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Ian McGeechan: Why saying yes to Doncaster took 'about five seconds'
Ian McGeechan says it took him five seconds to take Doncaster Knights chairman Steve Lloyd up on his offer to become the Championship club’s new consultant director of rugby.
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While still heavily involved in the game through his media work, the Lions legend has not been actively involved at club level since he left Yorkshire Carnegie in May 2019.
The 77-year-old, though, jumped at the chance to not only mentor young head coach Joe Ford but also help Doncaster become the focal point for young talent in the county.
Speaking to RugbyPass, the former Scotland and Lions player and coach said: “I enjoy Steve’s company. We have known each other now for over 10 years, and we have been on committees together and things, and at the moment we are looking at the best way we can set up the academy in Yorkshire.
“We were just talking about it and said, well did I fancy having a look at it and having an overview of the club as a consultant DoR. I’m pleased we had that conversation. I thought about it for about five seconds, and I thought, ‘I’d like to do that’.
𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐑𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞 | A Knight for the Knights ⚔
Read here👇🏻https://t.co/kSJXFIgdjp pic.twitter.com/hiNwk3TmaV
— Doncaster Knights 🏉 (@DoncasterKnight) February 29, 2024
“It’s a good set-up. They have got young players, Joe is a good young coach and I’d just like to be able to think I can support and mentor him a little bit and help the next generation.
“I have always got on well with Joe and had good conversations with him (when together at Leeds) and he is turning into a very good coach, which is what the game wants and needs.
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“For me, it’s nice. I can just try and use the experience and knowledge I have built up and share it with him, the staff and the players to make it as good and, hopefully, as happy a place as possible.”
Having won it all at Wasps, the most successful of his coaching spells in the Premiership, McGeechan last took charge of a team at Leeds in 2015 – for two games in a caretaker capacity after Gary Mercer and then Tommy McGhee lost their jobs in yet another turbulent year for the Headingley club.
However, McGeechan has made it clear that current head coach Joe Ford would be leading the rugby operation at Doncaster whose director of rugby, until he quit on February 19, was Steve Boden.
“We have agreed Joe is responsible for the rugby and I’m really a sounding board for him,” said McGeechan, who was made a knight of the realm in 2009.
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“So yes, I will be involved in talking about the rugby, looking at things, analysing aspects of the games when the team is playing and just being there for any conversations he [Joe] wants to have, and to also help in some of the other wider aspects of the director of rugby role which are a bit more away directly from the team.”
Bringing the Yorkshire academy to Castle Park will be front and centre of his focus in this respect. Currently the RFU fund and run the Yorkshire academy, which has had no fixed abode since Carnegie lost the license in 2020.
As such, any Premiership-standard players are lost to the region between the ages of 18 and 23. Depending on the funding structure agreed in the new professional game partnership agreement, which is due to be signed off in a matter of weeks, Doncaster would be the perfect fit given its excellent training and playing facilities.
“I have been working in the background a little bit on the academy set-up since it came back into RFU hands and it is just part of the ongoing conversations at the moment with the new agreement between RFU and PRL,” he said.
“There is an agreement that there will be a Yorkshire academy and I certainly have ideas on the best template for it and how it can develop the best Yorkshire talent, and it makes a lot of sense for that to be directed through the top Championship club (Doncaster) or Premiership 2 if it comes that.
“There is no doubt there is a strong base of talent and numbers. The players have to go through somewhere at the top end of the academy and it should be a Yorkshire club. To do it properly it has to be through Doncaster. They are head and shoulders ahead of everyone else at the moment.
“If the talent stays, it keeps developing. The Yorkshire identity is kept and the players stay with their friends. At the moment they are having to go outside Yorkshire and they shouldn’t have to. There is no doubt we lose players because some don’t want to do that.
“If Doncaster are still in the Championship, Steve Lloyd has got a very good attitude about it all. If there is an obvious potential Premiership or potential England player there would be an arrangement to put them into a Premiership club, so it makes it a genuine pathway.”
McGeechan couldn’t have come back into the Championship at a more tumultuous time for the league with its relevance to the overall structure of English rugby being fiercely debated.
“There has been a lot of discussion about what the top end of the game looks like best so in the next 12 to 18 months there will probably be some significant developments. I shall await and see.”
Comments on RugbyPass
Amazing. The losing team’s ratings are higher than the winning team’s. Mallia definitely didn’t deserve a y. What game were you watching? Should have got a w or an x. ADP hardly featured in that second half. At one point I wondered when he’d been subbed. Seems to me as if he gets an automatic 9 just for getting onto the team sheet.
1 Go to commentsI’m sorry. That second half was far from enthralling. It was painful to watch.
1 Go to commentsVery generous! If you’d missed the game, reading this you’d conclude that it was the Quins front row that cost them the game. Marler getting a blanket 6 for his demented contribution to the game. Puzzling.
1 Go to commentsCan’t see Toulouse beating Leinster at this rate.
7 Go to commentsADP was having a very average game until winning that penalty for Toulouse, sticking his big head in the way. “The head of God”?
7 Go to commentsHarlequins doing their best to do as little damage as possible with all the possession. Looks like they skipped catch and pass drills this week.
7 Go to commentsSeeing pictures of Jacques high-fiving it with Irish players breaks my heart. Too soon. I need more time.
1 Go to commentsquins is all over the place. The minute they get the ball they panic. Quins can still win tho just need to win all rucks otherwise just don't bother.
7 Go to commentsGreat wins for the male & female kiwi sides. Ireland not far away..
1 Go to commentsWhy is this dude getting so much coverage? Usually knobs like this get cancelled.
2 Go to commentsWow. What was that? A 3 million word meandering article about what exactly?
1 Go to commentsNice piece of writing. And yes the Sharks pulled a rabbit from the hat and were a little lucky with that penalty try that wasn’t given… however the Sharks (with their resources) should be way more consistent and should be putting teams like Claremont away for breakfast. I expect more from them and hope they kick on now.
8 Go to commentsJust what the Sharks needed to get things going in the right direction Defence on the outside really creates havoc for the whole team and needs to be addressed.
8 Go to commentsWell done guys both teams will be ready to play knockout rugby.
1 Go to commentsSurprised that Ramos isn't starting at 15. But what a squad of galacticos!
2 Go to commentsWhy is it a snub? What journalistic garbage is that? Sure the guy is a great player, but there are plenty of loose forwards and not all of them can be Springboks. Also, I know of no-one who doubts Rassie’s judgment. South Africa has a conveyor belt of loose forwards that just keeps producing, so the competition is intense. I certainly wish him well, but there is no entitlement and there is no snub.
17 Go to commentsSkelton may be brought back for the Wallabies so that would be the only reason that may hinder Wilson. Easily the form, most skilful and game IQ of any Oz 8. Valentini’s best and favourite position is 6, but lineouts may be an issue with Skelton, Valentini and Wilson. Will be interesting what Schmidt goes for but for me Wilson should be picked on form. Schmidt rewards work rate, skill and consistency. All that glitters every so often won’t be in contention. Greely is one of those players that has a knack of making the right decision. A coach is going to love him because he knows week in week out he’s going to get the job done. The second try Greely wasn’t the guy who made the initial break it was Flook, Greely was at the bottom of the ruck when Flook was off along the sideline. Greely got up and made the effort to catch up with play but also read the play nicely and hit the pass from Campbell at pace and then held the pass beautifully to Ryan.
6 Go to commentsSpot on Ben. Dead right. Havili looked great at 10. Easily the highest rugby IQ of any NZ player these days. Getting a kick charged down is a result of getting used to adjusting your depth to the line at 10, which he will sort out with time. But other than that it was an outstanding first effort in that position this year. I think the NZ media has misunderstood this directive from Razor. Havili might rank behind B Barrett this year, but Beuden is 33 this month and won't last much longer. DMaC is great but flaky and not really a test match animal (his efforts in Dunedin versus Aus last year for example). If Razor can't have Mounga, DMaC is too unstructured for Razor (and is just too small for test rugby). Havili will end up our first choice first five, and in partnership with Jodie will be excellent. Two triple threat operators in tandem, and big bodies and tough tacklers to boot. Jordoe will be the ABs goal kicker. I am an Aucklander and Blues (and Warriors) fan, but Havili at 10 is going to be sensational in time… he can be the best first five in the world by the end of this year. No question.
6 Go to commentsSharks deserved to be far further back by the last quarter. Their tackling was awful, their set pieces were disappointing, their defensive organization was poor (especially on the Kok side of the D line), they kept making unnecessary errors, and they never looked like cracking the Clermont defense during those first 60m. Masuku kept them in touch, with some help from the Clermont generosity on penalty opportunities. Agree with the writer of this article. It was belligerence, and ability to raise their pressure game just enough, that turned the last quarter into a Bok-style shutout. Clermont have a reputation of not playing the full 80m, and there was a bit of that for sure. But, quite often when the intensity of a team drops off in the last quarter credit is due to the opponent for tiring them out. At 60m, with the Kok try, you thought that just maybe the game was on. At 70m, with the Mapimpi contribution, one felt that Clermont were fading, while facing a team that would maintain the pressure game through the final whistle. Good win in the end, but the Sharks are still playing way below their potential. And with their resources, and a coach that has had enough time to figure things out, they are running out of excuses.
8 Go to commentsGood riddance
1 Go to comments