The top man in the IRFU, and a Connacht native, Billy Glynn, has said he would like to see an Irish coach take charge of Connacht after Eric Elwood leaves.
To be honest, we’re still reeling from the news that Eric Elwood will no longer be involved with Connacht after this season, The great stalwart announced his decision to step down earlier this month and ever since, thoughts have turned to who will step into his place.
While there are many Irish coaches at the helm of Heineken Cup teams, only one of them is in charge of an Irish team, and that is Elwood. With that in mind, IRFU President Billy Glynn has spoken about how he wants a home-grown man to replace Elwood.
“I think I’d like to see Connacht recruit a homegrown coach,” Glynn is quoted as saying in the Irish Independent today. “We see now that our homegrown coaches are emigrating. We have a number of them in England, and that’s not good for the game in Ireland.
“We have to see that there is a place for them in Ireland, and this is an opportunity to do that. There are lots of good coaches out there.
“Names have been mentioned in the media. Certainly all of those people are applicants and I’m sure some of those people who have gone abroad are applicants. That would be good.
“We can’t just ignore our local coaches. We’ve seen they are successful abroad, so there is no reason why they can’t be successful here.”
The leading Irish candidates are former Irish coach Eddie O’Sullivan and Munster’s Anthony Foley but the post has attracted interest from around the world. That said, it seems the push is on for a local.
That has to be good news for Eddie, right?
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