Ulster Rugby’s reasons behind the decision
The full initial statement from Ulster Rugby’s director of rugby, David Humphreys, on the decision taken to appoint a new head coach:
Almost three years ago Brian and I sat down to talk about him coming in to take over the Ulster coaching post.
We both knew there were major problems in Ulster Rugby at that stage.
We both had strong views on how we were going to address those and we put out a plan at that point as to how we felt we could take control of that.
Two and a half years on we have taken some big strides along the way and at the point when we first sat down we saw Munster and Leinster moving way ahead of us and we were determined to close that gap, and particularly in the performances over the last months we have closed that gap.
However, we are also in the business of professional sport and in professional sport there are short-term and long-term objectives in almost every organisation.
As part of our long-term strategy we are now at a point in Ulster Rugby’s season where we are making a change to our head coach position for next year and Brian will be moving to take up a post in our Academy position.
I will explain some of the reasons why that is going to happen.
Firstly, when you look at the situation that we are in and the situation within the IRFU where there is an increasing emphasis placed on young indigenous Irish players coming through our system, we all understand the importance of our Academy.
We know that if we are going to fill an 18,000 capacity stadium in Ravenhill in the years to come we have got to have players coming through, who are not just competing with players from Munster and Leinster, but are beating Munster and Leinster on a regular basis and competing at the top table in Europe.
We believe that Brian with his experience in school, experience in the Irish coaching set-up, in the Ulster coaching set-up, is the perfect man to go in and work alongside Gary Longwell (High Performance Manager) in our Academy to drive that forward.
I think probably I will give Brian a chance to make some comments. We are all on record many times over the last wee while, Brian has taken Ulster Rugby a long way down a path that we all hoped it would go. It is a journey we are still on, we still believe we have some massive strides to take to achieve where the vision of this organisation is going.
We have all said many times that we are all very ambitious not just the coaching team or the management team but everyone in Ravenhill is hugely ambitious about where we want to go to.
We believe for the long-term benefit of the players and UR in general that Brian’s appointment in the Academy will be an integral part of that.
p We will carry a full copy of the media conference on our website www.newsletter.co.uk later today.
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Weather for Belfast
Tuesday 29 May 2012
Today
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