New Nottingham boss Marting Haag can make the step up says Ian McGeechan
Haag and McGeechan both left Bath in the summer after the club missed out on Heineken Cup qualification.
While legendary Lions coach ‘Geech’ is considering his future options (“I’ve got a few irons in the fire”), Haag is already hard at work turning Nottingham into serious Championship contenders.
“He’s a very good coach and one I enjoyed working with at Bath,” said McGeechan. “He’s very well prepared, has a great understanding of the game, and he is somebody I consider to be just right to be taking on a head coach’s duties.
“I think the Nottingham players will thrive on his rugby knowledge and the way he presents his ideas. He develops very good relationships with players and players like working with him.
“He is very conscientious and puts a lot of hours in, I’m sure he’ll be a success.”
Haag beat off competition from a number of high profile candidates – including former London Welsh coach Phil Greening – to succeed long-serving Delaney.
McGeechan added: “He’s done England age-group coaching and last year shared coaching responsibilities at Bath, so this is a logical step for someone with such a good portfolio of experience.”
Haag, on McGeechan’s say-so, was promoted to first team coach at Bath last season, helping him become accustomed to a bigger share of the spotlight. McGeechan continued: “I felt my role there was to develop coaches and to be a sounding board for them, which is why we named Martin and Brad Davis as first-team coaches.
“They shared tactical responsibilities as well as all the other things that go with it like speaking to the Press. Hopefully I helped give him and Brad a little bit of direction and advice down the line.”
Having worked under such luminaries as Jack Rowell as a player of over 300 appearances for Bath, and more recently McGeechan, Haag clearly has a head start over many of his peers. While keen to embrace some of the ideas of his mentors Haag, 43, is very much his own man.
He said: “Everybody has their own style, but from a technical point of view and also the mental side – how you treat players and how you deal with them – you obviously pick up bits and pieces.
“But one thing you can’t do is to try to emulate them because I’m no Jack Rowell or Ian McGeechan.
“I’m confident in my ability and I’ve gained lots of experience from 11 years of coaching and I’m looking forward to using what I’ve learnt along the way to make Nottingham successful.”
Success for Haag in his first year in charge would be a top four Championship finish.
He added: “I’ve now got the opportunity to drive a programme and help Nottingham fulfil its ambition.
“I can see and understand where they want to get to, the Premiership, and it’s great to be part of that and experience being a head coach.
“Having got the job over some outstanding candidates it’s now up to deliver what I said I was going to deliver. My job is to get the best out of the guys and push for the top four.
“It won’t be easy because this league is getting stronger and people are spending more and more money.
“But the attitude of the guys here is fantastic and some of the work that’s gone on since the players reported back for pre-season in May has been superb.”
Assistant coaches Ben Johnston and Neil Fowkes and fitness, plus conditioning coach Joe Brun, can take the credit for that and Haag confirmed all three will have a place on the coaching team under him.
It also appears that Haag will have to work with the squad that he has got with no scope to bring in additional players other than triallists and dual-registered players from Leicester Tigers.
Meanwhile, Nottingham CEO Simon Beatham is confident the club meets Premiership Rugby’s entry criteria.
The Green & Whites have an agreement in place with Nottingham Forest to use the City Ground as a standby venue should Meadow Lane be unavailable, although it is unclear whether the football club’s recent change of ownership would impact on this either way.
JON NEWCOMBE
