Rugby Union: Ruthless O’Callaghan set for Waterloo challenge

Sep 12 2007 by Ian Hargraves, Liverpool Daily Post

THE local rugby union season kicks off in earnest on Saturday, with Merseyside’s top club Waterloo entertaining their ancient rivals Manchester under the direction of new coach Chris O’Callaghan.

The latter was a relatively late arrival, who has had little chance to bring in new players himself, but he is the kind of person who believes in being extremely positive, whatever the circumstances.

“I am not saying everything is perfect,” he told me with cold realism. “But I know exactly what to do, and that is to bend people to my desire and keep on driving forward. There is a winning formula, and rather surprisingly it is relatively simple. What you have to do, is to stick to it, and be utterly ruthless.

“In practical terms you have to work on gaining possession, hang on to the ball, keep everything simple and dominate territorially. All this must be done without any complications, and with everyone working together.

“We all have a responsibility to play and win. Not everyone understands that yet, but they soon will I can assure you, especially when they finally accept that it is all about doing things properly together.

“I have come from a very positive background at Aberavon and then Bridgend, where we had plenty of players with caps, some of whom were Lions like John Beavan, Alan Martin, Ian Stephens and JCR Williams.

“I played over 300 games down there, but I know Waterloo are just as long-standing a club, with a fine reputation and the wish to maintain tradition, like having a drink with the opposition afterwards.”

Looking at his present situation, which has seen him tour successfully with his new club in Ireland, but lose away to Otley a week ago, O’Callaghan is in no doubt about what he has to face. “It is all down to winning, even by a single point,” he stressed. “When I arrived at the club most of the signings had been made, so I have to work with what I’ve got. We have some excellent players, but not really enough, which could be a problem.

“Apart from scrum-half, where we have three good players, and the back row, we are a bit short of strength in depth, so will have to keep our fingers crossed that we don’t suffer injuries.

“David York is a great player in the back row, who leads by example. I expect something big from Tom Davies, and Matthew Bradley is quite formidable too.

“Luckily we also have three fine scrum-halves, with Luke Stringer, John Broxson and Pablo Feijo to chose from, but there is not much cover for Alex Davies at fly half.

“We have a most impressive back row, but I am not too happy about the front five, who do not really work together too well, and overall we seem on the light side.

“However, I can assure you that we will all be going flat out to win on Saturday, because that is what professional rugby is all about, and we intend to carry on and win every single match during the rest of the season. Perhaps we won’t do that, but we will certainly be trying as hard as we possibly can. That really is what it’s all about.”