hard act to follow.
Apart from being an excellent coach - which was always clear from his time with England - he seems like such an unbelievably sound individual. Perhaps the most likeable Englishman I have ever come across.
He would, no doubt, be a super option for Ireland but I wonder will Brexit affect thinking in that regard.

Thanks for posting the article.

[BlueBlue]

What a man. Enjoy him while we can. Unless he's lined up to be part of the 2020 national coaching ticket I think he will be gone sooner rather than later.

That's right, everyone is racing to leave Leinster. Thanks for the positivity !

Not sure it warranted that reaction.

Lancaster, in many interviews, suggests he might go back into a top of the ticket job in the future, including this one. His stocks have never been higher. Of course it is a possibility.

His stocks have never been higher, over the last 3 weeks. We, he, have just hit the Pinnacle again. Lets enjoy it for a little while without assuming he'll move on. Not sure what you mean about the reaction, I'm offering a counter point of view. Nothing more.

[BlueBlue]

All the praise of Lancaster is warranted. It says something of the man and what he has been through, that as a Leinster supporter, watching my team lift the cups that a vindication and a rescuing of Stuart Lancaster as a man and a rugby person added to the joy and satisfaction. I also think that Lancaster woe's Leinster a huge debt of gratitude. I think it should not be forgotten in our thanks and admiration for Lancaster that he is a member of a wider coaching ticket, and that Girve, Fogarty and especially Leo make a whole that is way, way bigger than the some of it parts.

[ronk]

Plenty of wisdom in those words.

At least we have him for another year. After that we dont know what international openings there will be after the RWC.

There aren't many club jobs that would suit him better.

[mildlyinterested]

Phillip Browne seems to be suggesting in the media that Lancaster will be part of Team Ireland post Joe.

[riocard911]

Phillip Browne seems to be suggesting in the media that Lancaster will be part of Team Ireland post Joe.

Ditto his old pal Faz.

[LeRouxIsPHat]

The interview Lancaster did recently sure made it sound like he needed to spend more time at home so I'm fully expecting him to leave Leinster. I know the Ireland job would mean that he would be away for long periods a few times every year but overall it looks like a great fit. As much as we improved in Leo's first season Lancaster still had to unMoc us a bit so it would be interesting to see what he could with Ireland assuming that Joe leaves us in a good place, plus the young Leinster lads that he'll have helped developed over the previous couple of years should really be able to kick on with him as they enter their prime.

I'm guessing Joe will head back to NZ but from a tugby POV I'd love to see him go for something like the French job, imagine what he could do with their side and the young players they have coming through? Obviously from an Irish rugby fan POV I just hope he goes back to teaching.

[footrush]

Phillip Browne seems to be suggesting in the media that Lancaster will be part of Team Ireland post Joe.

Ditto his old pal Faz.

Hope so , keeping everything crossed !.

[curates_egg]

Thornley apparently claiming Lancaster is joining the Ireland set-up.
http://www.punditarena.com/rugby/irish- ... -wigtR7Wsc
It was inevitable really, but still disappointing.

[LeRouxIsPHat]

I read Gerry's article earlier and think he just said that it seemed to make sense that Lancaster would join the Ireland team, don't think it was concrete at all.