His Bordeaux side are flying right now.
Self described as a ‘farming enthusiast from Co. Clare’, and someone who has never even played rugby, Noel McNamara is, currently, the best Irish coach working in the sport.
Having honed his trade at Clongowes, McNamara had further success with the Ireland U20s, before winding up at the Sharks, and now Bordeaux-Bégles, where he has been since last season.
In his first year, the French side reached the final of the Top 14, and despite being put to the sword in the final by Toulouse, it was an improvement on the previous season.
This year they are currently second in the league, while in Europe they look in good shape to make the Champions Cup final, particularly with their rivals Toulouse missing Antoine Dupont.
But as the attack coach with Bordeaux, one stat in particular shows just how valuable the Irishman is.
In his excellent interview with Peter O’Reilly, The Times journalist pointed out that in the season before McNamara joined the French side, they scored 63 tries in the Top 14 and Champions Cup combined.
Last season they improved by almost double with 124, and this season they have 110 so far with a possible 13 games left.
Of course, McNamara is helped by having the brilliance of France’s starting wingers, Damian Penaud and Louis Bielle-Biarrey, and his challenge is to bring structure to his team’s attack without inhibiting creativity.
He said: “It’s about how they attack together that counts. You can have lots of brilliant individual attackers but they need to function as a collective.
“That’s always been the thing for me — the sum of those talents has to be greater than the parts. We’ve got some exceptional individual parts so therefore the sum should be pretty good!
“We do thrive in unstructured play but even in unstructured rugby, we have structure — if that makes sense.
“If you look at basketball or soccer, it’s when the ball is in transition from defence to attack that so much opportunity occurs so it makes sense to be effective in those moments.
“It’s about collective understanding, as well being able to read each other in those moments. And that’s a collaborative process.”
