O’Leary’s UCC Targeting ‘Performance To Warrant Occasion’ Of Colours Clash

Life for Tomás O’Leary has gone full circle. After learning the trade in Christian Brothers College Cork and University College Cork in the early days of his career, he is now helping to bring through the next generation at UCC RFC.

Following his retirement in 2017, O’Leary enjoyed a spell in the south of France with his young family, before returning home to work in sales and recruitment with Morgan McKinley. He completed his Masters in Teaching during the Covid-19 pandemic.

With his skills across recruitment and business development, and as a co-founder of TOLD & CO luxury watches alongside his wife Julie, the former Munster and Ireland scrum half expanded his already impressive rugby CV with a two-year stint as director of rugby at Clongowes Woods College.

He returned to his beloved Christians in 2023 and along with teaching work at Sidney Hill, he led a key element of the school’s rugby programme as their Head of Junior Rugby.

O’Leary’s latest coaching appointment has him immersed in Energia All-Ireland League and University rugby at UCC, where he is Head of Rugby and head coach of the Men’s first team. It has been a positive start, with O’Leary’s side currently lying third in the Division 1B table.

“My rugby career started in Christians at 13, when I went into school with no rugby background,” said Cork’s 2001 All-Ireland Minor Hurling title-winning captain, who is the son of the late, great Seánie O’Leary.

“So obviously owe the school a big debt of gratitude, and it was great to go back in then on the flip side and teach there and coach there. That was a bit surreal as well, but great to see it from the other side too.

“The coaching experience I got up in Clongowes, the Leinster Schools gave me a kind of a broader kind of viewpoint too. Throw in the couple of years over in London Irish and the year at Montpellier, in terms of different viewpoints of the Premiership and Top 14 as well, to add to my kind of experience here in Munster.

“So we’d like to think of a good broad kind of range and experience, and different coaches from the professional game and coaches from the school game inform your kind of experience.

“And I suppose once you leave the professional game and once you go into the coaching side of things, then you kind of start analysing things in a bit more detail and observing different coaching styles and methodologies. The teaching masters was actually brilliant for me in terms of that.

“The two years of Masters where you’re analysing how you teach, the message you get across, what’s effective, what’s ineffective, you know, all those kind of different experiences have been valuable to me. End up back where it all started in Cork, it’s gone full circle.”

UCC has a rich rugby pedigree, with plenty of esteemed alumni having worn the skull and crossbones in the club’s 152-year history.

Their latest conveyor belt of talent is now making waves on the Energia All-Ireland League scene in its second tier, and unlike a normal lesson plan, head coach O’Leary is now having to craft various programmes to suit on-field matters.

“It was pretty exciting for me. I’ve four or five years done in coaching at this stage and teaching experience, so it’s kind of a natural progression for me,” he said of his appointment at the Mardyke, which was confirmed in June.

It’s a really exciting opportunity given the calibre of players that UCC have, coming out of club rugby and schools rugby in Munster, in Cork in particular, but even further afield.

“Working with really talented players and enthusiastic players, you’ve got a kind of whole spectrum of players. Some are professional rugby players you are working with, some have aspirations to be professional rugby players.

“Other lads want to just play in the AIL, and other lads want to play social rugby, so I suppose you’re working with a broad spectrum of players in terms of their abilities, in terms of their ambitions. And then you have the Women’s programme too.

“So from my point of view, it’s a real opportunity, but a challenge as well, that again like teaching, you’re dealing with a differentiation.

“People from all kinds of standards and capabilities and all kinds of ambitions too. It was exciting that I get to work with a club with the history of UCC, and a club with the talent of UCC too.

“The names kind of speak for themselves, and even look at the Emerging Ireland tour you had Alex Kendellen captaining that, and obviously we had Sean Edogbo and Ben O’Connor on that too.

“You go back further afield to the likes of Jerry Flannery, Rog (Ronan O’Gara), (Peter) Stringer, these guys, Mick O’Driscoll, Frankie Sheahan.

“All these guys have played before. You can go further back to the likes of Donal Lenihan and then all these guys. The history of the club, it’s like a who’s who.”

With how competitive the Munster Schools Senior Cup has been in recent years, and the notable success of Cork schools, a high number of these players go on to turn out for UCC as the likes of Pres and Christians, the two big schools in the city, keep that famed production line going.

Rory O’Shaughnessy and Gene O’Leary Kareem are the last two winning captains in the Munster Schools Senior Cup, and both players are now looking to make a mark in UCC colours.

You can also throw in the likes of the Munster-capped Ben O’Connor, Adam Wrona, Jack Casey, James Wixted, Tom Coughlan, Stephen O’Shaughnessy, and Neville O’Leary, who have all played in the Senior Cup in recent years.

O’Leary admits it is a natural progression for those players to join after leaving school, but they also blend well with those who join from other clubs. Along with a central focus on their studies, UCC helps to deliver a rugby programme designed for players to also flourish on the pitch.

“In terms of your schools players leaving, it’s a natural progression, but then they amalgamate with lads who come from the clubs then. We have Mike Cogan and David Cogan (pictured below) in our side this year. Paul Graham coming out of Kinsale.

“So it’s kind of they amalgamate with the school players then and it’s a lovely kind of mix then at that stage. We offer a programme designed to develop school leavers and get them ready for whatever they want, whether it’s pro rugby or whether it’s AIL, whether it’s social rugby.

“Our programme is designed for these guys coming out of school to play as high a level as they want to, and then obviously get their studies as well in an environment where they’re all experiencing the same things. They’re all in the same stage of life.

“They train hard, but they enjoy their social side and they get their studies and they just enjoy their company. So I’m just trying to facilitate all that and create the best environment we can for these lads coming out of school and coming out of the clubs.”

Experience is certainly on O’Leary’side when it comes to the knowledge of the game, and the 41-year-old has learned plenty from the coaches he played under during his time in the professional game.

His coaching group at UCC includes Paul McCarthy, who coached at Munster for many years, while Luke Cahill and Scott Deasy also have valuable input, both from the club and provincial game, that O’Leary can utilise.

A Heineken Cup winner with Munster back in 2006 and 2008, along with the Grand Slam success with Ireland in 2009, O’Leary quipped that many of the players he coaches now are probably too young to have seen him playing in red or green.

“As a coach I try and lean on my own personal experiences. I look back now with a different view as to how coaches convey information, how coaches kind of give strategic talks, how coaches dealt with players when they were dropped, both positive and negative.

“Positive experience with coaches and negative experiences with coaches have informed my coaching styles. And I’m lucky to be working with Paul McCarthy, who was actually a Munster coach back in my day, forwards and scrum coach for Munster.

“He’s our forwards coach here (at UCC) and he’s working with Luke Cahill, who played Division 1A rugby with Cork Con, so he’s doing forwards with Paul and doing our fitness.

“Scott Deasy then, who played with me in Munster, is helping out with the attack and defence as well. I kind of bounce off those guys, and we all kind of work together.

“We want the boys to question and come and look for help as much as we can. It’s very much a collaborative environment that we like the players to take a lot of ownership of.

“They’re the guys on the pitch. Once the ball kicks off, they’re the guys making decisions and they have to play what they see. It’s an open door policy for them.

“I think a lot of them are probably too young to remember any of us playing! So I don’t think there’s any of those memories for those lads.”

Saturday afternoon marks a big occasion for UCC. Not only is it a crunch Division 1B fixture at the Mardyke (kick-off 3pm) where they will look to put two recent defeats behind them, it is also their Colours match against Dublin University.

Current captain Sam O’Sullivan follows in the footsteps of brother Jack, and his dad Tadhg, who was doctor with Munster when O’Leary was playing, in lining out in a Colours game for UCC.

Along with that, there is even a third generation link as scrum half Andrew O’Mahony, who had a short-term contract with Munster earlier in the year, is set for more Colours action after his dad and grandfather did likewise before him.

O’Leary admits that you can lose sight sometimes of occasions and experiences, adding that the players will enjoy this weekend and hopefully bounce back with a result following last Saturday’s frustrating 34-30 defeat at Naas.

Being the Colours game and being another University, there’s always excitement around that, and the good thing about sport and the good thing about rugby is when you do come off the back of a loss, you usually have the chance to put things right quickly.

“So waiting a week the lads will be mad for road now come Saturday to try and improve, and to try and put things right. Both sides will be looking to try and get the points out of it and get the win.

“I think the occasion, we have to enjoy the occasion. Coming from professional sport or coming from whatever sport, we kind of lose sight of the experiences and occasions at times and probably don’t enjoy them because we get too caught up in getting results and getting victories.

“So I think the boys will enjoy the week. The boys will enjoy a bit of pomp of the occasion of the Colours game. We’ve just got to focus on the performance and (we’d) love to get the win obviously.

“But just enjoy the whole occasion around the Colours game and hopefully there will be a bit of a crowd and a buzz there, and the boys will produce a performance that kind of warrants the occasion.

“The lads representing their clubs and schools, wearing their traditional club colours and their school’s colours. We appreciate, and the lads really appreciate where they’ve come from, the work that the underage coaches have done.”

He added: “It’s a real honour for them to tip the hat to their previous clubs and schools and coaches, and they all come together then and they’re presented with a club scarf when they get their Colours here.

“It’s a big thing, 50-plus years of history with UCC playing Colours games, and some of the lads’ fathers and grandfathers would have been involved in Colours games. So it’s a big honour for boys who are selected in the Colours game.

“Our captain Sam O’Sullivan, he’s a young lad. His dad Tadhg was the doctor for us in Munster. So I would have known Sam growing up, but he would have been a small fella when I was playing.

“His father played Colours back in the day, and his son now is captaining the Colours team (from the second row) on Saturday.

“We’ve got Andrew O’Mahony, who is one of our scrum halves. His father Dave played Colours, and I think his grandfather, Noel, played Colours. So that family history and connection is there as well.

“That’s kind of exciting as well for Saturday. It’s just a case of enjoying that and hopefully trying to get the win to get the AIL points ticking over as well.”