You may remember Tom Tierney. Heading off to Australia for the 1999 summer tour that gave us Brian O'Driscoll the Garryowen scrumhalf seemed destined for a long rivalry with Blackrock's Ciarán Scally.
Fate decreed otherwise. Scally was forced to retire the following September while Tierney played his last game for Ireland 15 years ago.
Not unlike London Irish director of operations Bob Casey and Harlequins director of rugby Conor O’Shea, he was a victim of Warren Gatland’s career-salvaging gamble.
After the gruesome 50-18 loss at Twickenham, Gatland shredded his team and started again. Two weeks later the age of Peter Stringer, all 98 caps and still soldiering for Bath, began against Scotland.
"Then I was out of action for a year and a half with my shoulder," he remembers. "Obviously Peter was in with Munster then. That's fine. That was just the way it was.
“After that I went over to Leicester for two seasons then to Connacht for four seasons then, in 2008, I retired through injury.”
Speaking before Ireland’s flight to Florence, as Ireland women’s head coach, his story is that of a survivor.
“I went straight into coaching, into Crescent Comp where I had to learn how to coach. I was conscious of that; coaching and playing, while they are side by side, are two very different things.
“Seven years later I am still at it.”
Three seasons as Garryowen head coach led him to this season’s hectic leap into three demanding jobs at each level below the professional ranks.
“Glenstal [Abbey school] head coach, Cork Con head coach and women’s Irish XV’s head coach,” he smiles. “No, it’s not easy. It’s taken a lot of work with the schedules just to make sure everything fits in.”
Something, eventually, has to give. There's only one weekend he's forced to double job as world champions England come to Ashbourne on February 27th with Con hosting Terenure the next day.
Doable
“You wouldn’t be doing it on a full-time basis. Obviously the opportunity of coaching the Irish women was something I couldn’t pass up from my own personal development. Knowing it was only until March that I would be working all three, once I knew that, while very tough in the short-term it’s doable but long-term, no, that wouldn’t be an option.
“The key is not to compromise any of them.”
The plan is for Tierney to take Ireland to the 2017 World Cup. And it’s a clean slate with no direct link to Philip Doyle’s coaching ticket, which guided them to last year’s semi-final. Marian Earls, the conditioning coach, has returned from Connacht but she’s working with the Sevens squad in DCU.
There has been zero contact with the previous regime.
“It was a conscious decision to come in cold,” he explains. “Just to get myself organised and go from scratch. Obviously some information has come back to me but this is about me putting my own slant on it.”
Declan O’Brien has the forwards, Derek Dowling monitors the scrum with Tierney running the backs, all overseen by new director of women’s rugby, Anthony Eddy.
Eddy was hand-picked by fellow Australian, IRFU Performance Director David Nucifora.
The squad, now captained by veteran fullback Niamh Briggs, have only had five camps since December based from Johnstown House in Enfield. There is some crossover from Sevens, like Jenny Murphy at outside centre against Italy tomorrow evening and debutant Hannah Tyrrell, who's a former Dublin football goalkeeper.
New era
There’s another five uncapped players on the bench as Tierney’s Ireland enter a new era without the country’s greatest ever women players Fiona Coghlan and
Lynne Cantwell
.
“We have had five camps of three to four sessions, which isn’t a lot but at the same time we were aware of that going in. We have planned and prepped as best we can to be ready for the first match against Italy this weekend.
“There is no excuses from that point of view. We are just going to get on with it.”
A huge French pack comes to Ashbourne RFC next weekend before England, making the opening fixture a must win.
“We’re going to be competitive. We have too many good players not to be.”
There are nine survivors from the 2013 Grand Slam clinching victory in a frost bitten Milan suburb – Briggs, Alison Miller, Nora Stapleton, Larissa Muldoon, Gillian Bourke, Ailis Egan, Sophie Spence, Marie Louise Reilly and Dr Claire Molloy – so the coach has inherited a decent spine.
Same coach whose back has suffered many a flaying.
“Obviously the way my playing career went, the ups and the downs, that toughens you up.”
