LAST UPDATE | 30 Apr 2018
FORMER CONNACHT FORWARDS coach Dan McFarland has been named as Ulster’s next head coach after the Scottish Rugby Union this morning confirmed he has activated a get-out clause from his current role with Scotland.
The SRU say McFarland will serve a nine-month notice period before leaving his job with Scotland under head coach Gregor Townsend, but The42 understands he will be free to leave for Belfast as soon as a replacement is appointed.
Shortly after the SRU’s announcement, Ulster confirmed the appointment of McFarland on a three-year contract to succeed Jono Gibbes, who is leaving at the end of the season to take up a position with Waikato in New Zealand.
The former Connacht prop will continue in his role as Scotland forwards coach for their summer tour of Canada, USA and Argentina, and it is then envisaged he will be released to move to Ulster ahead of the 2018/19 season.
“I am really excited that I will be taking on the Ulster Head Coach role,” he said.
“I know firsthand from my years visiting with Connacht and Glasgow the passion and fervour that makes playing in front of Ulster fans so special.
“It’s a club with a great history and I welcome the challenge of being a part of their future.”
Les Kiss exited his position as Ulster’s director of rugby by mutual consent at the end of January, when Gibbes took control of the team.
But with Gibbes’ upcoming exit confirmed at the start of March, Ulster have been looking for a new head coach and McFarland emerged as their number one candidate.
The 46-year-old played for Connacht as a loosehead prop in a career that also included stints with Richmond and Stade Français.
He moved into coaching with Connacht in 2006 and worked with the western province for nine years, during which time he also had roles with the Ireland U20s, Emerging Ireland and the Irish Wolfhounds.
McFarland moved to Glasgow Warriors as forwards coach under Townsend in 2015 and followed him into the Scotland national set-up in 2017.
“Dan was our number one candidate so we’re obviously very happy to have secured his services for the next three years,” Ulster’s rugby operations director, Bryn Cunningham, said.
“Dan’s CV is hugely impressive and he commands great respect within the game.
“He enjoyed successful spells with Connacht and Glasgow, and the fact that Gregor brought him into the Scotland set-up speaks volumes for how highly he rates him.
“Our priority in this process was to identify and recruit the best possible candidate first and foremost. With the confirmation of Dan’s appointment, we will be announcing at least one further addition to the coaching team in the near future to ensure that we have a strong unit in place in advance of pre-season.”
Scotland have confirmed that Worcester Warriors head coach Carl Hogg, who played for Scotland as a back row, has been added to their coaching staff on an interim basis.
Hogg will share the forward-coaching duties with McFarland on this summer’s tour.
Ulster’s chief executive, Shane Logan, added: “I’d like to congratulate Bryn and our Professional Game Board for conducting such a thorough process that has led to this appointment.
“We have worked closely with the IRFU and are very pleased with the outcome.”
With reporting by Ryan Bailey
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The Telegraph simply ignore one of the biggest police and political cover ups in Britain, ever. Classy.
You’re crazy if you think that was one of the biggest cover ups of the last few decades. This was just an example of a group of brave, relentless people who refused to back down, refused to give up and refused to go home without justice. As much as they they tried to ignore them and wished they’d just give up, they never did. And that deserves a hell of a lot of credit and respect. The people who only apologised after today should be ashamed of themselves. They knew for years that they were part of a vicious and cruel smear campaign and only said sorry when they had no other choice. I’d say today was a bitter sweet one for families of the 96.
I think it’s a bit late for The Sun to be making amends. It was one of the biggest offenders.
Strongbow,
They were the biggest offenders.
They ran with the story for days. It took them 20 years to print an apology, when all the original staff had left. It’s only now, after the hacking scandals that people have woken up to them.
#BuyTheS*n #JFT96
Hardly ever
The sun apology is too little and too late. Hope every Liverpool fan maintains the boycott on buying that rag.YNWA. Justice for the 96!
Shouldn’t be just Liverpool fans, this could have been forest fans had they been rammed into the leppings lane end or any other teams fans that could have been there that horrible day
If you went to a Restaraunt and found out the waiter had pissed in your soup, and the manager hadn’t apologised when you told him would you still eat there and order something else or boycott the place and never eat there again?
If you’re a Liverpool fan you don’t need to answer, I know where you stand. Don’t buy the sun yet no problem turning on Super Sunday.
It would be more apt if the title read “We Lied”. And what would you expect from the Daily Torygraph. J4T96 from a Celtic fan.
The S*n can take their apology and shove it.
The S*n apology is meaningless, if it happened on 20th April 1989, it would be 24 hours too late
23 years later it means nothing
The boycott continues until they cease to exist
Don’t Buy The Sun
JFT96
As a Manchester utd fan i have to say this. Today a great injustice was righted, today just was served to those fans who lost their lives, justice was served to those families who waved their family members off to watch a game of football and never came home. Today Liverpool football club and the city of Liverpool got justice.
No justice yet, just the truth, next is the fight for justice.
Justice will be when the people responsible are held accountable for their actions through legal actions
Today was a huge step but this only opened the gateway for justice
The campaign continues…
Spare a thought for the survivors too. As a relative of a survivor I know the nightmare will never go away.
JFT96
The Real Truth is that anyone who buys or has bought The Sun since 15.4.89 has facilitated the lies and propaganda that was revealed today in all it’s naked and hideous firm.
*form
and there was me thinking I was spending my euro on a decent gaa monday supplement and some tits on page 3.
Um, where is the Express’s daily Diana story? How quickly they forget. Too soon, Express, too soon.
Some woman wanting to have babies is much more interesting in some papers’ opinions…JFT96
The two worst days in football, the Hillsborough and Heysel Stadium disasters, let us remember those who did not come home………
and the Bradford City fire.
I don’t remember much of that day I was only 7 but I remember seeing my mum and dad staring at the tv. My mum was crying and my dad sat me on his lap hugged me tight and started crying. When I asked what was wrong I was told a lot of people had been hurt. The families deserve more than an explanation they deserve Justice
At last a small victory for victims families lets hope more to follow when those responsible are fully brought to justice and held to account for their actions or lack of as the case may be!! You’ll never walk alone, RIP
False in accurate reports ???
They say everything but admit to printing LIES !!!
It could be full of topless birds from front page to back page and I still wouldn’t buy they shite !!
Love the headline “The Real Truth” so what were readers reading before this ‘the false truth’!
Rip 96
I recall the day, still very sad, this news will be hard on the families but it can all be put to bed now.
When the 41 people who could have been saved are identified , don’t you think the pain will become more intense than ever for their families in particular?
Just looked at a recording of this years memorial service at Anfield which ended with the victims name, photo and age being shown one by one and couldn’t help but add 23 years to all their ages and wonder, what if?
Such a sad sad waste!
Wow , seems to getting a little bit lost that”41 lives could have been saved” , that’s pretty shocking , of course if circumstances had been different no lives might have been lost , but that just because of the shambolic nature of the operations around the vent 41 people then could have been saved , 23 years is a long time to have to wait for truth and justice.
@ShutDownTheSun
The hand of the harridan Thatcher:
But in a handwritten note, Mrs Thatcher made it clear that she did not want to give the government’s full backing to Lord Taylor’s criticisms, only to the way in which he had conducted his inquiry and made recommendations for action.
She wrote: “What do we mean by ‘welcoming the broad thrust of the report’? The broad thrust is devastating criticism of the police. Is that for us to welcome? Surely we welcome the thoroughness of the report and its recommendations – M.T.”
It’s the past. It’s not important. What’s important is the moment of now.
How is deaths of 96 innocent people who had their names smeared with lies that took 23 years to finally bring out the truth and expose a vile newspaper and a corrupt police force and smear campaign directed by a Thatcher government NOT important ?these are the same people who jailed innocent Irish men and women, Birmingham 6 and Guilford four, was that important that the truth came out ?
maybe now after a long long time, those 96 souls can rest in peace xx
So the thousands of supporters who barged their way in are not culpable?
Doesn’t make sense to me, it’s seems the blame should be shared to some degree.
I’ll even give myself the 1st red thumb.
The report is here: http://hillsborough.independent.gov.uk/repository/report/HIP_report.pdf
You can read it to see what a thoroughly inaccurate statement you made and see what a very poor attempt at a troll this was.
Read the report before making a stupid comment like that. They were coralled down a known bottle neck into an area with sub standard turnstiles in the smaller end of a stadium with no safety certificate. The reason they were in the smaller end was because it was easier for the fans of forest to go to the other end of the stadium. Due to an accident on the motorway the fans all arrived at the same time into sub standard turnstile that couldn’t deal with the numbers, also a problem that had occurred two years previous in another semi. A crush developed outside so the order was given to open the gate to alleviate the pressure, while inside the officer in charge presumed the officers would have the intiative to send the fans away from the already full central pens to the side pens. On top of all this the capacity of the pens had already been a bone of contention with sheffield wenesday and safety officers. So get your facts right before you come out with such brazen stupidity
1st up it was an honest question. 2nd it isn’t an attempt to troll and 3rd there is no such thing as a stupid question only stupid answers.
I read the report and while there were gross errors made by the police that lead to this tragedy and apologies were due. What were all the extra fans doing there in the first place?
I’ll never forget watching the scenes myself it was horrific. So get off your high horses and try to answer the question. Surely there should be some shared responsibility of some degree? Why turn up to a game with no ticket in such large numbers in the first place. It creates a scenario where stupid decisions have to be made on the fly and can result in accidents.
Which is what happened on the day. Sure it’s deplorable what the police did to try to cover up the errors made that resulted in deaths and a possible 41 could have been saved. But again why were so many extra thousands there in the first place. If they weren’t there none of it would’ve happened.
It’s simple logic I’m applying I’m not trying to troll just merely asking a reasonable and sound question.