Foley survives flak as Bath build future worthy of past

Former Wallaby hooker begins to answer critics after difficult takeover at the Rec

When you spend a sporting lifetime with your ears smothered in Vaseline and taped to the side of your head, which is in turn either clamped between the cactus-bristled jaws of opposition front-rowers or repeatedly buried beneath several hundredweight of sweat-sodden flesh, your sense of hearing tends to be impaired. Not for good, though. In the 10 months since Michael Foley relinquished his Wallaby status and took up coaching for a living, he has regained full use of his faculties and heard an awful lot of things, mostly about himself. Some of these comments – a majority of them, perhaps – have been less than complimentary.

Few rugby folk who drink and pontificate in the pubs around the Recreation Ground in Bath will be strangers to the theory that Foley, team director and coaching supremo since the sudden demise of Jon Callard last February, has operated a "jobs for the boys" policy by appointing a whole posse of fellow Australians (Brian Smith, Richard Graham, Chris Mallac), or to the notion that Jack Rowell, back in situ as director of rugby after eight years of very superior prodigality, will end the Queenslandisation of this corner of the West Country by coming down on the back-room staff like a ton of koala dung the moment results give him a decent enough excuse.

Most damaging of all have been the suggestions that Foley played some sinister role in Callard's fall. This really hits him where it hurts. "Mate, I promise you the opposite is true," he said this week, a few miserable hours after seeing a five-week suspension slapped on Danny Grewcock, his one indisputably world-class forward, and minutes after hearing Mike Catt's hamstring go "twang" on the training paddock. "During that episode, I experienced a whole mix of emotions. And I can tell you that excitement at the thought of a new opportunity was absolutely not one of them. It was about as far away from what I was thinking and feeling as you can imagine. I wanted JC to stay. I said it then, and I say it now. If it hadn't have been for the fact that we were in the middle of a difficult Premiership season and that the players needed someone to do something to help them through it... well, I'm really not sure I'd have stayed another week."

By and large, hookers are not the brightest bulbs in the chandelier. Foley, on the other hand, has a razor-edged, all-Australian sporting sharpness about him. He is a superb talker, quick to laugh but intensely serious about his work. It was the same during his playing days. He did not gallivant around the field flicking defence-busting passes behind his back, like his Wallaby successor Jeremy Paul, but he was one bloody tough item.

"I wasn't blessed with a lot of talent," he acknowledged, "but I was pretty determined." Certainly, he was the last person the Lions wanted to see at the fulcrum of the Wallaby pack during last year's Test series, and they considered him one of the major factors in their eventual defeat.

What matters now is the extent to which he will be a major factor in Bath's recovery from the trauma of last season, when their worst on-field performance in two decades was matched and mirrored by a thoroughly lamentable effort in the boardroom. Interestingly, some of those most in the know at The Rec believe he is moving in the right direction. They say the dressing-room, which in recent times made the average morgue seem like the Edinburgh Fringe, is a more positive place for Foley's input, and point to the resourceful, backs-to-the-wall displays against London Irish and Wasps as evidence. "This bloke is beginning to turn it around," one long-serving insider pronounced this week.

"I think we've travelled some distance," Foley agreed. "There were a number of important decisions to be made, the first of which concerned the appointment of a director of rugby. We spoke to Jack Clark [the one-man architect of the game in the United States], not necessarily because of his rugby knowledge, although that was pretty good, but because we knew that he knew how professional sport really worked. Then Jack Rowell's name came up. We met, and Jack took the piss out of me for a solid hour. It's his way. But there was also a seriousness about him, a deep understanding of the dynamics of the club and its place in the community, that marked him out as the obvious choice.

"Some of the other choices were equally obvious, in my view. We had lists of possible candidates for every coaching and medical role, and we spoke to people from South Africa, France, you name it. But some names just jump right out at you, and Brian Smith's falls into that category.

"Brian had been heavily involved with the ACT Brumbies, probably the most inventive attacking side in world rugby. Don't tell me he doesn't know what he's talking about. Richard Graham? He's probably the only defensive coach in top-line union who comes from a union background.

"Chris Mallac? Before he arrived, people were saying Matt Perry would never play again because of his back injury. Chris took a completely different view of Matt's problem and had him up and running in weeks. We're hoping he'll be fit by the end of next month.

"Getting the right people in the right places is not the whole story, though. We also have to change some attitudes around here, and I think the message is starting to get through. The players didn't squeeze nearly enough from themselves last season, and good things were lost on them because they were so self-defeatist. This is where a player like Jonathan Humphreys comes into the mix."

Ah, Humphreys. Of all the signings by all the clubs in all the world, Bath's decision to lure the former Wales hooker and captain over the bridge from Cardiff struck a discordant note. Why get rid of a brave, rumbustious front-rower like Mark Regan, only to replace him with a player of similar cast who was both three years older and significantly less sound in the orthopaedic sense?

"Because," explained Foley, "he has the approach I need. I played against Wales during my Test career, and while it wasn't always the hardest of matches from the team perspective, it was always bloody hard going against Jonathan. He's the guy who will sit there after a defeat and say: 'OK, times are tough, but this is worth fighting for.' He can take a kick in the arse, pick himself up and go forward."

If Foley has been on the wrong end of some fierce criticism over the last few months – only this week, he was accused of coaching his players to run into opponents rather than space – he is increasingly of the opinion that the potential rewards are worth the immediate hassle.

"There have been several stages in life when I've set myself a goal and seen nothing but a massive wall in front of me," he said. "And I've always told myself that if I stick at it, I'll climb the wall. I can't say I've always felt so positive during my time here – the turmoil of the early days was pretty terrible, to be honest – but I feel good about things now.

"I want my players to live their rugby the way I live it, and I think we're getting somewhere. We're all on the same side, looking to do the same things. There is work to do, of course, but it is going to be very satisfying to sit back one day, look around me and see a squad of self-motivated, high-achieving players who enjoy being with each other. That's what Bath used to be about, wasn't it?"