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Meet the rising star of the Irish coaching scene that everyone is talking about

Noel McNamara reached adulthood without ever playing rugby but infectious enthusiasm and a thirst for knowledge has seen him rise through the ranks ahead of the biggest game yet of his career.

A MEMORY CAME through the letterbox. Inside an envelope was a colour photograph of a team he used to coach. The faces were stubble free and innocent; the plain, collared jerseys a reflection of an Ireland that was poor and unspoiled. A letter accompanied the picture, sketching out an east Clare childhood in a series of idyllic scenes.

They played soccer on muddy pitches and in open parks, in dank Novembers through to green and blue summers. They were from a small village, these Davids, the townies from Ennis impersonating the big, mouthy Goliaths. David may not have possessed a sling but he had his own โ€˜Supermacโ€™, a farmerโ€™s son from ten minutes out the road, who was devastatingly quick and skilled.

โ€˜Supermacโ€™ was Noel McNamara, now the rising coach that everyone in Irish rugby is talking about, then a kid who hurled, ran cross country, played soccer, golf, badminton, participated in every sport really, except rugby.

You can see him in this photo, third from the right in the back row, wilful and free. Patrick Donnellan, who would go on to captain Clare to their 2013 All-Ireland senior hurling title, is third from the right in the front row, three years younger than the rest of them, utterly fearless.

Kilkishen U12s 1993_0001-1

The man in the back row, with the diamond jumper, was their guide and coach. โ€œA great man,โ€ says McNamara of his childhood mentor, Gerry Buckley. โ€œAs a child you donโ€™t think too deeply about things.โ€

But as an adult you do. You remember the little gestures, the pound note each man of the match received; the trips to the chipper after games; the constant encouragement.

โ€œIt shaped me, those games,โ€ says McNamara. Gerry, his coach, was a Mullingar man, but work had taken him to Clare for a couple of years. That was when soccer in Kilkishen took off. Theyโ€™d win a county cup; reach another final, punch way above their weight.

The more established town teams from Shannon and Ennis initially didnโ€™t respect these little guys and thatโ€™s why Gerry stayed with the team. Work had taken him back to Westmeath but for two years he commuted to Clare at his own expense; saw the Kilkishen boys through underage soccer, felt the glory of their big wins, the hell of losing penalty shoot-outs.  โ€œHe coached us about life not just football,โ€ says McNamara.

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So, years and years later, when a letter arrived through the post, Gerry remembered names and faces. The author was one of McNamaraโ€™s team-mates who thanked his old coach for everything heโ€™d done, getting the team up from nothing, providing them with a lifetimeโ€™s worth of memories. Then there was a line right at the bottom of the letter.

โ€œRemember Supermac?โ€ the author wrote. โ€œHeโ€™s the Ireland rugby Under 20s coach now. They are just after winning the grand slam.โ€

โ€œHeโ€™s after doing what?โ€  Gerry thought.

Heโ€™d watched the decisive game the previous Friday on RTร‰. โ€œSo, thatโ€™s the same Noel McNamara,โ€ I said to myself. โ€œJeez, I was stunned. Like, he was incredibly driven as a kid, sincere, attentive, coachable; likeable. I knew heโ€™d go places.โ€

noel-mcnamara-celebrates-with-scott-penny McNamara celebrates with Scott Penny. Ryan Byrne / INPHO Ryan Byrne / INPHO / INPHO

But he never thought itโ€™d be to rugby. Certainly he couldnโ€™t believe itโ€™d be to Durban, South Africa, where today heโ€™ll coach the Sharks in the United Rugby Championship quarter-final. For some, it sounds outlandish, how a farmerโ€™s son from Clare could end up as an educator in a sport he never played. But when fate and passion collide, strange things happen.

He came to rugby just after the game went pro. He got lucky. A college degree in Law and European Studies didnโ€™t float his boat so he switched after a year to study P.E. knowing teaching was where his future lay, even if the money wouldnโ€™t have been as good.

It was the smartest choice he made, because it put him on a path to meet PJ Smyth. PJ had a link to Eddie Oโ€™Sullivan. PJ knew rugby and knew a personโ€™s potential. In McNamara he saw a mirror image of his younger self, putting him on a path to learn about rugby and the decision-making process elite athletes make.

Heโ€™d give McNamara envelopes stacked with research papers. Once it was a document filled with notes from seasoned tennis players who had cameras attached to their heads, to help them figure out what they were seeing. Was it the racquet, the opponentโ€™s body, the opponentโ€™s face? Another day, another document; this paper written by fighter pilots who had undergone training programmes around the decision processes they go through.

Between them, Smyth and McNamara transferred these concepts into a rugby context. โ€œThat was my awakening,โ€ McNamara says. โ€œPJ saw the game through different eyes to most in Irish rugby back then. Forwards should be able to pass as comfortably as backs, he believed; backs should be capable of being a jackal threat. Nowadays this is a given; back then this was a vision.โ€

The tutor also had a vision for his pupil. He guided him through college, helped him land his first job and while McNamara calls himself an accidental coach, in truth, heโ€™s anything but. A coach is drawn to a rugby field like moths to a light; they live their lives through a different set of norms. So, to mere mortals, the idea of sitting down in your front room at 11pm to scroll through three hours of gametape might seem a tad excessive, to coaches, the shortening of their sleeping hours is simply part of a daily routine.

noel-mcnamara-congratulates-his-players-after-the-game McNamara has an ability to connect with payers. Matteo Ciambelli / INPHO Matteo Ciambelli / INPHO / INPHO

This was the life he chose for himself when college finished. By now he was teaching, in Glenstall, Limerick. The Under 14s needed a dig out and while the person they turned to had no playing CV to talk of, but did possess something much more useful: fearlessness. โ€œI was unbelievably open-minded,โ€ McNamara says. โ€œI didnโ€™t have a set view on how the game should be played. But I had no fear of failure. โ€˜How do I fail?โ€™ I asked myself. โ€˜There is no expectation of meโ€™.

โ€œIn any case, failure isnโ€™t anything that defines you; ultimately it is your reaction to failure and what happens after that that defines your whole life. Iโ€™d be very clear on that.

โ€œWhen you train, you actually need to have a certain level of failure because if you donโ€™t, you arenโ€™t getting better. But the environment has to exist where there should not be any fear of mistakes.โ€

That has existed right through his rugby life, firstly with the under 14s at Glenstall, later in his next teaching post at Clongowes, then in the Leinster academy and with the Irish Under 20s side, most recently with the Sharks, who he joined last July as their attack coach.

The best coaches, though, know that niceness has a boundary. While it is all well and good to possess empathetic qualities, unless you also have an edge to your personality, youโ€™re really just a cheerleader with a clipboard and pen.

That was why the discovery of McNamaraโ€™s attitude to sloppy errors โ€“ โ€˜unacceptableโ€™ โ€“ was informative; why he knows he must look kindly on a playerโ€™s struggle but be cold-hearted enough to realise there has to be a cut-off point. โ€œIf the person canโ€™t change, then you change the person.โ€

This is a three dimensional character, weโ€™re writing about, one who realised from an early age there was a world beyond the garden gate in Clare. In many ways he had it made, the secure job in a fee-paying school; the guaranteed pension, the freedom to pursue his passion for coaching away from the stress of a volatile profession.

Yet he gave all that up when a conversation with Les Kiss โ€“ the London Irish coach โ€“ triggered something in his mind. โ€œAn element of risk can make you better,โ€ Kiss told him. More than that, McNamara had to be true to himself. He was always telling his pupils to follow their dream. Now he had the chance to do just that.

Thatโ€™s why he took the call from the Sharks, why he said goodbye to the teaching profession, why he and his wife sat with their three children to say they were moving house. โ€œIn fact, we are moving to a different continent,โ€ he informed them.

We can only imagine how that played out with his three daughters.

noel-mcnamara-celebrates-with-his-daughters-isolt-and-aria-after-the-game McNamara celebrates with his daughters Isolt and Aria. Oisin Keniry / INPHO Oisin Keniry / INPHO / INPHO

But if art does truly reflect life, then we have an idea.

There is this scene from Friday Night Lights, Peter Bergโ€™s drama about high school football in a small Texan town, where the coachโ€™s daughter, Julie Taylor, overhears her parents having a conversation about her fatherโ€™s job offer in a faraway city. โ€œOh great,โ€ the 15-year-old daughter says. โ€œWeโ€™re moving again.โ€

The camera captures the subtle change of expression on the fatherโ€™s face, as joy turns to confusion. The audience can guess his thoughts. โ€œHow is my dream not hers?โ€ Julie turns and walks away. โ€œThe doorโ€™s going to slam,โ€ Eric, the father, the coach, exasperates.

Sure enough, the last thing the audience hears before the titles roll is the bang of a door, and everything about those little moments, the shooting of a programme in a real Texan house, with everyday furniture and gaudy lamps, allows your mind to drift beyond a football field.

We donโ€™t just see a coach; we see a dad. We learn about an angst-ridden teenager, a wife torn between being happy for her husband and concerned for her daughter. We see their suffering, the effect mortgage repayments have on their lives, how a better-paid job can ease those issues.

Thereโ€™s one difference: In series one of the show, Taylor had just one child. McNamara has three.

You guess telling them about the South Africa relocation was a tough conversation. Certainly the one he had with his father, telling him he was leaving teaching as well as Ireland behind, brought a reminder of the no-nonsense world he grew up in.

โ€œYou are doing what?โ€ my dad said when I first told him.

โ€œTo him, me giving up the pensionable job, that was the ultimate definition of lunacy.โ€

Yet he did it.  

โ€œCoaching for me is an addiction,โ€ McNamara explains. โ€œI love it, I crave it. Now obviously you can coach at different levels, and it can be very fulfilling. But I want to go to the highest level I can. Plus there is another thing. Every player I have ever coached always got the same message: leave no stone unturned to be the best possible version of you.

โ€œIf that is the message you are giving, then you have to lead by example.โ€

The good news is the girls have settled in Durban and a few weeks ago all three of them were in their dadโ€™s office at the Shark Tank, Kings Park. โ€œIt was carnage,โ€ McNamara says.

The look on the Sharksโ€™ forwards coach, Akvsenti Giorgadze, confirmed McNamaraโ€™s assessment.

โ€œNoel,โ€ Giorgadze dead-panned, โ€œis this happiness?โ€

โ€œWell, for me, happiness is seeing a team get better, seeing them score tries, winning, understanding the work you put in has an output.โ€

But teams donโ€™t always win. Even very good ones, like Leinster, taste defeat. The Sharks have had that taste six times this season, three times in the first four weeks of the season.

Thatโ€™s the tricky part of being a coach, stopping yourself sulking when you walk through the front door, stopping yourself obsessing over the try that wasnโ€™t scored, the game that was not won. Thatโ€™s when you stop and recognise the sacrifices Sinead (his wife) and the girls have made.

Stuart Lancaster used to tell him this story, about how the life of a coach is one where you have to juggle three glass bowls in the air; work, family life, and your health. โ€œMake sure none drop,โ€ he advised.

He works hard to get the balance right, referencing a piece of advice Joe Schmidt gave him after reading Stephen Coveyโ€™s book, โ€˜the seven habits of highly effective peopleโ€™. โ€œThere is a story in it about how in this life you have big rocks, gravel, pebble and sand, and basically you have to put them all into a jar. Now the only way you can do it is by putting your big rocks in first, then your gravel, your pebbles and your sand.

โ€œIn life you take care of your big rocks first and those, unapologetically for me, are family and work. And if other things drop off then so be it.

โ€œIn any case, kids have an amazing habit of putting things in context. I came home after our early season tour of the UK.

โ€œMy eldest daughter greeted me with a question: โ€˜how many games did you win, daddy?โ€™

- โ€œOnly one.โ€

- โ€œWell, why didnโ€™t you win more?โ€

โ€œIt was a great question and the truth is because we werenโ€™t good enough.โ€

The following week he showed his Sharks players a clip of Brian Cody speaking after an All-Ireland defeat. โ€œIt wasnโ€™t the referee, it was not the rub of the green; we just were not good enough,โ€ Cody said. The point McNamara was making was simple. Forget travel, forget the difficulties caused by lockdown. โ€œAs soon as we accept we werenโ€™t up to scratch, we can get busy getting better.โ€

The players listened. Theyโ€™re certainly a different team to what they were at the start of the season, deservedly reaching the quarter-finals. A McNamara reunion with Leinster is on the cards if both teams win today.

Beyond that, who knows where this rugby journey will take him? All we know is he carries big ambitions and the motto of John Wooden, the legendary basketball coach. โ€œAchieve what you are capable of achieving,โ€ he says, quietly. โ€œWe should not be afraid of those challenges.โ€

He never has been.

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    Mute Locojoe
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    Dec 6th 2018, 7:59 AM

    Munster are looking good.!.

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    Mute Batster
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    Dec 7th 2018, 7:38 PM

    @Locojoe: They really are starting to look very good. Iโ€™d expect a but win and five points and would fancy them to run Castres close in France.

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    Mute DeShawn Jersey
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    Dec 6th 2018, 10:06 AM

    I see Joey is trying out the new invisible skipping rope. They have it all down in Munster.

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    Mute Con Cussed
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    Dec 6th 2018, 12:13 PM

    @DeShawn Jersey:

    Carbery, โ€œGee whizz Iโ€™m going to be playing next to Conor Murrayโ€
    Murray, โ€œHere we go againโ€

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    Mute Jim Demps
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    Dec 6th 2018, 9:10 AM

    Should be a pretty strong team picked today. Barring injury at 15 the only number Iโ€™m not sure of is 12. He could go with scannell or blyendaal there with the other covering the bench. Looking forward to seeing carbery in the middle of Murray and Farrell. Also looking forward to seeing loughman and what he can do in a big game against a good side. Iโ€™d expect a munster win by about 10 points I think.

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    Mute Darren Byrne
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    Dec 6th 2018, 9:35 AM

    @Jim Demps: Loughman is a good losehead he just wasnโ€™t going to make it as a tighthead. He was right to leave, now with Cronin being injured he has a real chance to progress his career. Just hope he doesnโ€™t end up going to the world cup with the US as that would rule him out long term for Munster.

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    Mute Johnny 5
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    Dec 6th 2018, 9:35 AM

    @Jim Demps: Scannell starts. He might not be that highly rated, but in the last 3/4 years he has made that 12 jersey his own under successive coaches.

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    Mute Jim Demps
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    Dec 6th 2018, 10:32 AM

    @Darren Byrne: I dont think loughman will be lining out for the states. He must be firmly on the radar of the Irish management for the future given that Healy, McGrath, kilcoyne and cronin are all in and around the same age and around the 30 mark now

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    Mute Gibson O Driscoll
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    Dec 6th 2018, 11:56 PM

    @Jim Demps: guessing Blyendaal on bench to cover 12, Scannell to start( left foot), team kinda picks itself after that. Butterflies starting, can see Murray Carbery axis being what has been missing. Leinster have Jonnie, but Conor and Joey trump even him. 3 more sleeps.

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    Mute Paul O'Connor
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    Dec 6th 2018, 8:32 PM

    Thereโ€™s a Heineken cup or two in this young and developing squad.

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    Mute Bungee Aky
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    Dec 7th 2018, 12:01 AM

    @Paul Oโ€™Connor: naw, nobody is going to beat Leinster this side of the World Cup in France.

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    Mute retsnuM
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    Dec 6th 2018, 9:07 AM

    2nd row selection will be interesting in the absence of Jean Kleyn.

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    Mute Johnny 5
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    Dec 6th 2018, 9:33 AM

    @retsnuM: Surely Holland comes in and Wycherley takes the bench spot, as he seems to have jumped Oโ€™Shea in the pecking. In terms of locks we are a little light. DOC2 could cover but he is injured, maybe POM can cover in a crisis. Definitely an area we need more depth.

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    Mute Niall Collins
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    Dec 6th 2018, 10:23 AM

    @Johnny 5: well there is a certain Tipperary man out of contract in Paris this summerโ€ฆ

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    Mute Glenbower
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    Dec 6th 2018, 10:51 AM

    @Johnny 5: I agree re Holland and Wycherley but I seem to remember that Oโ€™Shea looked good recently โ€“ including in the heavy going in Zebre, I think. I really hope that he develops into Munsterโ€™s Devin Toner โ€“ heโ€™s only an inch shorter that Dev, is still only 25 (26 next week) and has good players and coaches to learn from. Maybe uber-tall players take a bit longer to develop. As we know, 6-9 / 6-10 comfort blankets are very handy in the line-out for provinces and Ireland.

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    Mute Johnny 5
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    Dec 6th 2018, 11:39 AM

    @Glenbower: I donโ€™t doubt itโ€™s possible and he has all the physical attibutes required, but he is back 2 years and looks like he is moving backwards in the pecking order. Itโ€™s not like lock is very competitive spot for Munster at the moment. He is competing with Holland (33 and without the physical attibutes to be top level lock) and Wycherley (only 20), Oโ€™Shea should really be pushing on and playing games if he is going to make it.

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    Mute Johnny 5
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    Dec 6th 2018, 11:48 AM

    @Niall Collins: that would be great, but considering we couldnโ€™t afford to keep him 2 years ago, and he has spent the last 2 years tearing up trees in Paris itโ€™s hard to imagine him coming back. Plus the carrot of playing for Ireland at the RWC isnโ€™t even guaranteed if he returned with the emergence of James Ryan and Beirne since he left

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    Mute Gibson O Driscoll
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    Dec 6th 2018, 11:59 PM

    @retsnuM: Big Billy & Tadgh

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    Mute Simon Clarke
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    Dec 6th 2018, 1:40 PM

    Looking forward to this pairing. Suspect Cooney โ€“ Carbery might make for a fine combination as well though.

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