Skerries set the bar high
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NEW Skerries RFC coach and director of rugby John Murphy says he aims to lead the Holmpatrick-based outfit back to the All-Ireland League. Murphy has ended a 25year stint coaching with the IRFU and takes over from Ben Gissing who steered the team to a disappointing fifth-place finish in last season's Leinster Division 1A.
Explaining the move, Murphy told the Fingal Independent: 'With the IRFU I was involved with player development, coach education and, to a big degree, running the national schoolboy set-up which was very successful for a long number of years.
'But I'm finished working with the IRFU now and and I'm going to work with the club where I live and played myself.
'It's a new challenge, different because the players you are dealing with have come from a different background.
'The club were involved at Division 2 level in the AIL before and have slipped a bit and the aim is to work towards getting back to that level.' However, Murphy – who until recently coached one of Skerries' underage sides – warned that there are no quick fixes and that the club's supporters might need to be patient.
'The intention is to try and build on last year when they made a certain amount of progress, but it's not going to be a magic wand. I would hope to be involved for a couple of seasons and it will take time.
'It's hard to put a finger on what went wrong last season, but the scrum was struggling. We will need to ensure that the set-piece part of the game is well organised and well coached, so that the difficulty can be addressed early in our league campaign or even in pre-season.'
Murphy will be assisted at Skerries this year by former Leinster player Chris Keane – coach of neighbouring Swords RFC last season – who will play at scrum half as well as coaching the backs, and he describes Keane's arrival as a 'big bonus'.
This coming season's Division 1A campaign has the potential to be a cracker, with all eight teams aware that because of league restructuring, the club that finishes top will automatically gain promotion to the AIL instead of having to win an additional round-robin competition.
'Promotion is an obvious goal,' acknowledged Murphy.
'But what I'm going to do is meet the players, set out what targets I see us potentially achieving and then see what they want to achieve.
'I can drive the players, but if they don't want to go where I want them to go, it's not going to happen.
'If we can get good-quality performances, the results will come and hopefully we'll then be in a position to be challenging towards the end of the season.' Meanwhile, Swords have confirmed their coaching team for 2010/11. Dessie O'Connor will be head coach and will also take charge of the forwards, while Jonny Bracken will coach the backs, Lee Kelly is in charge of fitness and Fiachra Coll has been named as captain.
- Marcus CAVAROLI
