World Cup was 'huge disappointment' but Keegan confident in Ireland's mental skills
GARY KEEGAN HASN’T watched ‘Chasing the Sun’ and doesn’t have any plans to take a look at the revealing behind-the-scenes documentary about the Springboks’ World Cup success last year.
The Ireland performance coach doesn’t see the value in a glimpse behind the South Africans’ curtain. Keegan, who has been working with Andy Farrell’s team on the mental side of their game, says these Irish players are on a very different journey to the Boks so it just isn’t relevant.
His only focus is on what’s going on inside the Ireland camp. The energy and confidence levels in Farrell’s squad – that’s what his work is all about.
And in that sense, he has been happy with what he has seen from Ireland since they gathered in Dublin nearly two weeks ago. They were able to come together earlier than expected because Leinster and Munster lost their URC semi-finals, but Keegan has sensed no worrying hang-ups from a disappointing season for the Irish provinces.
“I mean, they bounced back into camp,” says Keegan in Johannesburg.
“You can anticipate it’s going to be a bit difficult but as soon as they’re back together, they’re talking, laughing, engaging. We’ve had two provinces who have had two similar experiences, which is great, so very close relationships and connections.”
Keegan feels that the players being back in the Ireland environment is key to them moving on from whatever disappointment was there, this mission in South Africa ‘positively distracting’ them from what’s in the past.
And what a mission it is. Unsurprisingly, Keegan sees this tour as “a huge opportunity” for Ireland against the world champions in their own backyard, saying it’s an important next step for this team.
The former Irish boxing guru is essentially Farrell’s right-hand man, having joined full-time ahead of the New Zealand tour in 2022. Keegan is key to creating the kind of mentality and atmosphere that Farrell wants and they’ve had big success together.
There has also been some heavy disappointment too, most notably the World Cup quarter-final defeat to New Zealand last year in France.
“The lead-in, preparation, and performances at the World Cup were at a point where the group were so tight, so connected that for me, in my experience, if you’re performing well, you can walk off the field with your head held high,” says Keegan.
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Keegan has been working with Ireland since 2020.
“The team performed exceptionally well, even in that final game. While there were some aspects you’d like to go back and revisit, I think overall we were happy we got the performance out of the team.
“Huge disappointment, there’s no question. There’s so much investment and commitment that everyone is going to be significantly disappointed coming out of that. We had support in place for them post-World Cup and players had an opportunity to check in.
“It wasn’t long until they were back with their provinces, most of them had around three weeks off and were back in and had something else to focus their mind. So there was support there, a number of players tapped into that, others didn’t.”
He adds that Ireland reviewed that New Zealand game exactly as they would any other game, changing nothing due to it being a World Cup quarter-final.
There were the usual ‘chokers’ jibes aimed at Ireland after that defeat to the All Blacks, clearly something that Keegan doesn’t agree with.
Yet he struggles to be certain how much of the defeat was down to mental shortcomings, even while he points out that it must have been part of that bad opening quarter that left Ireland 13-0 down.
“It’s hard to tell,” says Keegan. “We had not lost 20 minutes in a game, we had won every 20 minutes up to that point so there was certainly something there.
“But it’s hard to strip it apart. You might be one or two individuals which has an impact but we’re doing a lot of work in this space. We feel we’ve made significant progress. I would say the context of our mental game is that there’s always room for more growth because it’s a shifting space.
“But we’re on it, we’re targeting it on a continuous basis. The players are much more open about the space as a collective, so it’s not like secret conversations with people in corners out of the view of everyone else. The group is much more open and much more mature about how they approach their mental game and how they prepare for it.”
Keegan is seemingly confident that Ireland’s “quality work” on their mental game will mean they continue to develop in this area.
There was an expectation that Johnny Sexton’s retirement would have a major negative impact on Ireland but they won the Six Nations earlier this year with Jack Crowley stepping up at out-half.
Keegan says Jack Crowley has "worked exceptionally hard."
Keegan believes that Sexton aided the transition by ‘empowering’ other leaders around him before he finished playing.
“Nobody is indispensable really,” says Keegan. “When you’re gone, people move on. Everybody respects and loves Johnny Sexton, but they’ve got to move on and I think the team has just transitioned well, and getting on to what they have to do to get where they need to get to next.
“It moves very, very quickly. That shouldn’t surprise you. It moved on very quickly. Nobody is looking back, everyone is looking forward.”
In that sense, Keegan is certain that Farrell will be leaving no stone unturned in making sure that Ireland are in a good place before he departs on Lions duty at the end of this year.
He says that Farrell is one of the “most strategic coaches” he has worked with, pointing to the rebirth of the Emerging Ireland team as an example of Farrell’s long-term thinking.
Keegan stresses the importance of Ireland finding more players who are capable of playing Test rugby and believes Farrell is on the right track.
Interestingly, Keegan also feels that Irish rugby would benefit from having a more diverse playing base in the future, rather than one that is predominantly drawn from private schools.
“It’s a strength and a weakness,” said Keegan. “Our greatest strength is also potentially our greatest weakness. There’s an opportunity for Irish rugby to be more diverse.
“We need teams within the four provinces to get stronger and that works well for Ireland. The stronger the other three provinces are the better for Ireland. We see Munster heading in the right direction. The more diverse that group is, the stronger a team will be for sure.
“There’s a strength in having a big number of players out of a province that’s progressing within the environment.
“There’s a recognition that the more diversity we have within the group, the stronger we will become.”