Northern Edition

Select Edition

Northern Northern
Southern Southern
Global Global
New Zealand New Zealand
France France

O'Brien, Jackson head big-name cast coaching London Irish amateurs

(Photo by Sportsfile via Getty Images)

London Irish Wild Geese, the Regional 2 Thames amateur team attached to the Gallagher Premiership club, have unveiled a big-name cast of coaches for the 2022/23 season which includes ex-Ireland internationals Sean O’Brien and Paddy Jackson. Having retired from playing in May, O’Brien has since taken up a role as a contact skills coach with his native Leinster.

ADVERTISEMENT

However, his ties at London Irish, whom he joined in 2019, haven’t been completely cut as he will be technical director of rugby for the Wild Geese who have a coaching roster consisting of head coach Ryan Gregory and assistants Hugh O’Sullivan, Jackson, Matt Cornish and Willie Lafolafo.   

Jackson, who will provide attack and skills coaching, hooked up with the Wild Geese at Irish towards the end of the 2021/22 season and he will now continue to assist the amateur side in what will be his fourth Premiership season playing at London Irish under Declan Kidney.  

Video Spacer

Citing Dismissed | Headline News

READ STORY

Video Spacer

Citing Dismissed | Headline News

READ STORY

“I’m really looking forward to getting to know the players and coaches better this season and am excited at the prospect of where we can take this Wild Geese squad,” he told the club website. “Hazelwood is a fantastic home of rugby in South West London and if we can form a tighter relationship between the amateur and professional set up that will be an added bonus!”

Regarding the appointment of O’Brien, a statement read: “London Irish Amateur Rugby Football Club are privileged to announce Sean O’Brien will be taking up the role of technical director of rugby for the London Irish Wild Geese for the coming season 2022/2023.

Related

“Sean had a distinguished career and LIARFC are delighted he has accepted a formal role within the club. Last season Sean was a key part of the senior coaching structure and next season Sean will be working with his close colleague and new head coach for adult rugby, Ryan Gregory, who joins us having previously coached at Chobham and Camberley.”

With Gregory also taking on the role of forwards coach, it leaves professional team scrum-half O’Sullivan assisting as backs and skills coach with fellow pro Matt Cornish serving as scrum coach. Lafolafo, a former rugby league pro player, will act as a strength and conditioning coach.    

ADVERTISEMENT

The London Irish Wild Geese finished twelfth in London 1 South last season, the division that London Welsh were promoted from to Regional 1 South Central following their second place finish. 

ADVERTISEMENT

LIVE

{{item.title}}

Trending on RugbyPass

Comments

0 Comments
Be the first to comment...

Join free and tell us what you really think!

Sign up for free
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest Features

Comments on RugbyPass

G
GrahamVF 40 minutes ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

"has SA actually EVER helped to develop another union to maturity like NZ has with Japan," yes - Argentina. You obviously don't know the history of Argentinian rugby. SA were touring there on long development tours in the 1950's

We continued the Junior Bok tours to the Argentine through to the early 70's

My coach at Grey High was Giepie Wentzel who toured Argentine as a fly half. He told me about how every Argentinian rugby club has pictures of Van Heerden and Danie Craven on prominent display. Yes we have developed a nation far more than NZ has done for Japan. And BTW Sa players were playing and coaching in Japan long before the Kiwis arrived. Fourie du Preez and many others were playing there 15 years ago.


"Isaac Van Heerden's reputation as an innovative coach had spread to Argentina, and he was invited to Buenos Aires to help the Pumas prepare for their first visit to South Africa in 1965.[1][2] Despite Argentina faring badly in this tour,[2] it was the start of a long and happy relationship between Van Heerden and the Pumas. Izak van Heerden took leave from his teaching post in Durban, relocated to Argentina, learnt fluent Spanish, and would revolutionise Argentine play in the late 1960s, laying the way open for great players such as Hugo Porta.[1][2] Van Heerden virtually invented the "tight loose" form of play, an area in which the Argentines would come to excel, and which would become a hallmark of their playing style. The Pumas repaid the initial debt, by beating the Junior Springboks at Ellis Park, and emerged as one of the better modern rugby nations, thanks largely to the talents of this Durban schoolmaster.[1]"


After the promise made by Junior Springbok manager JF Louw at the end of a 12-game tour to Argentina in 1959 – ‘I will do everything to ensure we invite you to tour our country’ – there were concerns about the strength of Argentinian rugby. South African Rugby Board president Danie Craven sent coach Izak van Heerden to help the Pumas prepare and they repaid the favour by beating the Junior Springboks at Ellis Park.

152 Go to comments
J
JW 7 hours ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

I rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.


He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.


The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).


The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.


The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).


It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.

152 Go to comments
LONG READ
LONG READ Does South Africa have a future in European competition? Does South Africa have a future in European competition?
Search