Relegation fight? I don’t care what you media think says Tom Coventry
The bullish 49-year-old, right, was supposed to arrive in Sunbury after the World Cup but he decided to relinquish his assistant coach role with Samoa in order to be involved in the entire pre-season.
With a new-look coaching set-up and a dozen players either joining or leaving the club, Coventry is aware it will take time for the Exiles to fire on all cylinders – especially after finishing tenth in the Premiership for the past two seasons.
But he will focus on his own expectations.
“I’m not interested in what the media think. All that interest me is my team and people around me at the club,” he told The Rugby Paper. “We have our own expectations with the standards we want to be at. We have enough to think about before I get side-tracked and start thinking about what outsiders say.
“We understand it’s going to take time but we want to compete from day one. Our results in recent years haven’t been great but I hope we can change that this season.
“I want my players to be able to play a multitude of styles. If you only have one style you get shut down pretty easy so I want them to adapt to the opposition and find a way to beat them.
“It was important for me to arrive at Irish as early as possible after all the changes at the club. This long pre-season has been refreshing for me, I got a lot of time to know the players and what sort of athletes they are.
“We spent a week in Cork a few weeks back and that was great for us to learn more about our Irish heritage. It gave us a bigger picture about what the club represents and who we are playing for.”
Coventry’s takeover was announced back in January following the abrupt departure of Brian Smith.
That meant the recruitment, which included All Black Ben Franks, Scottish Lion Sean Maitland and Wallaby Brendan McKibbin, was mainly done by chief executive Bob Casey and head of rugby operations Glenn Delaney – but Coventry, the former Chiefs assistant coach, played a part in the luring of highly-rated Chiefs lock Matt Symons.
He added: “Bob and Glenn did most of the contracting. They know the Premiership and the type of players you need to be competitive in this league so I trusted their judgment.
“Matt made a decision to come back to England and I advised him to follow me to Sunbury. He’s a great player and what he’s achieved in New Zealand is sensational. It’s nice to have players around you who you have a good relationship with.”
Coventry acknowledges it is not all about the star signings, however, adding: “I’ve been really impressed by the academy players here. They have a long way to go yet and they might get most of their game time on loan but I’m interested to see how they develop training with the first team every day.
“Fly-half Theo Brophy-Clews has been very impressive. He’s only 19 but he’s got a clever brain for such a young man.”
NICK VERDIER
