FOR ANY MUNSTER fans heading to Temple Hill this season to watch Cork Con, there will be more than a few familiar faces in the coaching team on the sidelines.

It’s all-ex-Munster for the Cork club this season, with the coaching group of Jonny Holland, Denis Fogarty, Duncan Williams, and Billy Holland being guided by director of rugby Brian Hickey.

Hickey was a Munster assistant coach when they won the 2006 Heineken Cup and he knows the All-Ireland League inside out. He’s the perfect mentor and figurehead for what is a young coaching ticket.

Jonny Holland has formally taken on the head coach role at the age of 31, while Fogarty is 39, Billy Holland is 37, and Duncan Williams is 36. To be fair, they’ve all seen plenty of the professional game. 

“You’ve got that blend of experiences and views of the game,” is how Fogarty puts it.

“Brian is highly experienced so he always keeps us in check with the off-field stuff and how we get our message across on the pitch.”

A hamstring injury forced former Munster out-half Holland to retire from playing in 2016 when he was only 25. He hadn’t planned on getting into coaching at all but he was dabbling in it nearly as soon as he had hung up the boots.

A kicking session here, a skills session there. Con roped him into coaching their U20s team. Before he knew it, one day a week became three. He’s been taking on increasing responsibility with the seniors over the past four years and now he’s the head coach.

“When I was 23 or 24, I would have said I wouldn’t be a coach, but that was based on having a 10-year career ahead of me. The first thing that changed was my hamstring mechanics!”

Ex-Munster hooker Fogarty was also forced to retire from playing due to injury, although he made it to 32 before having to call it quits over in France, where he was playing for Provence in the Pro D2. 

Similarly, he hadn’t thought about coaching but the abrupt change opened up an opportunity as Provence asked him to work with their academy players.

Denis Fogarty finished his playing career in France. Dan Sheridan / INPHO Dan Sheridan / INPHO / INPHO

“You start to build a love for that side of the game, especially when you actually see what you’re trying to do transferring onto players,” says Fogarty, who recently worked as Ireland Women’s scrum coach for their tour of Japan.

“I’m enjoying it, so we’ll see how it goes. You know yourself, if it doesn’t go well, it’s a very short career.”

Fogarty and Holland both have jobs away from rugby coaching, but their passion for it is evident. Not that the transition from playing to coaching was completely smooth. They have had to learn quickly. What worked for them as players sometimes has no use whatsoever as coaches.

“A player can easily coach skills because it’s passing accurately, where your hands should finish, that kind of stuff,” says Holland. “But coaching a game plan is very different.”

Fogarty is honest about his initial foray into coaching over in France.

“After my first year, I reflected that the players didn’t learn a huge amount from me because I didn’t know enough about the lineout stuff, the maul stuff, even field positioning and what they should be doing,” says Fogarty.

“You had to go back to studying the role of everyone.”

They have got to grips with it and find themselves in a good space as part of this ambitious Cork Con set-up ahead of the start of the new men’s AIL season next weekend when they welcome Young Munster to Temple Hill.

The Cork side had a poor start to last season’s AIL as they lost their first three games but they recovered to reach the semi-finals, losing away to eventual champions Clontarf. The ambition this year is to win the club’s first title since 2019 [two seasons of the AIL were canned during the pandemic].

Con's Aidan Moynihan in action against UCD last season. Tom Maher / INPHO Tom Maher / INPHO / INPHO

They’ve combined well as a coaching team, with Holland overseeing attack and game plan, Fogarty working with the forwards, Williams in charge of defence, and Billy Holland consulting one day a week. Hickey is the man overseeing it all.

“People forget Brian is a Heineken Cup-winning coach, you don’t do that by accident,” says Holland. “His level of detail and scrutiny goes a long way.

“Billy is fresh out of the game and an unbelievably detailed guy too. Duncan was a brilliant defender and he was very knowledgeable in the game, people underestimate that.

“Fogs has spent time in France coaching over there in a second language, and he’s bringing loads to the forward pack and scrummaging.”

Both men speak with enthusiasm about the quality of the AIL and its future. Fogarty has enjoyed seeing young players excel in the league and he was very pleased to note how many provincially-contracted players were involved on a weekly basis last season.

“In my day, there were times when you just wouldn’t play,” he says. “You wouldn’t be back training on a Thursday night and get to play on a Saturday. That’s going to help drive crowds back in, and the standard was really, really good.”

Holland, meanwhile, explains that Munster have been making a big effort to build a stronger relationship with its clubs. AIL coaches were recently invited in to observe a full training day, with nothing held back and insight into all details provided. He praises Munster academy manager Ian Costello for his work with the AIL clubs.

“Cossie coming back to Munster was huge but Munster had started to go that way and he drove it home. Munster need the clubs to go well for them to go well and for their players to get game time.

“We’re coming full circle and people have realised that player availability into the league is crucial for their development.