Ecstatic Crowley regains job

Cooper says choice was easy to make

Leo Crowley has his old job back.

He was yesterday named as Taranaki rugby assistant coach, a year after being shown the door from that position following an acrimonious split with former coach Adrian Kennedy.

Taranaki rugby boss Mark Robinson took a break from his Christmas holiday yesterday afternoon to announce the appointment.

Crowley, who has signed a two-year deal, has never hidden his desire to get back into the job after his fallout with Kennedy, who resigned after Taranaki's last Air New Zealand Cup campaign saw it fail to improve on its eighth placing the previous year he was in charge.

Crowley had expressed a strong hope to work with returning coach Colin Cooper and was one of several local candidates who were interviewed a fortnight ago for the position.

"I'm absolutely stoked," was Crowley's first reaction yesterday.

"I wouldn't have said I was desperate, but I was really keen on it, to work with a type of guy like Colin Cooper. As a young coach coming up, you can't ask for much more than that."

Crowley said he was "never confident" of landing the job, given the credentials of the other candidates, believed to be championship-winning club coaches Ross Lilley and Kevin Walden.

The 12 months after losing the assistant role had provided him with more "downs than ups in a lot of ways" and he was adamant there would be no dwelling on the past.

"Now I've got the opportunity I have got to make it work now," he said.

His job description has him overseeing the Taranaki backline, something he did reasonably well in 2008 but impressively with the Taranaki B side the previous year when he took the side to a first national title.

"We obviously want to play an attacking style of rugby and get the right calibre of player here to add to what we have already got," he said.

Cooper said it was Crowley's innovative approach to back play, combined with his experience, that made the choice easy.

"He's had experience with high-profile players, he's had head coaching experience, he's been in the system, he's local and he's been in the Air New Zealand Cup before."

While the appointment might not have been a tough one, Cooper stressed his vision for the coaching set-up would involve two Taranaki B coaches working alongside himself and Crowley at several levels.

"I also want them to be part of the selection process," he said.

Just who those Taranaki B coaches will be is yet to be finalised, although Cooper hoped the decision would be made in the next few weeks.

Crowley's appointment rounds off a clean-out of the previous brigade, with none of Kennedy's former coaching regime retained.

Crowley said he was unsure what would be happening with the Tukapa senior A side's coaching job, a position he accepted several months ago but one that he could now not fulfil.

He intends to carry on working for Farmlands, given the assistant's job was only "part-time".

- © Fairfax NZ News