Lansdowne Select New Coaching Team
Former Ireland internationals Stephen McIvor and Aidan McCullen have been announced as Lansdowne’s coaches for next season, with the pair hoping to guide the club straight back into AIB League Division One.
Lansdowne had a disappointing 2007/08 campaign in the AIB League, finishing second-from-bottom in the table and thus dropping out of the top flight.
But the Dublin 4 club remain hopeful for a bright future with their Under-20s reaching this season’s All-Ireland final and also winning the McCorry Cup recently.
Indeed, a number of their Under-20 players, including Rob Kearney’s brother David, an Irish U-20 international, got game-time in the AIB League this season.
The drop to Division Two will see Lansdowne rebuild further under the tutelage of Stephen McIvor, the former Ireland scrum half who was in charge at Bective Rangers this season.
McIvor comes in as Lansdowne’s new head coach with Stephen Rooney remaining as the club’s director of rugby and much-travelled back rower Aidan McCullen returning to Ireland as Lansdowne’s player-assistant coach.
A Level 3 qualified coach, McIvor has plenty of experience having coached the likes of Blackrock College and Corinthians in the AIB League and the Ireland Women’s Sevens squad.
McCullen, who played 56 times for Leinster, had stints with both Toulouse and London Irish after leaving Leinster in the summer of 2005. In April of that year, ‘Lard’ scored a try for Lansdowne in the play-off game against UCC which kept them in Division One.
Speaking at Lansdowne’s recent AGM, the club’s new President John Kearney was pleased to confirm that despite drop in divisions, almost ever player in the senior and Under-20 squads has committed themselves to playing for Lansdowne next season.
Kearney also spoke of the Lansdowne Executive Committee’s commitment to an immediate return to Division One rugby next season and he stated that ‘the full resources of the club would be brought to bear’ in making sure that this would come about.