ALL THE STARS were out during Leinster Rugby’s recent 12-county tour of the province. A couple of weeks into their pre-season preparation, Jordan Larmour was being put through his paces along the touchline at Longford RFC while teammates including Johnny Sexton, Robbie Henshaw and James Ryan worked through some drills out on the pitch. New coaches Seán O’Brien and Andrew Goodman were calling the shots. Leo Cullen and Stuart Lancaster stood back, overseeing proceedings.
In the far corner, tucked in behind the giddy groups of children and adults armed with phones primed for selfies and jerseys to sign, the province’s head of rugby operations, Guy Easterby was deep in conversation with another new recruit. Declan Darcy had been in and around the squad throughout last season, but over the summer came on board as Leinster’s new performance coach.
Speaking in the Longford clubhouse as the open training session wound down, Cullen offered a brief but intriguing answer when asked what Darcy’s role would entail.
“There’s many different aspects,” Cullen explained.
“From a leaders point of view, having a bit of facilitation around leaders, what that looks like on-field. Sometimes a bit of separation from the day-to-day rugby coaches as well, I think that’s always helpful for individuals to have that sounding board, someone with Dec’s experience then as well and what he brings us as coaches.
“There’s lots of different parts to that role as a performance coach.”
******************************
There’s a story Declan Darcy told the first summer after he had stepped away from working as a coach with the Dublin footballers. It centered around the one Championship defeat Dublin had suffered during Jim Gavin’s glittering reign as manager, a period during which Darcy served as his old pal’s right-hand man.
Croke Park, 31 August 2014. All-Ireland SFC semi-final. Donegal 3-14 Dublin 0-17.
“I put 3-14 on the inside of my locker, 3-14 on my laptop, 3-14 on my printer,” Darcy told Dublin GAA’s The Hop Ball podcast. “And every day I woke up it was on my locker and it grounded me so I knew when I’d go to work, I knew what was at stake and it definitely gave me huge motivation.”
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“Me and Deccie came in at the same time as each other, the back of 1997,” explains Johnny Magee, a teammate of Darcy’s during his time with Dublin. “We made our debuts together against Sligo.
“I was very young, only out of minor so I would have been 18, 19 years of age. I would have got a lot of lifts with Deccie to training, and he would have looked after us, giving us lifts to and from training. He was very good in terms a bit of advice in the car, for me as a young fella trying to find his way in county football, he always had a sound bit of advice.”
Darcy took an unusual route through his inter-county playing days. Born in the capital, he grew up in Dublin 4 but started his inter-county career with Leitrim, home county of his father, Frank. Darcy formed a strong bond with his adopted county, establishing himself as their star player during a remarkable period with included 1994′s historic Connacht title. That 1994 success was their first since 1927. They haven’t won it since. In a legendary Leitrim team, a young Darcy stood tall as the captain and central figure.
“He always had leadership qualities,” explains John O’Mahony, Leitrim manager at the time.
“He didn’t pick it up off the ground. Frank was a great Aughawillian man, would have won county titles and so on with Aughawillian in his playing days. He used to train the Dublin-based players in Kells or the Phoenix Park if we didn’t meet midweek. That’s how Declan came to play for Leitrim.
“I suppose the big issue with a country like Leitrim – at the time a population of just 25,000 people – was to overcome their lack of resources. I felt it was very necessary to get them to believe that they could achieve this. They had been knocking on the door and coming close but not getting over the line. Hewas a brilliant leader in implementing that.
“Declan was the ideal captain because he was so focused on first of all on achieving excellence himself as a player, and then in leading and implementing the team policy or the team ethos.
At that time I had a psychologist working with the team, and I suppose psychology was a new thing at that period in GAA management. He embraced it totally, the visualization techniques and all that went with it. I used to be thrilled because sometimes some players need psychological mental steelness more than others, but if your captain is following it to the letter of the law, then it’s a great signal for the rest of the players.”
As well as leading things off the pitch, Darcy was a man O’Mahony’s Leitrim could turn to in the heat of battle.
“On the pitch, he was calm under pressure,” O’Mahony says.
“He perfected his ability with long range frees, 45 or 50 yards out. Then in ’94, he scored an equalizing point against Galway in Carrick-on-Shannon, brought it to a replay in Tuam. We won the replay by a point and in the first round against Roscommon he scored the winning point. We had been leading, they pulled back the lead, and he won it with the long range point there as well. Two of those games on the way to that Connacht title, he showed his brilliance.”
After those glory days with Leitrim, Darcy linked up with his native Dublin in late 1997, debuting for the county in 1998 and developing a close relationship with Gavin.
“Dec was one of the best trainers we had,” Magee remembers.
“He definitely would have come across to me as an open and honest guy who had high standards. That was the one thing, especially when you think he was coming in from Leitrim, some people might just come in and set those standards for six months or so to get their foot in the door, but he came in and maintained that standard.
“He was a great sounding board as well in terms of being a voice to myself and other lads. Even if he wasn’t starting, he was always giving a bit of advice or encouraging other lads.
“He was always out practising his frees. He led by example. Himself and Jim, you would have seen the camaraderie early days with the two lads because they would both be out practising frees. At the time, Jim was on the frees on the right-hand side and Deccie would take them on the left. You could see there was a relationship there when the lads were out practising.
“Even a couple of times that Dec was injured, you’d see him doing everything he could to get back. There was a real discipline to him, and you can see how that’s fed into what he achieved with Dublin with Jim.
Playing with both of them and being in dressing rooms with both of them, they had very high standards. You would notice that Jim was already reading stuff on other sports, and Deccie too, so you could see that taking stuff from other sports was an influence on them as well. He was meticulous in terms of what he was looking to do.”
Darcy eventually transitioned from the pitch to the sideline, serving as an assistant to Gavin with the Dublin U21s. Together, the pair guided the team to two All-Irelands and three Leinster titles. Gavin stepped up to the senior job in 2012, with Darcy on his ticket until Gavin’s exit in 2019, a period which delivered an unprecedented five-in-a-row of All-Ireland wins.
“The players that were a part of that Dublin group, you only ever heard them speak highly of Deccie, that tells you how much they looked up to him,” Magee adds.
“Recently there was a 20-year reunion of the 2002 (Leinster SFC-winning) team. I had a brief conversation with Deccie and just the insight he has into the game… He’s always looking to learn something.”
******************************
Darcy isn’t the first ex-GAA star to bring their expertise to Leinster, with ex-Armagh footballer Enda McNulty and former Dublin captain Bryan Cullen both previously working with the province.
Yet the timing of Darcy’s move is what makes it so interesting. His stock is as high as it has ever been in the GAA world. When rumours swirled over the summer that Dessie Farrell was perhaps ready to step aside from the Dublin job, Darcy’s name was the one doing the rounds as next man up.
Declan Darcy and Jim Gavin in 2013. James Crombie / INPHO
James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO
Instead, he’ll be offering his expertise to a bruised Leinster side that are coming off their first trophy lessseason since 2017.
“I think Declan would have been of the same opinion as myself – that the leadership you want on the field isn’t about how you speak or communicate, it’s about your actions and how you lead by example,” Magee continues.
“I’d say Declan will be to the fore on that. Like, looking in at Leinster and Ireland from the outside, you look at Johnny Sexton and how successful he is, he seems to be the man that everything goes through. Now, you’ve got Peter O’Mahony there as well, but if you look back through the years with Ireland you had Paul O’Connell, Brian O’Driscoll, Ronan O’Gara. So you had three of four natural leaders within the group, whereas now there seems to be a lot of responsibility on Johnny at the moment.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Declan starts drawing more leadership from within that Leinster group. It’s a very young side, who are very consistent (throughout the season). But the thing is, knockout rugby and knockout GAA is very different to the League or the URC, where you can afford to have a bad day. With knockout rugby, you have to cut your mistakes to the minimum and perform under pressure, but embrace that.”
Magee illustrates the point with an example from the 2019 drawn All-Ireland final. Down to 14 men and trailing Kerry, Dublin were in danger of letting the coveted five-in-a-row slip from their grasp.
“A man down against Kerry and they squeezed up, Stephen Cluxton came out and marked Tommy Walsh, which allowed Dublin to go man-on-man out the field. That didn’t come from nowhere. That’s on-field leadership, where Deccie, Jim and Jayo (Sherlock) would have given that responsibility to read a situation and not panic. That’s being composed under pressure and having clarity in your thinking in those pressure moments to push up and adapt to set up a trap to get the ball back.
“To have that clarity and leadership within the group, he’s only enhance that with Leinster.”
Dublin drew the game and won the replay by six points.
“This latest opportunity for him, being a performance coach in Leinster, it doesn’t surprise me having been his manager and seen how he captained a team,” O’Mahony says.
“A manager wants his captain to be a link between the management and the players but also to represent the players views to the management, and he was ideal at that. He would be very constructive and responsible in whatever he might suggest.
“We always said to those lads at the time; lookit, you’re just going to have to do things better than everybody else if you’re going to succeed. He was a major vehicle in delivering that among the players.
Darcy playing for Dublin in 1999. Andrew Paton / INPHO
Andrew Paton / INPHO / INPHO
“He’s obviously ambitious, which is great, and he wants to learn more along the way. That’s what I would have saw at the time with Leitrim as well. He’s obviously put that to good use and evolved and fine-tuned, so the sky’s the limit. This is a new challenge. It will be a different environment, going from the amateur to the professional, but I think there’s no better man for the for the challenge.
“As a player, he got the best out of himself and helped get the best out of all the players around him. When he was in management with Dublin, obviously he helped to maximise in a very high performance environment. He was there every step of the way with Jim Gavin, right from the U21s. So they formed a great relationship and I’m sure he has a wealth of knowledge. What he wants to do with Leinster, that happens by getting inside and being that link, and having travelled the journey that he has traveled, he’s well equipped to give advice and get the best out of those Leinster rugby players.”
“From a performance point of view, Leinster have frustratingly fallen short over the last few years,” Magee adds. “He’ll have a fresh pair of eyes, coming in and offering a different perspectives from a very successful coaching period with Dublin.
“He’ll empower the (Leinster) players to fulfil their potential and quality. That’s where Deccie will push those lads to be their best. I can’t see him not being a success there. He might add that little ingredient that they haven’t had the last few years.”
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‘He’ll empower the players’ - The GAA legend taking on a key role with Leinster Rugby
ALL THE STARS were out during Leinster Rugby’s recent 12-county tour of the province. A couple of weeks into their pre-season preparation, Jordan Larmour was being put through his paces along the touchline at Longford RFC while teammates including Johnny Sexton, Robbie Henshaw and James Ryan worked through some drills out on the pitch. New coaches Seán O’Brien and Andrew Goodman were calling the shots. Leo Cullen and Stuart Lancaster stood back, overseeing proceedings.
In the far corner, tucked in behind the giddy groups of children and adults armed with phones primed for selfies and jerseys to sign, the province’s head of rugby operations, Guy Easterby was deep in conversation with another new recruit. Declan Darcy had been in and around the squad throughout last season, but over the summer came on board as Leinster’s new performance coach.
Speaking in the Longford clubhouse as the open training session wound down, Cullen offered a brief but intriguing answer when asked what Darcy’s role would entail.
“There’s many different aspects,” Cullen explained.
“From a leaders point of view, having a bit of facilitation around leaders, what that looks like on-field. Sometimes a bit of separation from the day-to-day rugby coaches as well, I think that’s always helpful for individuals to have that sounding board, someone with Dec’s experience then as well and what he brings us as coaches.
“There’s lots of different parts to that role as a performance coach.”
******************************
There’s a story Declan Darcy told the first summer after he had stepped away from working as a coach with the Dublin footballers. It centered around the one Championship defeat Dublin had suffered during Jim Gavin’s glittering reign as manager, a period during which Darcy served as his old pal’s right-hand man.
Croke Park, 31 August 2014. All-Ireland SFC semi-final. Donegal 3-14 Dublin 0-17.
“I put 3-14 on the inside of my locker, 3-14 on my laptop, 3-14 on my printer,” Darcy told Dublin GAA’s The Hop Ball podcast. “And every day I woke up it was on my locker and it grounded me so I knew when I’d go to work, I knew what was at stake and it definitely gave me huge motivation.”
“Me and Deccie came in at the same time as each other, the back of 1997,” explains Johnny Magee, a teammate of Darcy’s during his time with Dublin. “We made our debuts together against Sligo.
“I was very young, only out of minor so I would have been 18, 19 years of age. I would have got a lot of lifts with Deccie to training, and he would have looked after us, giving us lifts to and from training. He was very good in terms a bit of advice in the car, for me as a young fella trying to find his way in county football, he always had a sound bit of advice.”
Darcy took an unusual route through his inter-county playing days. Born in the capital, he grew up in Dublin 4 but started his inter-county career with Leitrim, home county of his father, Frank. Darcy formed a strong bond with his adopted county, establishing himself as their star player during a remarkable period with included 1994′s historic Connacht title. That 1994 success was their first since 1927. They haven’t won it since. In a legendary Leitrim team, a young Darcy stood tall as the captain and central figure.
“He always had leadership qualities,” explains John O’Mahony, Leitrim manager at the time.
“He didn’t pick it up off the ground. Frank was a great Aughawillian man, would have won county titles and so on with Aughawillian in his playing days. He used to train the Dublin-based players in Kells or the Phoenix Park if we didn’t meet midweek. That’s how Declan came to play for Leitrim.
“I suppose the big issue with a country like Leitrim – at the time a population of just 25,000 people – was to overcome their lack of resources. I felt it was very necessary to get them to believe that they could achieve this. They had been knocking on the door and coming close but not getting over the line. He was a brilliant leader in implementing that.
“Declan was the ideal captain because he was so focused on first of all on achieving excellence himself as a player, and then in leading and implementing the team policy or the team ethos.
As well as leading things off the pitch, Darcy was a man O’Mahony’s Leitrim could turn to in the heat of battle.
“On the pitch, he was calm under pressure,” O’Mahony says.
“He perfected his ability with long range frees, 45 or 50 yards out. Then in ’94, he scored an equalizing point against Galway in Carrick-on-Shannon, brought it to a replay in Tuam. We won the replay by a point and in the first round against Roscommon he scored the winning point. We had been leading, they pulled back the lead, and he won it with the long range point there as well. Two of those games on the way to that Connacht title, he showed his brilliance.”
After those glory days with Leitrim, Darcy linked up with his native Dublin in late 1997, debuting for the county in 1998 and developing a close relationship with Gavin.
“Dec was one of the best trainers we had,” Magee remembers.
“He definitely would have come across to me as an open and honest guy who had high standards. That was the one thing, especially when you think he was coming in from Leitrim, some people might just come in and set those standards for six months or so to get their foot in the door, but he came in and maintained that standard.
“He was a great sounding board as well in terms of being a voice to myself and other lads. Even if he wasn’t starting, he was always giving a bit of advice or encouraging other lads.
“He was always out practising his frees. He led by example. Himself and Jim, you would have seen the camaraderie early days with the two lads because they would both be out practising frees. At the time, Jim was on the frees on the right-hand side and Deccie would take them on the left. You could see there was a relationship there when the lads were out practising.
“Even a couple of times that Dec was injured, you’d see him doing everything he could to get back. There was a real discipline to him, and you can see how that’s fed into what he achieved with Dublin with Jim.
Darcy eventually transitioned from the pitch to the sideline, serving as an assistant to Gavin with the Dublin U21s. Together, the pair guided the team to two All-Irelands and three Leinster titles. Gavin stepped up to the senior job in 2012, with Darcy on his ticket until Gavin’s exit in 2019, a period which delivered an unprecedented five-in-a-row of All-Ireland wins.
“The players that were a part of that Dublin group, you only ever heard them speak highly of Deccie, that tells you how much they looked up to him,” Magee adds.
“Recently there was a 20-year reunion of the 2002 (Leinster SFC-winning) team. I had a brief conversation with Deccie and just the insight he has into the game… He’s always looking to learn something.”
******************************
Darcy isn’t the first ex-GAA star to bring their expertise to Leinster, with ex-Armagh footballer Enda McNulty and former Dublin captain Bryan Cullen both previously working with the province.
Yet the timing of Darcy’s move is what makes it so interesting. His stock is as high as it has ever been in the GAA world. When rumours swirled over the summer that Dessie Farrell was perhaps ready to step aside from the Dublin job, Darcy’s name was the one doing the rounds as next man up.
Instead, he’ll be offering his expertise to a bruised Leinster side that are coming off their first trophy lessseason since 2017.
“I think Declan would have been of the same opinion as myself – that the leadership you want on the field isn’t about how you speak or communicate, it’s about your actions and how you lead by example,” Magee continues.
“I’d say Declan will be to the fore on that. Like, looking in at Leinster and Ireland from the outside, you look at Johnny Sexton and how successful he is, he seems to be the man that everything goes through. Now, you’ve got Peter O’Mahony there as well, but if you look back through the years with Ireland you had Paul O’Connell, Brian O’Driscoll, Ronan O’Gara. So you had three of four natural leaders within the group, whereas now there seems to be a lot of responsibility on Johnny at the moment.
Magee illustrates the point with an example from the 2019 drawn All-Ireland final. Down to 14 men and trailing Kerry, Dublin were in danger of letting the coveted five-in-a-row slip from their grasp.
“A man down against Kerry and they squeezed up, Stephen Cluxton came out and marked Tommy Walsh, which allowed Dublin to go man-on-man out the field. That didn’t come from nowhere. That’s on-field leadership, where Deccie, Jim and Jayo (Sherlock) would have given that responsibility to read a situation and not panic. That’s being composed under pressure and having clarity in your thinking in those pressure moments to push up and adapt to set up a trap to get the ball back.
“To have that clarity and leadership within the group, he’s only enhance that with Leinster.”
Dublin drew the game and won the replay by six points.
“This latest opportunity for him, being a performance coach in Leinster, it doesn’t surprise me having been his manager and seen how he captained a team,” O’Mahony says.
“A manager wants his captain to be a link between the management and the players but also to represent the players views to the management, and he was ideal at that. He would be very constructive and responsible in whatever he might suggest.
“We always said to those lads at the time; lookit, you’re just going to have to do things better than everybody else if you’re going to succeed. He was a major vehicle in delivering that among the players.
“He’s obviously ambitious, which is great, and he wants to learn more along the way. That’s what I would have saw at the time with Leitrim as well. He’s obviously put that to good use and evolved and fine-tuned, so the sky’s the limit. This is a new challenge. It will be a different environment, going from the amateur to the professional, but I think there’s no better man for the for the challenge.
“As a player, he got the best out of himself and helped get the best out of all the players around him. When he was in management with Dublin, obviously he helped to maximise in a very high performance environment. He was there every step of the way with Jim Gavin, right from the U21s. So they formed a great relationship and I’m sure he has a wealth of knowledge. What he wants to do with Leinster, that happens by getting inside and being that link, and having travelled the journey that he has traveled, he’s well equipped to give advice and get the best out of those Leinster rugby players.”
“From a performance point of view, Leinster have frustratingly fallen short over the last few years,” Magee adds. “He’ll have a fresh pair of eyes, coming in and offering a different perspectives from a very successful coaching period with Dublin.
“He’ll empower the (Leinster) players to fulfil their potential and quality. That’s where Deccie will push those lads to be their best. I can’t see him not being a success there. He might add that little ingredient that they haven’t had the last few years.”
See sport differently with The42 Membership and get closer to the stories that matter with exclusive analysis, insight and debate. Click here to find out more>
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