'I've found myself bored at times going from head coach to assistant' - Lee Blackett

Life is currently very different for Lee Blackett from what he had known as the Wasps boss. Take his commute to work. Before, it took around 45 minutes in the morning to get to the Gallager Premiership club’s Henley-in-Arden training base and an hour home in the evening rush. Now, though, that time on the road has ramped up considerably.

It was October 17 when the brutal financial collapse of Wasps suddenly left him redundant but he wasn’t long outside the game. Scarlets unveiled him on November 3 as their attack coach through to the end of the current season and with it has come many, many miles on the road and regular 4am starts.

The toing and froing wasn’t easy at the beginning. Blackett has a young family and they had just moved into a new Midlands house less than two months before Wasps hit the wall. However, he has grown used to the arduous trek from England to Wales and back again, developing a routine whereby his trips have essentially become a university on wheels.

“There are a lot of miles being done, over a thousand a week. I could definitely do with fuel prices coming down,” he quipped to RugbyPass before getting into the nitty-gritty of how he makes the best use of his considerable time on the road. “It’s really weird. On the way down in the morning, I split the journey in three ways.

“First hour, I use it for what I am going to do in the day, who I need to speak to, what I need to say in the meetings, in the sessions, the field session, everything like that. I use the next hour for podcasts, and then the last hour I probably go on the phone.

? "My 7-year-old daughter told me that London Irish fans were saying there were more Wasps fans than their own!

"With the noise, you wouldn't have known if we were home or away and the boys definitely felt it."

? @Leeblackett12 praises the Wasps faithful….? pic.twitter.com/bxYOONMo5m

— Wasps Rugby (@WaspsRugby) March 3, 2020

“I’ll stay over a couple of nights a week but on the way home I’ll mainly catch up with people, I speak to a lot more coaches than I would normally speak to. I try to use the time as much as possible in the car to try and improve, to try and look at different things, try to speak to different people.”

There are variables, of course. Last Tuesday, for instance, kicked off with a 4 am call to Joe Launchbury, his old Wasps skipper, who is now playing in Japan and 11 hours later, he was back on the blower on the road chatting for half an hour to RugbyPass despite encountering some blindspots along the M4 with his mobile coverage after finishing up that day’s training in Llanelli.

What about those podcasts, what exactly does he listen to? “I’m a bit boring. The High Performance Podcast is the one. I never had time to really listen, so I’m going back to listening to things from 2020. I really like listening to people that have played right at the high end. It doesn’t matter what sport, but the more I hear from these people the better it is.

“Anyone with 70 or more caps for their country, to get that many caps you have probably had to be at the top for seven, eight-plus years. They are all special in some ways yet completely different in other ways. They have a very uniqueness about them, a massive desire to improve. They don’t just rely on the talent they have been given. They have got desperation, these types of people, to get better and better.”

We’ll chat later about how Blackett feels he is definitely all the better himself for working at Scarlets, but the desperate situation the business of rugby is currently in demands his thoughts. His commute home while chatting in midweek whizzed him by the troubled Vale of Glamorgan base where the WRU were in the crosshairs of the bickering Wales players, before switching north along the M50 passed the stricken Worcester and then lurching over near to where it all came a cropper for Wasps in Coventry.

“It’s been an interesting year,” he deadpanned, adding that he hasn’t a clue what he would do for a living without rugby. “I wouldn’t have the foggiest. That sounds bad. Everything I have been telling players to think about (is to plan) but if that happened to me, honestly I don’t know. Rugby has been my life and is what I have always known in my life.

“The stuff happening on the field is very good, the game is getting even better to watch, but it [the financial issues] all go back to the covid period and it’s all clubs recovering at the moment. That’s how it seems, a bit of a recovery job, but I’m pretty sure rugby is going to come through this and I expect it to kick on.

“Covid was a period where clubs took a lot of loans out. Now clubs are having to pay those loans back and it’s playing catch-up. If we can just get through this tough period, this next couple of years, I’d like to think clubs will be in a lot better place.”

Despite recent speculation, Wasps can confirm no agreement has been signed with any stadium & remain in discussions with potential venues.

No agreement will be finalised without first consulting with relevant Governing Bodies and local communities that would be impacted.

— Wasps Rugby (@WaspsRugby) February 18, 2023

Let’s talk specifically about Wasps’ spectacular demise. “It was pretty sad but you have just got to get on with it. It has happened, unfortunately. I really wish the best for the club and really hope the recovery will happen. I know a lot of finance and sponsorships are going to be needed.

“I hope there are people out there willing to do it because it is a great club with an unbelievable history and it’s sad seeing where it is at the moment. Hopefully, it comes back into the Championship, but the clubs still needs a fair bit of investment to get in a position to challenge and come back up (to the Premiership) again.”

Blackett won’t be their man at the Championship wheel. “I have always spoken to them. I will always speak to Chris Holland, he speaks to me a fair bit but I want to be coaching at the top end. At this moment in time, that is my focus and Wasps are just finding themselves recovering. I don’t think they fully know (what they are doing)… I don’t think anything is set in stone.”

Old ties still bind in other ways, though. “I speak to a fair few. I was on the phone this morning to Joe Launchbury at 4am because he is in Japan. You’re having conversations like that all the time. I have spoken quite a bit to people like Jack Willis, Josh Bassett. Dan Robson, I saw him in an airport when we [Scarlets] were flying into Cardiff having just played in Italy and he had played Dragons and was about to depart going the other way. That was quite weird seeing him in his Pau kit.

“You keep an eye on them all but it is also really strange. As much as you keep an eye out on everyone, have you got time to contact them? No, because you are trying to do as good a job for Scarlets as you possibly can.

“It has been difficult, I get that. Plus, the market has been flooded so players’ values have been driven down but I’m glad most of them got sorted out. Some are having varied experiences, it forced them into going abroad where they have never been before and experiencing something they might not have done before so I’m glad for those guys.”

? @WaspsRugby Head Coach @Leeblackett12 is a man of many nicknames!

He joined @RupertCoxSKY & @WillGreenwood on the podcast this week and ran through a few of them… ?

— Sky Sports Rugby Union (@SkySportsRugby) September 9, 2020

Blackett has also stepped into the unknown at Scarlets. His new boss Dwayne Peel, for example, had only ever been a fleeting acquaintance. Their paths had crossed when Blackett was at Rotherham and Peel at Bristol in the Championship and again when both were respectively working as attack coaches at Wasps and Ulster. It was enough for a call to be made just as Blackett was grappling with the debris of Wasps’ destruction.

“It was a strange period. As a coach, especially as a head, your whole time is spent thinking about other people, thinking about how we’re going to get the players in the best place possible to win this game at the weekend or get them ready.

“You spend that much time thinking about that so when you have to then start thinking about yourself and what you are going to do, it felt wrong. It was a strange, mixed feeling because you are almost wired to be thinking about other people and getting everyone else in the right place… but I spoke to Dwayne pretty sharpish after what happened at Wasps.

“There was a load of what ifs coming to mind personally. I’d just literally moved house about six, eight weeks before, put a lot of money into it, and you’re thinking you couldn’t spend too long out of the game. You only have to look at how often head coach jobs come up, they actually don’t come up that often.

“Once I spoke to Dwayne and spoke to people down here (in Llanelli), I thought it was perfect for me just in terms of the role they wanted. I didn’t have to do any of the head stuff, I give my opinions mainly around the attacking and kicking side of our game and the game management side of our game. It has allowed me to just be that coach.

“I didn’t really want to make a long-term decision, but we agreed until the end of the season. I’d been based in England my whole life in terms of coaching and playing and I just wanted that challenge of working in a different league, in Wales, coaching players I’d never coached before, coaching against players that you really hadn’t coached against before.

? From the training field

Dim gêm wythnos yma ond yr ymarferion yn parhau ?#YmaOHyd pic.twitter.com/3Ugh5qwbzk

— Scarlets Rugby (@scarlets_rugby) February 24, 2023

“It has been a great challenge, something I enjoy and feel like I should be better for this experience. I like to think I am. I have been able to look at things in more detail, certain things around the attacking game. The conversations I have had in the past probably needed a bit of time to look into things, so I have got that time now. This time has definitely made me a better attack coach, looking in more detail around the attacking game, kicking game and even defensively as well.

“With everything going on, it was quite nice going to Scarlets and just fitting in. When I went from an assistant to a head coach (at Wasps) I really didn’t see much difference but having gone the other way, from a head back to an assistant, I have actually found myself being bored at times because you are used to working constantly.

“I have found myself having time to do other things and look into other sides of our game, other aspects that I probably don’t need to look at but I now have the time. I do think they are completely different roles [head/assistant coach] but I have challenged myself in this time to get better as a coach.

“As a head coach you have got a lot of people needing your time all the time, all parts of the club are needing your time. When you’re an assistant, I spend more time looking at other teams and little things they are doing well, so I’m going to steal. I shouldn’t say that but that is what a lot of coaches do. They look and try and find things other teams do really well. You tweak it and make it better and other times you might just steal it.

“Also, from an assistant’s point of view, I’m seeing things an assistant would see that maybe a head wouldn’t. You’re seeing it from a different perspective, so when the time comes, when the right time comes to be a head coach again, I should be in a better position than I was before.”

Might that be soon or is an extension as an assistant in the works at Scarlets? “There are conversations going on. There are conversations down here, there are conversations going on elsewhere. For me, my number one thing was to come down to Wales and get the respect of the players and the staff down. Honestly, that was priority number one always.

A gift from Vaea Fifita ?
The generosity ? #BKTURC #URC | #SCAvEDI pic.twitter.com/S29xoOoD3P

— BKT United Rugby Championship (URC) (@URCOfficial) February 18, 2023

“No matter whether I leave Wales at the end of this year or leave Wales in four or five years, however long it is, I want to earn everyone’s respect while I’m down here. My decision on next year hasn’t been made up. I’d like to think within the next couple of weeks it will be probably made so I will know where I am going to be.”

Blackett has helped make Scarlets tick. They’d won just two in seven before his arrival but their upward momentum has seen them win all six fixtures so far in 2023 before next Friday’s major URC assignment away to Munster.

“My first impression was it just looked like there had lost a little bit of confidence in the group coming off a few losses… but you see them put in more positive performances now and some players are having big moments in games.”

Games that he admits are different from what he had known in the Premiership. How the English league compares to URC is a regular hot topic and he Blackett is at last well-placed to comment having now worked in both. “They are very different leagues, definitely. If you look at the URC teams, when they get their best teams out on the field there are some outstanding teams.

“Where would I say Premiership and URC are slightly different, Premiership there is a lot around the kicking game. A lot of teams kick a fair bit in the Premiership, a lot of teams’ games are based around that and set-piece.

“I feel URC is really attacking and there are definitely teams running more from their own half I would feel, I feel teams are a lot braver in the URC. Having said that, the Premiership this year has been the most exciting season in terms of attack, so I probably generalising over the last few years. But there is a real desire to take things on from deep in the URC.

“And the biggest difference between the leagues is how they are set up. The Premiership is relentless. Every week it is a grind, a bit more of a slog playing game after game after game. The URC is blocked really nicely in terms of you going hard for a short period and then you get natural breaks. That’s probably the biggest difference.

“As a head coach in the Premiership, you have to guide your way through a long season. URC you get natural breaks. The URC teams have quality and the South African additions have made it even tougher. You will see in the European how good a competition the URC is and we have already seen it – 15 out of 16 qualifying tells you everything you need to know really.”