Making the decision to leave the coaching staff of a rugby team, particularly one that is talking openly about what they are trying to build towards in the future, is a tough one. For Dan Soper, he sees his new position at Ulster as essential as part of the pathway.
At the end of the season, the current assistant coach will leave his role and move into a new position as development and transition coach.
If it sounds rather foreign to most people, that’s because it is, a new role that was cooked up by general manager Bryn Cunningham as a way of bridging the gap for young players breaking into the senior set-up having paid their dues in the Academy.
Who better, then, than Soper? The New Zealander has extensive experience of working with up-and-coming talent having led RBAI to three consecutive Schools’ Cup titles between 2015 and 2017 and knows about developing talents like Mike Lowry, David McCann and Callum Reid.
“That’s been in discussions with Bryn over the last couple of years and his vision for how he saw the program within Ulster and what was the best way to go about pushing our own talent on,” explains Soper.
“It possibly would have happened sooner but with last season and Dan (McFarland) moving on and all the turmoil that caused at the time, it all sat on the backburner for a wee period.
“The opportunity’s there and, working with Bryn, this is a clear path for the long-term plan. As a province, we have to maximise the potential that we have within the province.
“ We don’t have the luxury of having an endless supply of players where we can spit them out and, if they’re not good enough, we just get the next one. We need to make sure we’re making the most of what we’ve got.
“We’ll be working with the whole squad but there’ll be a real focus on the guys coming out of the Academy, the young guys in the senior group now like James McNabney and making sure that in two or three years’ time James is getting a taste of Irish camp now but how do we make sure he’s consistently in that Ireland camp and we’re getting the best out of him here at Ulster.
“It’s putting a spotlight on that.”
It’s understandable to question why Soper would take the step back now when, under Richie Murphy, Ulster have been showing promising signs all season, with last week’s win over the Exeter Chiefs their biggest win of the campaign thus far.
But rather than describe it as a step down, Soper reveals that it isn’t a full step back from his coaching roles with the province but rather a re-imagining of where he sits within the Ulster system.
“As it’s a new role that hasn’t existed, there’ll be a wee bit of finding our feet around that, but it’ll be very much attached to the senior group week to week,” he elaborates.
“Training today, I’ll be on the pitch with the seniors, I’ll be working with those players during the week, just the focus will be on the young guys in the group.
“It’s James McCormick and Scott Wilson and in the backs we have Jack (Murphy) and even Jude (Postlethwaite) and Carsy (Ben Carson) who’s been around a little longer, make sure we push those lower end guys on.
“It’ll be very much attached to the senior group but there’ll be windows during the week where I’ll be out working in the pathway with domestic coaches and supporting them if there’s areas they need support.”
Given this is a role that has been two years in the making, it is understandable to expect Soper to hit the ground running when he begins his new position full-time from the summer, particularly given his experience within Ulster already.
That doesn’t mean his focus has wavered from what he’s focusing on now, namely with the senior squad at Ravenhill, but there already ideas in place looking longer-term for the future.
“We’re very aware that I’m in the here and the now and I’m pretty busy doing what I’m doing right now, to be honest,” he admits.
“Yes, we have had discussions around that and the main things are the support that we can give to the coaches working in the pathway.
“The start of that is for me to reconnect with a lot of guys I haven’t had that connection with in the last few years, and then finding out their needs and what support they want and can we get them in to see what they need.
“It won’t just be me supporting them, I’ll just be the connection. And having the individual performance plans, particularly for those younger guys, because what sometimes is that Academy coaches when they’re having their one-on-ones are brilliant, but when the players come into the senior squad and they’re not in that match day 23, the nature of how busy you are with the match day 23, those guys who don’t get as regular contacts don’t get the support they need around technical and tactical sides of the game.
“I’ll have the scope to make sure those happen on a regular basis.”
Before any of that, Ulster are straight back to work in the United Rugby Championship on Sunday when Zebre Parma make the trip to Ravenhill.
Off the back of qualifying for the last-16 of the Champions Cup by the skin of their teeth at the weekend, their heavy win over the Exeter Chiefs on Friday enough to get them into the knockouts thanks to Bordeaux’s equally heavy win over the Sharks, all attention turns back to the push for a place in the top-eight against the hapless Italians.
“We’ll put Europe on the backburner a bit now and put our focus on the League table and climbing the table, and that starts this weekend,” insists Soper.
“Obviously the result is the most important thing but we need to develop our game and how we’re trying to play. If we get a win on Sunday but we’re not developing or growing as a team then, come the back end of the season in Europe or in knockout rugby in the URC, we’re not going to be good enough to compete.
“We’ve got to keep getting better as a rugby team and that’s what we’ll be looking for as a team on Sunday afternoon is improvement in our performance.
“We saw bits of that on Friday night and hopefully we see a bit more of that.”