O'Sullivan off to the States as consultant

RUGBY:FORMER IRISH head coach Eddie O'Sullivan has agreed a short-term contract in the US to work with a number of elite colleges as a consultant.

Initially approached by Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, among the other schools where O'Sullivan will run coaching clinics are Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and Middle Tennessee State University.

He will also oversee an age-grade coaching clinic in Rice College, in Houston, Texas.

O'Sullivan will also run coaching sessions at some of America's leading Super League teams, including the Chicago Griffins, Denver Barbarians and current champions New York Athletic Club.

He will leave for the States next Thursday and, following his six-week sojourn there, he will return to coach one of the sides in the Help for Heroes charity match at Twickenham on September 20th. O'Sullivan will coach the International Selection, which is being managed by Ieuan Evans and captained by Scott Gibbs, and features Jonah Lomu.

The Help for Heroes XV team will be managed by Simon Halliday, coached by Phil de Glanville and captained by Lawrence Dallaglio, and feature Martin Johnson. The game will be televised live by Sky Sports, and the match hopes to raise at least €1.5 million for the Help for Heroes Foundation for British armed forces victims of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

After that, such is the relative shallowness of the pool for professional coaches globally, O'Sullivan has no immediate prospects of renewing his coaching career on a full-time basis.

His agent, John Baker, commented last night: "There was absolutely no truth in the speculation linking Eddie with the Ospreys or London Irish."

Meanwhile, Mike Brewer is expected to be confirmed as the new Scottish forwards coach soon, having apparently been chosen from a shortlist which also included former Munster and Irish forwards/assistant coach Niall O'Donovan.

The 43-year-old Brewer, who won 32 caps in an injury-bedevilled, 10-year career with the All Blacks from 1986 to 1995, had been a full-time forwards/assistant coach to Michael Cheika at Leinster for the last couple of seasons, helping to oversee a significant upturn in their forward play.

He had a brief stint as assistant/forwards coach to the Irish team in the mid-1990s. Since then he has largely remained in Europe, coaching Blackrock College RFC (1996-97), West Hartlepool (1997-99), L'Aquila (2000-02) and Old Belvedere RFC (2002-04).

He had wanted to become a head coach, and had been linked with Biarritz, before being interviewed for the Scottish position created by the dismissal of George Graham after the Six Nations.

The decision by Frank Hadden and the Scottish RFU - who remained tight-lipped yesterday, when a spokesperson merely commented "when we're ready to make a statement we'll do so" - will, it seems, leave O'Donovan in something of a coaching limbo.

Having coached his old club Shannon to four AIL titles, O'Donovan was assistant coach to the Munster team for five years until the end of the 2001-02 season, during which time they reached the Heineken Cup finals of 2000 and 2002.

His reputation soared since becoming Ireland's forwards coach in December 2001, also assuming the reins as head coach for the two-Test tour to Japan in 2003.

Although he was temporarily re-hired for Ireland's summer tour to New Zealand and Australia, the desire for fresh ideas and voices in both the Munster and Irish set-ups left O'Donovan with few options in his native country.