Former Crusaders assistant looking to motivate and inspire B&I Lions

It’s been a long road for former Crusaders asssitant coach and current British and Irish Lions backs coach Andrew Goodman, who has spent time at Irish club Leinster and at the Ireland national team since his move north.

Goodman, who coached Tasman in the Bunnings NPC before being involved in the Crusaders under Scott Robertson, is now looking towards his first-ever British and Irish Lions tour in early July.

Goodman was named in Andy Farrell’s coaching contingent to tour Australia, after spending the international season with Farrell at Ireland, helping them to a third-place finish in the Six Nations.

The 42-year-old joined Sky Sports’ weekly show The Breakdown, to discuss the upcoming Lions tour, something that Goodman says is a bit of a full-circle moment.

“Yeah, it’s crazy to think just two years ago we made the big move for the family over here, the Crusaders was a tough place to leave at the time,” Goodman told The Breakdown.

“I was loving my time there, and the main reason was because my wife was 34 weeks pregnant when we flew over, so it was a big decision for us to come over. But the last couple of years have been an amazing journey for myself and the family, and to get this experience now was it’s incredible, and there’s some buzz around the place.”

When asked about the players in both the Super Rugby Pacific and the United Rugby Championship competitions, Goodman believes that the players are more similar than people may think.

“The first thing is that the two competitions you got over here was a big one for me coming over, the NPC and the Super Rugby being two separate competitions, over here I was trying to get my head around the European Champions Cup and the URC running at the same time and internationals leaving part way through a season,” Goodman said.

“Then you’ve got a young group of players coming through, which you’ve got a lot of time to develop. There’s a lot more kind of juggling of squads and different little bits like that.

“But in terms of people on and off the field, they’re great just like the Kiwi boys, and love the game and get massive enjoyment out of playing and connecting with them, just like whatever New Zealand does.”

Goodman acknowledges the challenges of a long overseas tour, but admits the cohesion of the team come team naming for the first Test, is the most important thing.

“As a coaching group, we’ve had a couple of months now since we’ve been named, so we’ve obviously had a few connection points, as you know, the four unions coming together, we’ve got an incredibly exciting bunch of players.

“But come Test match one, it’s going to be about the cohesion of the group and the collective. So we’ve got to, like you said there, we’ve got to get some simple structures in place which allow the individuals to shine.

“But the individuals all shine if we’re really clear around alignment and how that looks as a group, it’s attack and defence and against a Wallabies team that’s on the rise.”

Goodman explains that the coaching staff would struggle to put together a matchday 23 at the moment, due to the amount of quality in the group.

“Honestly, we couldn’t sit down and name a 23 for a first Test right now, and that’s the way it should be with the Lions group and even the guys that have missed out on this 38 there’s some incredible talent that you know, there’s a lot of time before the actual first game.

“There’s often one or two of those guys that haven’t been named that will play and perform really well in the Test matches at the end. So that competition that you talked about is going to have to be one of the things that drives us along to get ready for Test matches.”

Goodman is confident that the Lions will play a brand of rugby that’s enjoyable to watch, something that the coaches are aware of heading into training camp.

“We want to give the fans what they want to see, we want to play a brand of rugby that’s attractive, and we’ve got supporters coming over, paying a lot of money to go to that side of the world.

“We want to inspire the next generations of kids coming through to play the game, so of course, we want to play a brand of rugby that’s exciting to watch.”