Stand Up Magazine - Issue 39 - Ulster Rugby Supporters' Club

The obvious first question, what are your responsibilities now as Ulster Rugby Operations Director, and are they just those of Director of Rugby in another guise? We are working through those at the moment, but in essence we have gone back to the older “David Humphreys structure” where I’m overseeing the professional game but still very much looking after all the off-field business and allowing Jono [Gibbes] to look after everything on-field. For Jono, that is the right thing for now, to allow him to concentrate on getting performances right on the pitch. In terms of anything underneath that, we will be reviewing that over the coming months to align structures with the new strategy we are starting to put in place, and which hopefully will be fully active by the start of next season. We will be looking at every aspect of Rugby in Ulster and in particular the professional game to see what needs changed or tweaked. Will you be looking at the committee structure within Ulster or are those sacrosanct? That is sacrosanct and certainly not in my remit! I report to the Professional Game Board, which in turn reports into the Management Committee. I don’t envisage or am aware of any changes moving forward Who actually made the call on Les? Was it the same person(s) who appointed him? They were taken by a range of people at committee level and in conjunction with IRFU, and obviously involving Les himself. What I do know is that it was totally a mutual decision that it was time to part ways. There was a lot of what Les termed “noise” in the media and from fans prior to Les’s announced departure – did that have significant impact on the decision making by Ulster management? It would be wrong to say that we ignore the “noise”, but it’s never going to be the main driver of these decisions. We want our Following weeks of trying to get an interview with somebody ... anybody ... in a senior managerial position at Ulster Rugby, we did what we should have done in the first place. With Les Kiss’s departure from the role of Director of Rugby, we asked Ulster’s new Rugby Operations Director, Bryn Cunningham to talk about his new responsibilities and the future for Ulster Rugby in the immediate and near future. Bryn never hesitated. Bryn Cunningham - Ulster Rugby Operations Director

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supporters, our sponsors and major stakeholders to be supportive and proud of what we are producing, and if that’s not happening we need to know what we’re not doing, or not giving people. A large proportion of that is results driven, but I would say that it’s more performance driven than results. My belief is, and I don’t want this to sound negative in any way but, sometimes you feel better coming off the pitch having narrowly lost a game having put your bodies on the line and played unbelievably well, but you’ve just been beaten by a better side, than beating a side you fully expect to, but having played poorly. I think there’s something there where we need to address consistency - that’s been lacking more than anything. Why can we produce something at the top end against La Rochelle, but let ourselves down badly against one of our rivals in the Pro-14? That is now started and will be ongoing, primarily by myself, Jono and the Professional Game Board which includes the CEO and others. For the rest of this season, we don’t plan on bringing anyone in – it’s about creating stability and having confidence in Jono committing fully to getting the very best out of the squad for the rest of the season. We will look for some support from IRFU, in the likes of Andy Farrell coming up to help, but obviously during the 6 Nations, that’s going to be difficult, we appreciate that and don’t want to compromise Ireland’s preparation, but at the same time, any support we can get from the IRFU now or immediately after the 6 Nations would be very welcome. Internally we have to support ourselves in certain areas, such as defence and we have Jared Payne still injured but who has a great rugby brain and is able to help out. He’s not an experienced coach by any stretch, but his rugby knowledge and his one-to-one work with players is valued. Jared is still trying to work his way back to playing, and that’s what everyone wants – he’s a quality player, and if he gets back playing, great, but if not, it gives him an opportunity to explore options for later. How quickly will the review of coaching staff be carried out, how will that be done, and who will do it?

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