Northern Edition

Select Edition

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

Richie Murphy has 7-game audition for Ulster top job

Ireland head coach Richie Murphy before the U20 Six Nations Rugby Championship match between Ireland and Italy at Virgin Media Park in Cork. (Photo By Brendan Moran/Sportsfile via Getty Images)

Richie Murphy has been told that he has got a seven-game audition to secure himself the Ulster job on a permanent basis after being handed control at the Kingspan Stadium until the end of the season.

ADVERTISEMENT

The Ireland Under-20 head coach has been named as Dan McFarland’s replacement after the long-serving boss departed from the Province after six years in charge earlier this week.

Murphy was appointed Ireland’s Under-20 head coach in 2021 after, as skills coach, helping Leinster win three Heineken Cup titles and will link up with Ulster after the Under-20s Six Nations.

Video Spacer

Ricardo Loubscher speaks about the Bok alignment camp

Video Spacer

Ricardo Loubscher speaks about the Bok alignment camp

His first games in charge will come against United Rugby Championship strugglers The Sharks in Durban, and he has been told the job on a permanent basis is his to lose.

Ulster are hanging onto the final place in the URC quarter-finals by their fingertips, and multiple sources have told RugbyPass that there are no plans for them to recruit anyone else.

Ireland Under-20 scrum coach Aaron Dundon has backed Murphy to be a success in Belfast despite never holding a number-ones role at a club before.

“I don’t think it was too much of a shock [that he got the job]. We know he is a top-class coach, and he was going to get picked up sooner rather than later,” Dundon told the BBC.

ADVERTISEMENT

Related

 

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

T
Tom 1 hour ago
England player ratings vs South Africa | 2024 Autumn Nations Series

That 2019 performance was literally the peak in attacking rugby under Eddie. If you thought that was underwhelming, the rest of it was garbage.


I totally get what you're saying and England don't need or have any God given right to the best coaches in the world... But I actually think the coaches we do have are quite poor and for the richest union in the world, that's not good enough. 


England are competitive for sure but with the talent pool up here and the funds available, we should be in the top 3. At the very least we should be winning six nations titles on a semi-regular basis. If Ireland can, England definitely should.


England's attack coach (Richard Wigglesworth) is Borthwick's mate from his playing days at Saracens, who he brought to Leicester with him when he became coach. Wigglesworth was a 9 who had no running or passing game, but was the best box kicker in the business. He has no credentials to be an attack coach and I've seen nothing to prove otherwise. Aside from Marcus Smith’s individual brilliance, our collective attack has looked very uninspiring.

 

England's defence coach (Joe El-Abd) is Borthwick's housemate from uni, who has never been employed as a defence coach before. He's doing the job part time while he's still the head coach of a team in the second division of French rugby who have an awful defensive record. England's defence has gone from being brutally efficient under Felix Jones to as leaky as a colander almost overnight.


If Borthwick brings in a new attack and defence coach then I'll absolutely get behind him but his current coaches seem to be the product of nepotism. He's brought in people he's comfortable with because he lacks confidence as an international head coach and they aren't good enough for international rugby.


England are competitive because they do some things really well, mostly they front up physically, make a lot of big hits, have a solid kicking game, a good lineout, good maul, Marcus Smith and some solid forwards. A lot of what we do well I would ascribe to Borthwick personally. I don't think he's a bad coach, I think he lacks imagination and is overly risk averse. He needs coaches who will bring a point of difference.


I guess my point is, yes England are competitive, but we’re not aiming for competitive and I honestly don't believe this coaching setup has what it takes to make us any better than competitive.


On the plus side it looks like we have an amazing crop of young players coming through. Some of them who won the u20 world cup played for England A against Australia A on the weekend and looked incredible... Check out the highlights on youtube.

12 Go to comments
TRENDING
TRENDING New Zealand miss out in player of the year awards New Zealand miss out in Player of the Year awards
Search