Leo Cullen and young coaches
Young coaches and the long-lost player manager. Published in the Irish Times of Wednesday, August 4th, 2015.
Leo Cullen has a sensible face. Elderly, almost. It’s always been like that. The prospective Leinster head coach is just one of those chaps of whom it’s hard to think of as being young.
At 37 he’s hardly embryonic; Tony McGahan was named Munster coach at 35 after all.
But most coaches at European club rugby’s top level are in their 40s, with the younger ones having more experience under their belts than the former Leinster secondrow.
While Grenoble’s Bernard Jackman is the only coach in the Top 14 or Aviva Premiership who has not yet celebrated his 40th birthday, if Cullen is named Leinster boss he wouldn’t even be the youngest head coach in the Pro 12 this coming season.
That honour would go to Ospreys’ Steve Tandy, all of 35 and in place since 2012. Toulon coach Bernard Laporte was 35 when he coached the French national team in the 2000 Six Nations. John Mitchell was 37 when he took the All Blacks job in 2001 – he’d started his club rugby coaching career early, taking charge at Sale while still playing.
For sports fans of a certain age the concept of the player-manager won’t seem so unusual. Kenny Dalglish did the job at Liverpool. Glen Hoddle at Swindon. Chelsea had Ruud Gullit, then Gianluca Vialli. Graeme Souness did it for Glasgow Rangers. And, further back, John Giles for club and country.
But in recent times when Garry Monk and Ryan Giggs both did the job on an interim basis those double-jobbing days seemed awfully far -off.
In the 1990s and 2000s Paul Turner, Mitchell, Francois Pienaar and Brendan Venter all had stints as player-coach at the top level of English club rugby while still playing.
Is it something that would be possible now?
