New coach explains why Ulster opportunity was too good to turn down

The former prop was capped three times by New Zealand and had a playing stint in the northern hemisphere with London Irish,

Dermody left the Highlanders to replace Jimmy Duffy at Ulster.

“I was ready for a change,” he explained. “I’d been coaching in Super Rugby for 13, 14 seasons, so it happened that opportunity came up.

"Obviously Jimmy Duffy done a great job with the boys for the last couple of seasons and then had to move on pretty quickly from my understanding, so an opportunity came.

"I actually still had a year to run in New Zealand, but I felt it was a good opportunity to get over and experience, I guess, different rugby in a different culture.

“As with any process they go through, they sort of sound out a few people as well...my agent had a bit of an ear to the ground, knew what was going on, so it was perfect timing in the end.”

Dermody doesn’t believe there is much difference between scrummaging in the southern and northern hemisphere, but conceded the scrum has changed since his playing days.

“It's all pretty process driven, so there's different ways to do it, but the outcome is hopefully always trying to be the same,” he added. “I've really enjoyed working with the boys, they're open to new ideas.

"I guess for me the challenge now is we were playing Edinburgh last week and now we're playing Ospreys who scrum differently and then get exposed to Italian technique and South African again, so it'll be a good challenge for me to keep progressing technique versus different styles.

“The gap's now (smaller), we used to engage off a good metre, that's why the golf swing is a bit shorter now!

"There's plenty of angles going on. It's probably more based around power now, it used to be speed and win the hit and then whoever did that would theoretically win really.

“Now it's a bit more of a pushing contest because there's no real gap to be able to hit into, but it'll be a good challenge this week for the boys.

"Ospreys are a big pack and definitely a different technique to be exposed to than what they faced last week.”

Ulster conceded 48 scrum penalties last season, won the least in the United Rugby Championship and were 14th out of 16 on scrums won on their own put in – but despite those stats, the former All Black doesn’t think there is too much to fix.

“Nothing revolutionary really, just eight people doing the same thing at the same time to go forward really at the end of the day,” he said. “My role in that is to make them technically sound and then create a mindset to give them confidence to be able to do it when they get into the thick of the game.”

Away from the pitch, Dermody is settling into Belfast nicely.

“The city, quite similar to Dunedin really,” he added. “It's a bit bigger, but everything's still pretty close.

"If you want to get to town, it's only 10 minutes and I'm enjoying that.

"Culturally, as long as four or five people aren't talking at the same time, I'm alright – I'm starting to pick up the accent a wee bit!”