There are two public images of Andy Farrell. One is the teak-tough rugby league player who made a barnstorming debut for Wigan Warriors at the age of just 16 and burst on to the international stage with Great Britain two years later in a glittering career in the 13-a-side code. The other is the worldly-wise and earnest head coach of Ireland’s rugby union team.
Yet Joe Schmidt has seen another side to Farrell, one which helps explain the 49-year-old’s remarkable rise to become the pre-eminent head coach in the northern hemisphere and the first Englishman to take charge of the British and Irish Lions for the tour of Australia next summer since Sir Clive Woodward in 2005.
Schmidt first met Farrell when he had just made the switch as a player to rugby union at Saracens, as the New Zealander was visiting fellow Kiwis Taine Randell and Glen Jackson at the Premiership club.
“He was playing for Saracens, I was catching up with some of the Kiwi guys and Dimes [Steve Diamond] was coaching them at that stage,” recalls Schmidt, the former Ireland head coach who was parachuted into the Australia job earlier this year with the specific mission to make the Wallabies a competitive force again by the time of the Lions tour. “He impressed me then even though he was injured at the time.”
By the time Schmidt had been appointed Ireland head coach in 2013 after guiding Leinster to back-to-back Heineken Cup titles, Farrell was already a coaching rival as one of England’s assistants, having been recruited by Stuart Lancaster the previous year to become defence coach.
Ireland held the balance of power in the run-up to the 2015 World Cup, winning the Six Nations title in 2014 and 2015, but Schmidt held England in high regard.
“I think they got second place for four years in a row in the Six Nations and we won a couple of those by the skin of our teeth,” Schmidt added. “So there wasn’t much in that at all. I got to know Stuart and Andy through that contest.”
England’s pool stage exit at the 2015 World Cup culminated in Farrell losing his job when Eddie Jones succeeded Lancaster, but it proved a defining moment for both Schmidt and Farrell.
When Farrell reached out to Schmidt to catch up, the New Zealander, with the encouragement of Johnny Sexton, the Ireland fly-half who had worked with Farrell during the Lions tour of Australia in 2013, moved quickly and promptly.
He was signed up as Ireland’s new defence coach within three weeks of his departure from England.
“He actually just dropped me a message and said it would be good to catch up,” recalls Schmidt. “And I thought it would be really good to catch up and it was great to get him on board.”
Farrell relocated his family to Dublin as a demonstration of his commitment to his new role and he quickly emerged as a key figure in Schmidt’s Ireland. Within his first year working with Schmidt, Ireland recorded their first ever victory against New Zealand, in Chicago.
Ireland then recorded their first victory over the All Blacks on Irish soil two years later, after completing the Grand Slam by beating Jones’ England side with a tactical masterclass in arctic conditions as the ‘beast from the east’ winter storm hit Twickenham.
Farrell mixes playfulness with technical brilliance
“It was freezing cold in the Six Nations but Faz and Feeky [Greg Feeky] said they would shave their beards if we won the Grand Slam,” recalled Schmidt. “They did and I said to him afterwards: ‘Honestly Faz, you could play – you look like a boy!’ He just looked so young without it.”
It is that unseen playful side to Farrell, as well as his technical brilliance, that proved to be such an important ingredient in a Schmidt regime that could be intense and heavy on detail.
“First and foremost, he is a top bloke and we’d get on in a friendship anyway, but I massively respect his coaching ability,” added Schmidt. “He brings a real clarity and an energy to his coach delivery and that ripples through the team and the boys love working with him. I loved working with them.
“A lot of people bring positive energy but players also want clarity because there’s so much unknown about the game and players are nervous about the bounce of a ball or what might happen. Andy brings that clarity.
“The second thing is that he’s a good conversationalist. He genuinely cares about people, so he takes an interest in them. I think if you’ve got those fundamentals, probably the one underpins the whole lot of it is trust. Andy Farrell, there is a consistency about him.
“He is a ‘say it, do it’ sort of character and therefore players know there is a consequence if they’re not working hard or they’re not getting the things right. He will hold people to account. I am not trying to make a fluffy, teddy-bear image of this guy, you know, because he is far from that.”
But sometimes it was his people skills that acted as a release valve to ease the pressure on the players. “Enjoying yourself is a very important part of it. For example, the Kearney brothers [Rob and Dave] had been in a milk advertising campaign. Andy was giving really serious defensive feedback with the players.
“There would maybe be three or four images saying, ‘This is what we had delivered well,’ and then suddenly he would say, ‘Ah sorry boys, an intermission,’ and it would be the advert with the Kearney boys selling milk.
“The boys would be rolling around laughing and then would be back in it. The boys love it because you sit in this pressure cooker all the time.
‘Having that release valve is so important’
“Something that I loved was having good staff who could do that better than I could. I know it is an intense situation being in a Test match moment that matters, and all of them really do, and to build to that there has got to be an intensity in preparation. But having that release valve is so important.
“Faz does that really well, along with the other end of it with accountability. And he genuinely cares about other people.
“I think he’s a great blend for a head coach and a great blend for a member of a coaching team because Faz does not have an ego. He’s not going to put himself out there and beat his chest if something goes well.”
Which brings us to Saturday, when Farrell will go head-to-head with Schmidt for the first time as head coaches as Ireland look to crown their 150th anniversary celebrations with a victory over Australia in Dublin.
One suspects the two men, friends who have brought the best out of each other in their stellar coaching journeys, will also be desperate to land a psychological blow in what is the Wallabies’ final Test match before they face the Lions in Brisbane next July.
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