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'We don't make idiots of ourselves': The remarkable rise of Caldy
Good rugby news travels fast. Within a day of Caldy enthusing on the website that their successful 2021/22 National 1 title win had made Liverpool Echo headlines, ex-England international Austin Healey dedicated an entire Daily Telegraph column to the Wirral club’s fairytale promotion to the Championship under head coach Matt Cairns, himself a Test level old boy.
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The seven-year ex-Saracens hooker, who won an Amlin Challenge Cup with Harlequins as well as spending a season at Sale and an Anglo-Welsh campaign with Northampton, was capped in May 2007 on England’s South African tour, stepping off the Bloemfontein bench for a five-minute cameo that remains his “standout personal achievement”.
Cairns’ fledgling coaching career is now coming along very nicely. Busy with his own financial investment company, his rugby involvement mightn’t sound much on paper compared to the high profile professional coaches putting it in on a daily basis.
While Caldy does have a relationship with Sale Sharks and had the 20-year-old Elliott Gourlay, an ex-Scotland age-grade international, on loan to fill an injury gap, their squad consists of all sorts, teachers, engineers, pharmacists, students and so on.
The club is a twice-a-week evening training set-up with a game on a Saturday, a grassroots approach that won’t change much even though they are about to enter the uncharted territory of the English second tier, mixing it with the likes of the Premiership-chasing Ealing and Doncaster.
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— Caldy RFC (@CaldyRFC) April 25, 2022
Founded in 1924 as Old Caldeians Rugby Club for past pupils of Calday Grange School, the Ravers spent much of their existence in the local leagues but that changed these past five years. They were crowned National League 2 North champions in 2017 in front of a 1,432 Paton Field attendance against second-place Sale FC, reaching National 1 for the first time ever.
It was 2018/19 when Cairns was invited along, Caldy director of rugby Gareth Davies bringing him in as forwards coach, and while crippling injuries contributed to relegation in a bizarre campaign where they topped the table after an initial dozen matches, what has since unfolded either side of the pandemic with Cairns as head coach has been ridiculous.
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Caldy won all 25 League 2 North matches when the March 2020 lockdown struck and while their promotion was honoured by the RFU, it wasn’t until last September that they finally got going again. Despite an early-season wobble, a 17-game winning streak – 23 wins overall from 28 outings – ushered them into the Championship, a home win last month over Sale in front of a jubilant bumper crowd securing them the title. Wow.
“That was brilliant, it was a great atmosphere and the game added to that,” enthused Caldy boss Cairns to RugbyPass about the club with a wooden shack for a clubhouse and an open field for a ground. “We packed in 3,500 people on the bank and there will probably never be another day like it in Caldy. It was unbelievable, the lads getting promoted and winning the league, but we have moved on pretty quick because most of our lads are involved in the County Championship.
“We’d a good celebration for a couple of weeks but now we are on to the next one and obviously thinking about next season. Brilliant, it was good,” he continued, reflecting on their latest title-winning campaign. “We lost our ten in pre-season and our 15 in the second game of the season. Then the ten that came in to replace got injured and then the next ten that came in got injured.
“We were just finding our feet really and the lads learned very quickly the level of what we needed to do to win games. Then we ground out a lot of results and as it shows in sport if you get into a habit of winning it massively helps.
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And the Sale Sharks tie-up, how beneficial was that for Cairns and Caldy? “We only really had Elliott Gourlay all year, we had the full-back because we got a couple of injuries. We spoke to Sale and they lent us Elliott and Nye Thomas. Nye, unfortunately, got injured and didn’t play very much but he had a couple of games towards the end. It was really handy to have their help.”
Planning for their first-ever Championship season will see an informal running club morph into official pre-season training at the end of June and Cairns will be sticking to his guns despite reaching the big time, relying on the togetherness of the squad that has taken Caldy this far to now test itself in a division that will be all new to them.
— Caldy RFC (@CaldyRFC) April 25, 2022
“We don’t need to change anything massively overnight,” he said. “There are a few things the club are dealing with at the moment to get sorted, which we will, but nothing too major. We are not going to change. The squad is very mixed. We have got teachers, engineers, pharmacists, what else have we got?
“We got fund managers, business owners, young lads, students, so a very, very big mix in the squad of what they do for their day job. It’s going to be a step up for them and they are going to have to commit a bit more time to it, go to the gym and get fit and strong, but I’m sure the lads will commit to doing this.
“Richmond are a good blueprint, what they have done to establish themselves in the Championship, and we are not going to change our model. We will try and keep improving with every game, that is what we will do. We will try and compete but it will be incredibly difficult. We’re not under any illusions as to how tough the Championship is going to be.
“Staying up would rank up there, definitely rank up there – it would be incredible to be able to do that. We just want to be in a position where we don’t make idiots of ourselves and we compete as hard as we can. Every club we’re going to is a big club and there are some really good rugby clubs. I played for Bedford myself, a proper rugby club. There are loads of good fans and the lads will really enjoy the atmospheres.”
Always a pleasure to have you guys onboard https://t.co/2DqPcd9VIL
— ANTHONYS TRAVEL (@ANTHONYSTRAVEL) November 1, 2021
A feature of the Caldy operation under Cairns is they don’t do overnights, instead preferring to be early-risers for away matches. For instance, last October’s 300-mile trip to Plymouth required a 5:15am start. “That’s correct,” acknowledged the head coach. “The lads don’t like travelling the night before so we just get on the bus early and get our way down to the game.
“There will be a couple of plane journeys in there in the Championship. There aren’t other options, getting to Jersey will be a plane journey and probably Penzance (for Cornish Pirates) because it is just too far in a bus and not doable but it is what it is. We will have to find a way. It hasn’t been fully planned out but I’m sure the club will react and do the right thing for the lads.
“The rest of the travelling isn’t too bad. We’ve done it before so we will be absolutely fine. The bus journies are quiet on the way down and messy on the way back. We always have a good time. We are there to make sure the lads enjoy it and luckily this year we won a lot of away games and enjoyed those trips.”
Why is rugby thriving in a football hotbed dominated by Liverpool and Everton? “The Wirral is a big rugby area. There are twelve rugby clubs all vying for prominence, some really good rugby clubs. It’s strong in the schools, so it’s a real rugby area. Caldy is a club that has come through the leagues in the last ten years and everyone that comes here to watch a game will enjoy it. They will have a good day, they will find it a very welcoming place with welcoming people.
"This is my childhood club. To find our way to @Champrugby with all my mates is just fairytale isn't it?"
? @CaldyRFC reflect on back-to-back league titles as they prepare for life in the second tier
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— National League Rugby (@Natleague_rugby) April 27, 2022
“I knew Caldy well because it is down the road from where I grew up so it’s a proper rugby club, a big mini and junior section. I knew a lot of the lads because I was coaching at county level previously, so I knew they were a good bunch of lads and knew lots of people involved in the club.
“I was coaching down the road at Wirral, had been there for a few years, and Gaz Davies asked me when we were coaching Cheshire (the county rep team), did I fancy moving to Caldy and giving it a go. I thought yeah, why not?
“I was there for a year just doing the forwards and stuff. It’s never a nice thing getting relegated but it gave us the opportunity to put together some plans to prepare and improve the lads. I became the head coach and had an idea of how I wanted the team to shape up. It wasn’t loads of changes. Because of what had gone on before, the team has been really well-coached so it was just a case of a different voice.
“We train 35, 40 people on a Tuesday and Thursday night, the first and seconds team lads change together, train together and then eat together then after. There is no divide at the club. You wouldn’t know the difference if you were sat in the room with them all and that is brilliant because there is loads of integration and there is a good spirit at the club. That has always happened. That is the Caldy way of doing things, which is really important.
? | Match Action
A selection of match action shots from Saturday's 13-9 win against @SaleFC which secured our place in @Champrugby for the 2022/23 Season.
? | Pictures courtesy of Steve Flynn
Please visit the following link for the gallery:https://t.co/jKAVJmLyBv#Ravers pic.twitter.com/2v8v9Ca51o
— Caldy RFC (@CaldyRFC) April 26, 2022
“The strength of the team is our team and that is the way we want to keep it. All the lads that contributed (to the title win) were all absolutely brilliant and they will give everything in the Championship. That is what we are about. Ten lads that played in that Sale game came through the Caldy mini and juniors and that is the way we will keep it.”
What should immensely help Caldy in the Championship is the pragmatic way Cairns goes about his business, ably juggling his finance business with family life and the demands of bringing a team up through the English rugby pyramid. “It’s not without its challenges but at the moment it is manageable and we have just got to keep doing what we can.
“I was very lucky. I had a good career as a player and look back on it very fondly. Probably winning my England cap was my standout personal achievement and then winning the Amlin with Quins. I played for some really good clubs, I met some really good people and I would draw on those experiences now when I would be coaching the lads. I had lots of coaches at Saracens in a short space of time and learned a lot about what to do and some not what to do.
“You learn from good and bad experiences, like with anything, and improve on what you are doing all the time. That is what we do. We constantly review what we are doing and how we are doing things. I don’t try and be something I’m not, I just am myself when I’m coaching and I won’t change that style.
“I didn’t coach for a couple of seasons when I finished playing. I wanted to have a couple of years away from the game and that is the way it turned out. I just got on with my life but I got into it when a friend asked me to help him out at my junior club. I enjoy doing it now. I get a lot out of coaching and I enjoy helping. It’s good.”
Comments on RugbyPass
Obscene that SA haven’t been knocking
1 Go to commentsChances of Blackadder being injured seem too high to give him serious consideration. ABs loosie combination finally looked good with 2 committed to tackling and clearing rucks in the centre and Ardie roaming. Hoskins/Ardie together would force one of them into where they don’t excel and don’t get to use their talent, or require a change in tactics. If we continue to evolve last years systems I would take Papali’i and Finau at 6 and 7 (conceding that Blackadder will be injured) and Ardie at 8.
15 Go to commentsArdie’s preferred position 7? Where do they get these writers from? I've no idea where he's playing in Japan, but the previous two seasons he wore the 7 jersey exactly twice.
17 Go to commentsNot good to hear Ulster described as “financially troubled”. Did not think it was getting to that level. I would hope the Irish system of spreading players of talent away from Leinster would kick in now. Better to have a Leinster fringe player with Ulster or Connacht, then getting only a few games a season in Dublin. 10, for example, would seem to be a case for spreading the talent. I would not be at all adverse to a SA man coming in as head coach/DR. Ludeke is worth trying. Certainly got a long and impressive coaching career at this level…..149 games in SR, then Japan, 30 years experience. And Ulster’s ledger of successful SA coaches and players is on the positive side. Is talk of Ruan Pienaar interested in coming back as a coach…..could be a good combination with Ludeke. And Pienaar and family would have no settling in to do, one would judge. He loved life in Ulster when there, by all reports.
1 Go to commentsSome thoughts to consider here, Sam. Thanks
2 Go to commentsI think he is right, SBW is respected in RSA. The guy who never stood up is a worm. Sseems lots of NZ SBW hate, you do the crime do the time.
11 Go to commentsAfter missing the curfew, the player was simply too “Shagged” to stand up.
11 Go to commentsVernier is probably the best 12 in the world though she has some English competition these days . I am nervous for England because it is unpredictable France and who knows which team will turn up, but they have not yet shown anything that should worry England, Saturday could be a different day. I would be more confident against the BFs.
1 Go to commentsWhat a difference Rodda and Carter made. Rodda has been out for ages but he is really the only world class lock in Australian rugby. Him, Carter and Beale made a huge difference on the weekend. If only they had a few decent props they’d be a much more dangerous team. Hamish Stewart was excellent last week as well. His carrying has improved significantly and has to be next in line after Paisami at 12 for the Wallabies. He’ll benefit hugely with Beale at fullback, there’s just no better communicator in Australian rugby than him and his experience will make a huge difference for the Force. No one sees space like Beale and he’s still sharp. I can see Force making a late charge into the top 8 if they can get some consistency.
2 Go to commentsRodda will be a walk up starter at lock. Frost if you analyse his dominance has little impact and he’s a long way from being physical enough, especially when you compare to Rodda and the work he does. He was quite poor at the World Cup in his lack of physicality. Between Rodda and Skelton we would have locks who can dominate the breakdown and in contact. Frost is maybe next but Schmidt might go for a more physical lock who does their core work better like Ryan or LSL. Swain is no chance unless there’s a load of injuries. Pollard hasn’t got the scrum ability yet to be considered. Nasser dominated him when they went toe to toe and really showed him up. Picking Skelton effects who can play 6 and 8. Ideally Valetini would play 6 as that’s his best position and Wilson at 8 but that’s not ideal for lineout success. Cale isn’t physical enough yet in contact and defence but is the best backrow lineout jumper followed by Wright, Hanigan and Swinton so unfortunately Valetini probably will start at 8 with Wright or Hanigan at 6. Wilson on the bench, he’s got too much quality not to be in the squad. Paisami is leading the way at 12 but Hamish Stewart is playing extremely well also and his ball carrying has improved significantly. Beale is also another option based on the weekend. Beale is class but he’s also the best communicator of any Australian backline player and that can’t be underestimated, he’ll be in the mix.
8 Go to commentsWhy do people keep on picking Ardie at 7 when he's a ball in hand 8? A modern 7 is the lead tackler and ruck clearer which isn't his strength.
15 Go to commentsSly dig there at Ireland’s propensity to back a non-Irish coach. Must really want it. I’m not sure I like ROG very much. Comes off as unpleasant. But he’d gain my respect if he took a number 7 ranked team and turned them into WC winners. Not even back-to-back. Argentina? Scotland? Or how about Wales? France would be too easy, no?
1 Go to commentsA bit of sensationalism, but surprised by the comments about SBW. I’ve always thought of him as a pretty authentic person. There is nothing worse than working with a colleague you’ve seen straight through.
11 Go to comments100% agree with your comment about Touch. I’ve been playing it competitively since Covid. It’s on a Wednesday night after work. It means the weekend is free for time with my family.
2 Go to commentsRodda back is massively important for the Wallabies. Kaitu at hooker important too coz he was very good a few years ago.
2 Go to commentsThe pink cabous might be eligible this year and the Boks don’t need him
8 Go to commentsNasser and kaitu are options for hooker. Especially Nasser. You forgot Rodda who touch wood will be fit at test time and if fit he’s number one. Great partner for the great Skelton and Oz best lineout caller. Third best lock is LSL whom I’d be inclined to sub on for Skelton around 60 minutes. Probably start valetini at 8 because I like a big body back there. Cale should play 6 at the brumbies. For Wallabies definitely cale in the squad but as an apprentice. Dunno who starts at 6 seru wright Swinton hanigan with Will Harris and Harry Wilson not far away. Seru and Swinton my front runners but Swinton is going. Still if we don’t cap seru then Fiji must coz they need his lineout skills and easily compensate for his lack of weight
8 Go to commentsYeah but who was it?
11 Go to commentsThink you might have written this just before the Brumbies got thrashed last weekend
8 Go to commentsI really do believe that Billy Proctor should be selected at least in the larger squad but also it would be my choice at 13, much more a center than Ioane who can still play at wing. Roigard if fit should play, otherwise it should be Perenara or Christie. Also, Iose could deserve a spot at blindside. Of course, being a Canes supporter I’m biased but I really believe that at least Billy P is deserving a chance and being Holland one of the Selectors, I’m having a little hope he could grab it.
15 Go to comments