With Connacht’s loss widely believed to be Ulster’s gain over Mark Sexton’s future workplace, the notion is gaining traction that the northern province are assembling a coaching team familiar to Richie Murphy from his time at Ireland U20s.
Attack coach Sexton has been strongly linked with a move to the Kingspan Stadium where Jimmy Duffy is already looking after the forwards, while it is also thought that Willie Faloon could also be heading towards next season’s senior coaching ticket.
Current Ulster head coach Murphy unsurprisingly opted for the straight bat approach when asked about Sexton’s already trailed departure for the North.
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“There’s always going to be speculation out there,” said Murphy, whose Ulster side are at Leicester Tigers for Saturday’s third round of Champions Cup pool games after already shipping two heavy defeats to Toulouse and Bordeaux-Begles last month.
“We’re a fairly long way down the process of settling our coaching team for next year but we’re not finished yet.
“There are a few coaches off contract at the end of the year that are with us so over the next couple of weeks we’ll be in a position to clarify what’s happening next year but we’re not there yet.
“There’s potentially a new coaching position within Ulster Rugby and a restructuring of different roles as well. It’s unfinished at the moment, so I can’t confirm what that looks like,” he added.
Ulster are coming off the two-week break in games bolstered by their victory at Connacht which halted a damaging run of five straight reverses in all competitions, though they will now be facing a formidable challenge from Michael Cheika’s Tigers while the injury-hit province also having to do without tighthead prop Tom O’Toole for this next block due to the ban following his red card against Munster.
“These are games you have to win,” he admitted with Ulster propping up Pool One along with winless Exeter Chiefs, “but what we want to do is go over there, make Leicester feel uncomfortable and if we can stay in the game then maybe we can sneak one”.
It will also bring Murphy in direct opposition to former Leinster boss Cheika who brought the Bray native into the Leinster set up.
“Michael [Cheika] gave me my first coaching job in professional coaching, I was part of the Leinster Academy when he took over the senior team and I worked for him as the kicking coach for all the back three players and took over the goal kicking with Felipe [Contepomi] and Jonny [Sexton] at the time.
“I owe him a lot. It’ll be interesting to see him again.”
As for the law trials being given an airing at the weekend, the Ulster head coach is clearly not an enthusiast for such alteration being made mid-season.
“I’m not sure changing the laws during the season is a very good idea,” he stated. “It’s strange. Loads of systems then have to be looked at and even the nine going past the midpoint of the scrum, the change that makes to a defensive system is massive.
“It’s tough but it is what it is, and we’ll get on with it.”
“The 60 seconds for a conversion is wrong, it’s too tight,” he added.
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