Laurie Fisher: ‘Trust me, there’s no comfort zone in professional sport’

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/oct/03/laurie-fisher-gloucester-coach

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It is a neat trick Laurie Fisher is pulling. With his trademark bucket hat, long hair and snowy beard, he looks like a cross between Santa Claus and Gandalf, with a dash of stocky, ex-Australian wicket-keeper Rodney Marsh thrown in. Casual passers-by in Cheltenham, where he lives, would not instantly guess they are gazing at one of the sharpest rugby brains in the world.

Those who have known Gloucester’s 56-year-old head coach since his early days in Canberra, though, will tell you there is no more insightful guru when it comes to deconstructing the tackle area, where tight games are increasingly settled. “In terms of his breakdown knowledge he’s No1,” insists Julian Salvi, the Leicester openside who first met Fisher at the Brumbies academy, when he was 15. “He did a lot of work with George Smith and myself ... his intellect in that area is pretty special. You’ll be able to see the work he’ll do with Matt Kvesic, Ben Morgan and the rest of their back row boys. They’ll improve under his guidance.”

Do not be fooled, then, by the course-fishing chic or the Old Testament fuzz. Instead, check out the watchful blue eyes beneath the floppy brim. The cool cat in the hat certainly has his eye on Gloucester’s non-international players, whose cosy environment is about to develop a harder edge. Fisher pulls no punches when asked how training has been since he arrived in August as head coach of the new management team, fronted by David Humphreys. “We need to be more combative at training, rather than leave it all until the 80 minutes on a Saturday,” he says. “If you ask hard enough questions during the week, Saturday becomes a whole lot easier We haven’t gone as hard as we need to yet but we will.”

A significant amount of tough love is clearly imminent. Fisher, having cemented his reputation during two successful spells with the Brumbies and a three-year stint at Munster as forwards coach, is firmly of the opinion winning rugby teams are built from the foundations up. An ex-hooker good enough to play for Australian Universities, he may have grown up in the vicinity of the great David Campese but has a more prosaic view on how best to win rugby matches. “Why does everyone always call for open footy?” he tweeted. “How come we can’t just enjoy them bashing crap out of each other for 80 every now and then?”

He stands by that view, preaching simplicity, accuracy and smart decision-making as the holy trinity of rugby. “It’s a physically demanding game but a lot of my coaching revolves around winning the race to the breakdown,” Fisher says. “If you win that race you lessen the contest, both in attack or defence. If you’re first in, in good position, you’re fine. If you’re constantly having to solve problems, you’re not.” Meekly ceding possession is a cardinal sin. “You don’t want to referee the contest out of it to make it nice and clean. Otherwise it’s just a game of touch football.”

It is a typically clear summation of the straightforward ethos he brings to a job which many still contrive to overcomplicate. Having worked with some of the canniest in the business – Eddie Jones, Bob Templeton, Jake White – he knows precisely what he wants: “Rugby players are the same everywhere in the world. You can’t coach a warrior mentality into an individual but you can demand a level of combativeness in how you run your programme and that’s what we’re trying to develop here.” He also believes the Rugby Football Union is to be congratulated for signing up Stuart Lancaster and his assistants on long-term contracts, dismissing the notion that complacency might creep in. “Trust me, there’s no comfort zone in professional sport. It’s tough enough as it is.” The security of tenure will, he reckons, ultimately benefit England: “It won’t make any difference for this World Cup but it might for the next one.”

Which begs the question: how strong will Gloucester be in five years’ time? There has been too much recent upheaval at Kingsholm for Fisher, his fellow Australian John Muggleton and the erstwhile England Under-20 coach Nick Walshe to work instant miracles for Humphreys, but the contrasting quartet are in it for the long haul. “You don’t have to make all the changes in your first few weeks,” cautions Fisher, who arrived only in August and missed the majority of pre-season training. “That’s where you really set up a lot of your values and expectations. We’ll try and get where we can this season and then have another good look during pre-season next year. We’re only chivvying away at the moment. You’ve still got to try and win footy games.”

Victory over Leicester at Kingsholm on Saturday would be another step towards re-engaging with the club’s forward heritage and endear “Lord Laurie” to the Shed even more. His nickname dates back 32 years to a playing tour of the UK and Ireland when he sat at the end of the dinner table one evening and a team-mate suggested it resembled the Last Supper.

Salvi, in the opposite camp this weekend, says his old mentor has been known to sleep in his hat and reckons Cheltenham may test his winter wardrobe. “I had six or eight years under his guidance,” he says. “He always went around in Hawaiian shirts and shorts looking very relaxed. The bucket hat has always been there. There’s no balding up there, I think it’s just the way he feels. He’s becoming a bit of a fashion icon, though I remember him wearing an ancient academy shirt for years. He likes to utilise his clothes to the full extent.”

By now Fisher’s other gift should be apparent: players enjoy working with him, or at least the committed ones do. “He’s not called ‘The Lord’ for nothing,” quipped the former Wallaby captain Ben Mowen when news broke of the former’s imminent departure for the UK.

Fisher admits to relishing the lively English club scene, finding the crowds more stimulating than the quieter, more corporate Super 15 audiences in New Zealand and Australia “sipping their chardonnay”. They drink precious little chardonnay in the Shed: the marriage betweenLord Laurie and Gloucester could be made in heaven.