Summer, for Glasgow Warriors, was a period of grim introspection. A squad reeling from the 76-14 evisceration at the RDS. Their head coach, Danny Wilson, consigned to the chop by the tameness of the quarter-final hammering in Leinster. Most wounding of all, their effort questioned by punters and pundits, the gravest accusation that can ever be levelled at a sportsman.
The club’s senior athletic performance coach, was at the heart of the frank debrief. Brutal but necessary truths were aired when the players returned to Scotstoun. There was a collective understanding that change was needed, and that change would be measured in pre-season sweat.
“Danny lost his job and we all felt a bit responsible for that,” O’Donoghue tells RugbyPass+. “When you’re faced with a defeat like that, you have two choices: lie down and feel sorry for yourself or face up to it.
“We were not going to let lack of effort beat us. We were going to get back to basics, put in massive, massive work rate so we won’t be found wanting in that area.
“We made that commitment to each other. The guys bought into it and began to drive it, because they wanted to rectify what happened.”
So began a sinew-straining, lung-burning programme. Franco Smith was appointed midway through and kicked the training intensity higher still. Twelve-hour days became commonplace. Extras on top of extras. Upper-body weight training for the slender backs. Endless hours on the dreaded wattbike for the beefier individuals. This gives Glasgow the capacity to deliver the all-action style Smith craves.
O’Donoghue and his boss, Cillian Reardon, are known with rueful fondness as the ‘Irish mafia’ among the players. When you run the gamut of their heinous physical torments, you understand why.
“We did a lot more circuits-type metabolic conditioning in the gym,” says the County Cork native. “We started contact early in the pre-season as part of our conditioning. Guys smashing sausage bags, sausage slams, getting off the line and hitting bags, getting off the deck and grappling, actions quite similar to what they’re asked to do in games. Indoors, we merged in high-intensity finishers to our gym exercises – powerbag work, med ball work, core work, arms, ball rips – doing a lot more work with less load.
“The boys who need to control their body fat would be on the wattbike. We do fasted bike sessions on a Monday and Thursday morning. They come in early, wouldn’t have any breakfast, do it in a state of carbohydrate depletion at 60-70% intensity, so it doesn’t knock too much out of them physically but helps with that fat-burning process.
O’Donoghue drew inspiration from Dennis Rodman, in his days as the Detroit Pistons’ coal shoveller, and the storied ‘Black Mamba’ mindset of the late Kobe Bryant.
“It’s hard. They then go out and do work in their playing units and a training session, a gym session, and another wattbike session in the afternoon. Then they’re doing it again on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. That laid a lot of the foundations, it meant they could train at a higher intensity. That’s ultimately where performance will come from.”
Imagery and competition are important training tools. O’Donoghue drew inspiration from Dennis Rodman, in his days as the Detroit Pistons’ coal shoveller, and the storied ‘Black Mamba’ mindset of the late Kobe Bryant.
“We wanted to create more of a ‘why’,” he says. “Rodman was a very maverick-like character but with the Pistons he was quiet, often the sixth man, and even when he was moved into the starting five, he was actually saying to the coach, ‘are you sure you want me in there?’
“In his first season, he got defensive player of the year. He would do all the hard stuff to the highest degree – rebounding, defence work, getting those breaking balls.
“The coaches would vote for the best trainer of the week, and they would get to wear a Pistons Rodman vest in the gym for the next week. We got their pictures on the wall and those are still up there. That creates competitiveness and fun, the boys like that.
“We worked our theme around two words in one: teamwork. We do everything for the ‘team’, we scrap for every ball, make sure we’re in great condition, always there for the guy beside you. The ‘work’ was the output of what we were doing to get there.
This exhausting summer produced some remarkable individual results. Sione Vailanu was always an immense carrier but he is skittling defenders deep into games thanks to burning 15kg from his vast form.
“We themed our game speed model around Kobe Bryant and the black mamba. Getting into those good power positions in attack and defence, we named that the mamba position. We absolutely drove it into the lads for six weeks, until they were sick of it, so we could then do more specific work. The next strand to add is that mamba mentality he had, the clear focus, trying to bring that in for the end of the season when we’ll hopefully have some more big knockout games coming up.”
This exhausting summer produced some remarkable individual results. Sione Vailanu was always an immense carrier but he is skittling defenders deep into games thanks to burning 15kg from his vast form.
“He knew coming in he had to work on his fitness levels but he did every bit of pre-season, all the extra bike sessions, his backside was probably raw from that wattbkike but there was never a peep out of him. He’s continued that throughout. He didn’t just do it for six weeks. Even now when he’s playing a lot, we’re still trying to get better all the time.
“Stafford McDowall is another great example of a guy who has gone from strength to strength in all his scores and conditioning. Jamie Dobie is another.
“We traffic light our big lifts and fitness tests. Green is ‘true warrior’ status and Josh McKay is the first guy to achieve green in every exercise. The majority of lads hit a personal best on the bronco test this season. All these things give you the potential to perform, but you have to execute at training over and over and over.”
The toil has borne fruit in a spectacular way. Since November, Glasgow have played 14 games and lost once, a rearranged trip to Johannesburg and the Lions with a depleted squad. They are guaranteed a URC quarter-final and with the Scarlets and Connacht visiting Scotstoun before the play-offs, are a good bet for home seeding in the last eight. They host the Lions on Saturday evening for a place in the Challenge Cup semi-finals, a competition which suddenly looks winnable. No Scottish team has triumphed in Europe before.
Glasgow have won nothing yet, but they have that long, hot Scotstoun summer, the platform it laid, the deep bonds it forged, and of course, the Irish mafia, to thank for a mouth-watering season finale
And Glasgow are achieving this with a potent cocktail of speed and snarl. They have conjured some scintillating rugby, but are just as effective and just as happy when trampling teams to death with their driven maul or close-quarter brawn. The grind has brought them together.
“I’m a real believer in the psychological side of people applying themselves to everything they do,” says O’Donoghue. “It sets them up for when stress hits in really, really hard places on the pitch. It prepares them mentally for those hard times when decisions are going against you, the walls are caving in, can you stay together and trust each other as team-mates? The guys have done that as a whole from day one, just saying, ‘yep, we want to get better’. They carry that on into training and games.”
Glasgow have won nothing yet, but they have that long, hot Scotstoun summer, the platform it laid, the deep bonds it forged, and of course, the Irish mafia, to thank for a mouth-watering season finale.
We need more of this across the board in Scottish rugby