Joe Schmidt’s steer put Exiles on Tom Coventry’s trail
Coventry, currently assistant coach at the Chiefs and a former Waikato playing colleague of Wales head-honcho Warren Gatland, will arrive in London on completion of the Super Rugby season to replace Brian Smith, released last week on compassionate grounds.
Big things will be expected of Coventry, a former loose forward who worked his way up the coaching ladder to achieve trophy success at Hawke’s Bay and the Chiefs, with whom he won back-to-back Super Rugby titles in 2012 and 2013.
Confirming that Coventry, 48, had been the club’s first choice, Fitzgerald told The Rugby Paper: “Over the last six months, through our rugby committee, we’ve been trawling the world for the right coach and right person to take this on.
“Interestingly, the reference for Tom Coventry came from Joe Schmidt. We spoke to Joe about who the best coaches were and he said, ‘have you thought of this guy?’.
“Glenn Delaney, our forwards coach, is a Kiwi who has lots of contacts, so we did a lot of work on Tom’s background and, ultimately, he came top of the list.
“Tom has been schooled in probably the best rugby environment in New Zealand, which is saying something, and works with people like Wayne Smith and Dave Rennie.
“With two Super 15 titles under their belts, that group has been very innovative over the last ten years and he has been part of that Chiefs system. That’s a significant amount of experience that we hope Tom can bring to bear at London Irish.”
On the decision to jettison Smith early, Fitzgerald said: “There was obviously a lot of speculation which was driven by the fact his contract was up at the end of the season, and we’d always taken the view that we were going to make changes.
“Sometimes a change needs to be made to freshen things up and now we’ve all but secured our Premiership status, we decided to act.”
Fitzgerald confirmed that Delaney, in temporary charge following Smith’s departure, and backs coach Richard Whiffin will remain part of the coaching team.
“Glenn and Richard will be staying, Tom’s happy with that, and he has one or two additional coaches on his radar screen,” Fitzgerald said.
With New Zealand prop Ben Franks already signed, Fitzgerald envisages more arrivals, saying: “There are some very interesting names in the offing over the next month or so.”
Fitzgerald promised the new regime will be given time, adding: “There’s no point me saying we’re going to be top four next season, that’s ridiculous.
“You’ve got to work through things over time, build a squad and it’s going to take two or three years to get to where we want to be.”
NEALE HARVEY
