This post is part of The42′s Facing History series, supported by Cadbury Boost. To read more, click here.
MIKE BREWER HAS fond memories of his three years with Leinster, even if he missed out on being there for 2009, when Michael Chieka’s team got over the line in the Heineken Cup.
The 32-times capped former All Black has been back home in New Zealand since 2011 and is now working with IRANZ, the International Rugby Academy of New Zealand, who run high-performance courses for players and coaches.
We meet at IRANZ‘s Wellington office, on the top floor of a building overlooking Oriental Bay, where a relaxed Brewer is happy in his developmental work.
Brewer, who worked as Leinster’s forwards coach from 2005 until 2008, says his greatest satisfaction from that time was playing a small part in shifting the culture.
“My greatest memory was going into – and I hope Drico and the boys don’t mind me saying this – an environment where there were a lot of very, very good players but they were all playing for themselves,” says Brewer.
“They didn’t really have that understanding of creating a team environment and the sum is bigger than the parts. That’s what we did with Chiek, myself and Knoxy [David Knox], getting them to understand that they had to develop.”
Brewer originally moved to Ireland in 1996 to play and coach with Blackrock College RFC, returning from spells in England and Italy to coach Old Belvedere and Barnhall, before Chieka came calling from Leinster.
Brewer and Chieka at Leinster training in 2005. INPHO
INPHO
The ex-back row recalls being in Lansdowne Road as a spectator on 2 April 2005, when Leicester arrived for a Heineken Cup quarter-final and left with a 29-13 victory. Even with the likes of Brian O’Driscoll, Shane Horgan, Denis Hickie, Felipe Contepomi, Malcolm O’Kelly, Leo Cullen and Keith Gleeson starting, Leinster simply weren’t good enough.
“They got hammered,” recalls Brewer. “They had a Rolls Royce backline and they had a forward pack with Irish [international] players, but they just got blown off the park.”
Changing the mindset of Leinster’s players was the big challenge for Cheika and his new assistants, Brewer and Knox, from 2005 onwards.
“It was very much a D4 culture and I remember saying to the guys, ‘I don’t care if you turn up here in your BMWs or your Ferraris with a 6ft blonde on your arm; when you come in the door for training or you go across that whitewash in the gym, your mind is on and you’ve got to perform.
“‘Then you can go back into town, back into Grafton Street for your coffees or whatever you want to do. But when you come to work it’s a whole different mindset.’ That’s what they changed.”
Leinster became all about the “process,” the week’s preparation taking priority over match day, the element of chance taken out of the equation. The 2006 quarter-final win away to Toulouse was a sign of the progress, but hard work still lay ahead.
Brewer was gone by the time Chieka guided Leinster to their famous 2009 triumph, having moved on to a role as Scotland assistant coach in the summer of 2008.
Backs coach Knox famously revealed the falling-out between himself and Brewer after a dressing-room incident early in their time with the province, pointing to a difference in approach.
Brewer was later harshly sacked by Sale Sharks just months into a three-year contract, with his demanding approach seeming to cause discomfort among the established senior players.
“It does,” says Brewer when asked if the demanding side of his personality gets met with resistance sometimes, as in the case at Leinster. “I’m pretty much a perfectionist when it comes to that kind of stuff and Knoxy is a little bit more casual.”
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Brewer helped Leinster to change their culture. Cathal Noonan / INPHO
Cathal Noonan / INPHO / INPHO
But Brewer doesn’t have regrets about how things ended with Leinster, as he departed for a Scotland job that didn’t turn out to be all it promised. He still maintains contact with the likes of Jamie Heaslip and Bernard Jackman, as well as looking up other Leinster people when visiting Ireland.
As a player, Brewer missed out on the professional era, with his 32 Test caps coming between 1986 and 1995. He debuted as a 21-year-old, having shone for the Otago provincial side.
More interested in athletics as a child, Brewer only began to take rugby seriously in his later school years, but he grew to love the game and it remains a central part of his life now.
Upon his return to New Zealand in 2011, he first focused on building up his own business, but the constant pestering from Murray Mexted, the legendary All Black, to work with him at IRANZ – Mexted is director – was eventually successful.
Brewer now coaches on IRANZ’s in-depth five-to-seven week courses for both coaches and players.
They have largely been run out of the state-of-the art Sport and Rugby Institute in Palmerston North – the building is actually in the shape of a fern – over the past 15 years, but the company is increasingly mobile and Brewer has recently been on coaching trips to South America and Italy.
The likes of Oli Jager and AJ MacGinty had stints with IRANZ as youngsters, while the academy has helped refine the games of a whole host of current All Blacks and world-class coaches.
IRANZ is also busy growing the online branch of its offering, providing access to their expertise via “a virtual classroom” where coaches from around the world can join in the education and discussion.
Brewer’s son, Harrison, moved back to New Zealand this year and impressed for Manawatu in the Mitre 10 Cup, while father and son have enjoyed their fishing trips on their boat out of Foxton Beach, near Palmerston North.
Brewer’s experiences of both New Zealand rugby and the game in the Northern Hemisphere leave him in an ideal position to contrast the approaches.
The 51-year-old points out that the Northern Hemisphere season is longer and more arduous, with fewer breaks for players and therefore an increased focus on managing workloads, but he also says the philosophies on how the game should be played are very different.
Brewer says the All Blacks' methods have filtered throughout New Zealand rugby. Photosport / INPHO
Photosport / INPHO / INPHO
“Probably the most significant difference difference is that in New Zealand it is very much – at the moment – about developing core skills that you require in the game and then position-specific skills that are very specific to your position.
“On the training field, it’s about continually developing that and creating scenarios that create game-like situations and put the players under that pressure with the same sort of intensity.
“Creating a hostile environment on the training field, where it’s more intensive than is actually going to happen on the [match day] field.
“Then when you actually come to playing, it’s a bit like déjà vu, ‘This is the same picture as what I had at training but the environment is not as intense as it was at training.’ The mind is clear to make the decision and you’ve got the skill set to execute.
“That is pretty much the ideology of coaching and playing in New Zealand now, whereas the Northern Hemisphere is very much still about creating shape and patterns and systems and staying within the system.
“That creates synergy, and I understand that, as far as players understanding what everyone else is doing, but it doesn’t allow that flamboyancy or an individual who might see something and they have the skill set to execute something.
“They might be rapped over the knuckles because the coach will say, We didn’t do that at training.’ For me, that’s the massive difference.”
The All Blacks have taken their game to a new level in 2016, with their winning streak now at 18 games ahead of the meeting with Ireland in two weekends’ time at Chicago’s Soldier Field.
Brewer has been enjoying that run at Test level, and he stresses that the manner in which the All Blacks’ methods have been filtering down throughout the game in New Zealand since 2007 has been essential in getting to this point.
“The way that the All Blacks are going about things from a coaching and playing perspective is quite different now,” says Brewer. “They have a lot more education on the mental side of the game, as far as understanding that skills are about the process and practising the process.
Brewer, who also had a spell with Fiji, was Frank Hadden's assistant coach for Scotland. Anna Gowthorpe
Anna Gowthorpe
“If we get the process right and understand the key factors in that process, then the outcome will probably be pretty good.
“If we concentrate on the outcome or the result, ie. throwing the ball straight into the lineout or kicking the goal between the posts – ie. Johnny Sexton in 2013. If he had concentrated on the process that day, he would have nailed that penalty and Ireland would have won that game.
“He was probably concentrating too much on the outcome, ie. kicking the goal, and it changes the whole process. I was watching the game live and I said, ‘He’s taking too long’ and he missed it.
“That’s one of the key things, that anxiety and concentrating on the outcome. Really, there’s a massive move since the infamous 2007 World Cup for the All Blacks towards understanding how your mind and body works together and relating that back to developing the core skills related to your position.”
Brewer explains that the entire approach of coaches in New Zealand has changed from being that of a dictator to that of a facilitator of the improvement of skills.
“It’s not always going to be perfect, but if it’s not working then instead… I was guilty of this as a coach in Ireland – the old hairspray approach, coming in, ranting and raving and talking about the result.
“The understanding now is that if something is not working, if the skill is not working in the scrum, lineout or breakdown, then as a coach and a player if you can look at why that skill is breaking down, then you can make quick adjustments to achieving a change in the process.
“It’s a far more positive approach to growing as an individual, growing as a unit, then growing as a team.”
Brewer was at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin in 2013 when Ireland came so close to history, and says he was embarrassed for his native New Zealand to pull through after such a close call.
As he looks towards the Chicago Test, Brewer says Ireland must hope they are physically fitter now.
Brewer was in Dublin in 2013. James Crombie / INPHO
James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO
“To beat this All Black team you have to attack them for 80 minutes. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got the ball or haven’t got the ball – you’ve got to attack them for 80 minutes. Ireland did that for 72 or 74 minutes in 2013, then they ran out of petrol a little bit.”
Similarly, Brewer says Ireland must hope that they have improved as individual players, as well as collectively. It is the All Blacks’ skills that separate them at present.
“To beat the All Blacks, every player from 1 to 15 on the field can’t just have one bullet in their pocket; they’ve got to have a whole armoury. That’s where the All Blacks are at the moment and that’s where Ireland have got to be.
“It’s about whether you’ve got the skill set to take advantage of those opportunities. Until a team has got that skill set, you won’t beat them.
“The mindset of this current team and management is ‘What other things can we work on to keep improving?’ They’re not happy to play at the level they were at at the 2015 World Cup. They’ve gone onto another level.”
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'If he had concentrated on the process, he would have nailed that penalty'
This post is part of The42′s Facing History series, supported by Cadbury Boost. To read more, click here.
MIKE BREWER HAS fond memories of his three years with Leinster, even if he missed out on being there for 2009, when Michael Chieka’s team got over the line in the Heineken Cup.
The 32-times capped former All Black has been back home in New Zealand since 2011 and is now working with IRANZ, the International Rugby Academy of New Zealand, who run high-performance courses for players and coaches.
We meet at IRANZ‘s Wellington office, on the top floor of a building overlooking Oriental Bay, where a relaxed Brewer is happy in his developmental work.
Brewer, who worked as Leinster’s forwards coach from 2005 until 2008, says his greatest satisfaction from that time was playing a small part in shifting the culture.
“My greatest memory was going into – and I hope Drico and the boys don’t mind me saying this – an environment where there were a lot of very, very good players but they were all playing for themselves,” says Brewer.
“They didn’t really have that understanding of creating a team environment and the sum is bigger than the parts. That’s what we did with Chiek, myself and Knoxy [David Knox], getting them to understand that they had to develop.”
Brewer originally moved to Ireland in 1996 to play and coach with Blackrock College RFC, returning from spells in England and Italy to coach Old Belvedere and Barnhall, before Chieka came calling from Leinster.
The ex-back row recalls being in Lansdowne Road as a spectator on 2 April 2005, when Leicester arrived for a Heineken Cup quarter-final and left with a 29-13 victory. Even with the likes of Brian O’Driscoll, Shane Horgan, Denis Hickie, Felipe Contepomi, Malcolm O’Kelly, Leo Cullen and Keith Gleeson starting, Leinster simply weren’t good enough.
“They got hammered,” recalls Brewer. “They had a Rolls Royce backline and they had a forward pack with Irish [international] players, but they just got blown off the park.”
Changing the mindset of Leinster’s players was the big challenge for Cheika and his new assistants, Brewer and Knox, from 2005 onwards.
“It was very much a D4 culture and I remember saying to the guys, ‘I don’t care if you turn up here in your BMWs or your Ferraris with a 6ft blonde on your arm; when you come in the door for training or you go across that whitewash in the gym, your mind is on and you’ve got to perform.
“‘Then you can go back into town, back into Grafton Street for your coffees or whatever you want to do. But when you come to work it’s a whole different mindset.’ That’s what they changed.”
Leinster became all about the “process,” the week’s preparation taking priority over match day, the element of chance taken out of the equation. The 2006 quarter-final win away to Toulouse was a sign of the progress, but hard work still lay ahead.
Brewer was gone by the time Chieka guided Leinster to their famous 2009 triumph, having moved on to a role as Scotland assistant coach in the summer of 2008.
Backs coach Knox famously revealed the falling-out between himself and Brewer after a dressing-room incident early in their time with the province, pointing to a difference in approach.
Brewer was later harshly sacked by Sale Sharks just months into a three-year contract, with his demanding approach seeming to cause discomfort among the established senior players.
“It does,” says Brewer when asked if the demanding side of his personality gets met with resistance sometimes, as in the case at Leinster. “I’m pretty much a perfectionist when it comes to that kind of stuff and Knoxy is a little bit more casual.”
But Brewer doesn’t have regrets about how things ended with Leinster, as he departed for a Scotland job that didn’t turn out to be all it promised. He still maintains contact with the likes of Jamie Heaslip and Bernard Jackman, as well as looking up other Leinster people when visiting Ireland.
As a player, Brewer missed out on the professional era, with his 32 Test caps coming between 1986 and 1995. He debuted as a 21-year-old, having shone for the Otago provincial side.
More interested in athletics as a child, Brewer only began to take rugby seriously in his later school years, but he grew to love the game and it remains a central part of his life now.
Upon his return to New Zealand in 2011, he first focused on building up his own business, but the constant pestering from Murray Mexted, the legendary All Black, to work with him at IRANZ – Mexted is director – was eventually successful.
Brewer now coaches on IRANZ’s in-depth five-to-seven week courses for both coaches and players.
They have largely been run out of the state-of-the art Sport and Rugby Institute in Palmerston North – the building is actually in the shape of a fern – over the past 15 years, but the company is increasingly mobile and Brewer has recently been on coaching trips to South America and Italy.
The likes of Oli Jager and AJ MacGinty had stints with IRANZ as youngsters, while the academy has helped refine the games of a whole host of current All Blacks and world-class coaches.
IRANZ is also busy growing the online branch of its offering, providing access to their expertise via “a virtual classroom” where coaches from around the world can join in the education and discussion.
Brewer’s son, Harrison, moved back to New Zealand this year and impressed for Manawatu in the Mitre 10 Cup, while father and son have enjoyed their fishing trips on their boat out of Foxton Beach, near Palmerston North.
Brewer’s experiences of both New Zealand rugby and the game in the Northern Hemisphere leave him in an ideal position to contrast the approaches.
The 51-year-old points out that the Northern Hemisphere season is longer and more arduous, with fewer breaks for players and therefore an increased focus on managing workloads, but he also says the philosophies on how the game should be played are very different.
“Probably the most significant difference difference is that in New Zealand it is very much – at the moment – about developing core skills that you require in the game and then position-specific skills that are very specific to your position.
“On the training field, it’s about continually developing that and creating scenarios that create game-like situations and put the players under that pressure with the same sort of intensity.
“Creating a hostile environment on the training field, where it’s more intensive than is actually going to happen on the [match day] field.
“Then when you actually come to playing, it’s a bit like déjà vu, ‘This is the same picture as what I had at training but the environment is not as intense as it was at training.’ The mind is clear to make the decision and you’ve got the skill set to execute.
“That is pretty much the ideology of coaching and playing in New Zealand now, whereas the Northern Hemisphere is very much still about creating shape and patterns and systems and staying within the system.
“That creates synergy, and I understand that, as far as players understanding what everyone else is doing, but it doesn’t allow that flamboyancy or an individual who might see something and they have the skill set to execute something.
“They might be rapped over the knuckles because the coach will say, We didn’t do that at training.’ For me, that’s the massive difference.”
The All Blacks have taken their game to a new level in 2016, with their winning streak now at 18 games ahead of the meeting with Ireland in two weekends’ time at Chicago’s Soldier Field.
Brewer has been enjoying that run at Test level, and he stresses that the manner in which the All Blacks’ methods have been filtering down throughout the game in New Zealand since 2007 has been essential in getting to this point.
“The way that the All Blacks are going about things from a coaching and playing perspective is quite different now,” says Brewer. “They have a lot more education on the mental side of the game, as far as understanding that skills are about the process and practising the process.
“If we get the process right and understand the key factors in that process, then the outcome will probably be pretty good.
“If we concentrate on the outcome or the result, ie. throwing the ball straight into the lineout or kicking the goal between the posts – ie. Johnny Sexton in 2013. If he had concentrated on the process that day, he would have nailed that penalty and Ireland would have won that game.
“He was probably concentrating too much on the outcome, ie. kicking the goal, and it changes the whole process. I was watching the game live and I said, ‘He’s taking too long’ and he missed it.
“That’s one of the key things, that anxiety and concentrating on the outcome. Really, there’s a massive move since the infamous 2007 World Cup for the All Blacks towards understanding how your mind and body works together and relating that back to developing the core skills related to your position.”
Brewer explains that the entire approach of coaches in New Zealand has changed from being that of a dictator to that of a facilitator of the improvement of skills.
“It’s not always going to be perfect, but if it’s not working then instead… I was guilty of this as a coach in Ireland – the old hairspray approach, coming in, ranting and raving and talking about the result.
“The understanding now is that if something is not working, if the skill is not working in the scrum, lineout or breakdown, then as a coach and a player if you can look at why that skill is breaking down, then you can make quick adjustments to achieving a change in the process.
“It’s a far more positive approach to growing as an individual, growing as a unit, then growing as a team.”
Brewer was at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin in 2013 when Ireland came so close to history, and says he was embarrassed for his native New Zealand to pull through after such a close call.
As he looks towards the Chicago Test, Brewer says Ireland must hope they are physically fitter now.
“To beat this All Black team you have to attack them for 80 minutes. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got the ball or haven’t got the ball – you’ve got to attack them for 80 minutes. Ireland did that for 72 or 74 minutes in 2013, then they ran out of petrol a little bit.”
Similarly, Brewer says Ireland must hope that they have improved as individual players, as well as collectively. It is the All Blacks’ skills that separate them at present.
“To beat the All Blacks, every player from 1 to 15 on the field can’t just have one bullet in their pocket; they’ve got to have a whole armoury. That’s where the All Blacks are at the moment and that’s where Ireland have got to be.
“It’s about whether you’ve got the skill set to take advantage of those opportunities. Until a team has got that skill set, you won’t beat them.
“The mindset of this current team and management is ‘What other things can we work on to keep improving?’ They’re not happy to play at the level they were at at the 2015 World Cup. They’ve gone onto another level.”
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’2013 will be fresh in a lot of these players’ memories’ – Doug Howlett
Front Row Factory playing its part in New Zealand’s scrum culture
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Drico facing history IRANZ Ireland Leinster Michael Chieka Mike Brewer Murray Mexted New Zealand