‘You Can’t Look Beyond The Team In Front Of You’ – Brian Scott On Cork Con’s #EnergiaAIL Title Defence

Scott is a real product of Cork grassroots rugby. Starting off with Dolphin, he played his schools rugby with Presentation Brothers College, winning the Munster Schools Senior Cup in 2010.

Later he lined out for UCC before returning to Dolphin and then finishing with Cork Con, with whom he unfortunately suffered what proved to be a career-ending foot ligament injury at 25. At that stage in December 2018, he had played 26 times for Munster.

Now coming up to five years on from his retirement on medical grounds, the former prop has steadily established himself on the coaching front.

Co-owning his own business, T12 CrossFit, he has had roles as head coach of Dolphin and Bandon Grammar School, before joining Jonny Holland’s coaching team at Cork Con.

Reflecting on those early days as he took his first steps into the coaching world with Dolphin, Scott told IrishRugby.ie: “It was daunting but exciting. First of all, really lucky to get that opportunity, and I think the first year went well with regards to where the club was coming from.

“I just think that it was the best way for me to learn. I would have loved to have a few more coaches in around me. It would have helped, like I had coaches but to lean on more people.

“I think that would have helped me a lot in my coaching there, from my own inexperience. I found that dealing with certain situations, that I definitely didn’t have the knowledge or the ability to handle them. But you learned that along the way.

“You bring that into your next role. I’m in a defensive role now in Con, and I help my head coach Jonny as much as I possibly can, because I know if I can take some of the slack off him, it makes it easier for him.

“If I can take slack off anywhere else, you all have to work as a team, and that’s something that I definitely learned in my first couple of years of coaching – you need a good team around you to make sure that you can push on and get the results that you need on the pitch.”

Turning 32 next month, Scott could still have been a regular in the Munster set-up at this point, having been promoted to the senior squad in 2017 as an Academy graduate and a British & Irish Cup winner with Munster ‘A’.

Undergoing surgery for that injury at the end of 2018, the time frame for a return looked to have him back for the following season. That, however, would not come to pass, and he praised the support he received from his two affiliate clubs, Dolphin and Con, during a tough period.

“It didn’t work out the way it was meant to on the rehab side of it (the injury), and that’s frustrating,” he admitted. “You can only do so much. It happened out of my control, and I definitely think I had more years in me.

“I was only 27 when I retired (in 2020). It was frustrating definitely, looking back and thinking that I didn’t get to do more, but what was meant to be was meant to be unfortunately.

“Or fortunately, whichever way you look at it, I moved on and I own my own business now, and I have a gym, and I’m coaching full-time.

“I think I was destined for coaching in some regards anyway. I’m in that industry now, and I enjoy it a lot. Ideally I would love to still be playing rugby.

“Don’t get me wrong, some days I look at the lads and I really would love to be playing, and then you see how physical the game’s gone. I’m not the same that I used to be when I was able to train like them and take shots with them.

“There’s no regrets, though. That’s the one thing I would say. There’s no regrets. I achieved what I achieved, and I got goals that people thought I wouldn’t have got. From my side of things, I got to walk away with my head held high, and that’s all it was.”

He added: “Retiring, I think it just happens more and more often now. It’s going to happen to every player at some stage, it’s not ideal, but I think what it does teach you is that ability to bounce back and go into something else, from all your years in sport.

“I think every person that comes out of there is getting better at dealing with it, and that’s through the help of the clubs that they’re retiring from. I think the club’s support is a big thing.

I was lucky enough to be affiliated with two clubs, be it my time playing in Dolphin and playing inside with Cork Con as well. They reached out to me when I retired, and they gave me that element of support.

“So the community of those clubs is something that you’re always grateful for, from that side of things. That made that easier for me and the fact that I could still stay involved with rugby.

“Rugby wasn’t completely stripped from me, considering I started playing when I was at the age of five or six in Dolphin. It’s something that you don’t realise, and then you look back and you go, ‘actually, this all started from that’.

“The professional part is the lucky part, and everything else is sort of what your family have inherited into, and the time they put into you when you’re younger and stuff.

“So, I started looking at it kind of differently and what’s meant to be will be, and that’s the sort of way I look at it now that I’m a couple of years out of it.

“At the time I probably looked at it a little bit differently, but now when I look back, I got that coaching job in Dolphin, I got that experience that served me well.

“It might not have been my most successful coaching period, but I’ve learned a lot along the way. Same with Bandon Grammar. I learned a lot there. Happy to move on and keep progressing my own career.”

A former Ireland Under-20 international, Scott scored two tries in 26 appearances for Munster, and one of the biggest moments of his professional career came when he made his Champions Cup debut against Glasgow Warriors in October 2016.

Coming off the bench to make his first European appearance, he remembers the day vividly as it was the province’s first game since the tragic passing of head coach Anthony Foley. Munster delivered an inspired performance at Thomond Park just a day after Axel’s funeral.

The sight of Foley’s young sons, Tony and Dan, joining in the post-match rendition of ‘Stand Up and Fight’ on the pitch is etched in people’s memories. Notably, Tony scored a try when St. Munchin’s College knocked Scott’s Bandon Grammar team out of the Munster Schools Senior Cup last year.

“An incredible memory to win my first European cap, but those circumstances obviously weren’t ideal,” acknowledged Scott. “You forget how long ago that was now. It’s a bit weird when you look back and you think, ‘Jeez, that was a very tough time’.

“The banner up in the background, everything…I remember going out doing the minute’s silence. You could actually nearly remember every moment at that stage.

“I think everyone misses Axel, it was all just about his family that week. It was hard to sort of register that you had to play a rugby game, and I think we were just switching on for moments throughout the week that we knew we had to be professional, and then you have to go back to the reality that your coach is not there anymore.

“The family, Olive and the two lads, had lost a loved one and that was hard to deal with. It was bigger than us, and then the supporters, everyone talks about the Munster supporters, but the way the supporters got around the playing group that week and the family, was just incredible.

“I suppose that end of the game moment when we were in that huddle, something that every player that was involved with Munster that year will remember for the rest of their lives, I think.

“That was spine-tingling and hair on the back of your neck standing up and you just can’t believe where you are and what’s happening at that moment.

“It was a bit of a strange time. There was a bigger picture to that to me and it was about the family. When you look back and you see these crowds and the support, definitely that side was lovely, it wasn’t about the team that day.

“I think it was more about the family and just showing that the supporters are there for them, there and then, and that we’re all trying to be one.”

Wearing the Munster jersey that day was a proud moment for Scott and one he had always dreamed of as a child. His grandfather was a driving force in ensuring he got to see Munster play in his own ‘backyard’ of Musgrave Park.

That dream became a reality on a number of occasions, but to play for his home province at Musgrave was a special moment for Scott and his family. He first did so against Cardiff in September 2016, with the venue always held in high regard from his schooldays.

“I think all of us players around my generation, and maybe a bit older, just to remember how class that old carpet they had in Musgrave Park was, and how excited we were to play on it. It’s a bit different now.

“That was something from schools, all the way through the years playing with Pres, it was all about playing on that game on March 17th, and then when you get to do it on a bigger stage in front of your home crowd and the Munster support is always class regardless of how you’re doing.

“Just an unbelievable privilege, that was a dream come true, and I think that sort of stemmed through the family as well. My grandfather used to always push me to go to matches and all I ever wanted to do as a kid was to play for Munster.

“When that dream comes true, it’s a bit surreal, but then it goes from being a dream to a reality and you have to sort of kick into the day-to-day of being a professional rugby player, making sure that you’re prepared.

“It’s not just like everything you’ve done so far goes towards it. You need to back it up when you get the opportunities.”

Scott is now in his second season as part of the Cork Con coaching set-up. Last season was a special one for Holland’s men as they secured the club’s first All-Ireland League crown since 2019 after a titanic tussle with Terenure College.

The defence of that title started with only two wins in the opening five rounds, but since then Con are unbeaten in seven games and have moved up to second place in the Division 1A table, lying just a point behind leader Clontarf.

Entering the final third of the regular season, the Leesiders host City of Armagh on Saturday before visiting Clontarf next week, with the north Dubliners the only team to beat them at home in the current campaign.

Scott noted: “That Clontarf game (a 20-16 loss), we lost that sort of in the last play of the game. A lot of things were going well at that time of the season. I think we were just very hard on ourselves, but we have to also appreciate that we had a lot of change over the summer.

“New players in and that takes time to mould together partnerships there as well. So I think we have to be patient there, and a lot of what we were trying to do around that time, not trying to reinvent the wheel, was more back to basics.

Nail off our basics and know that it’ll come and go and just stick with it, and we had a great block thereafter that we’re now seven games unbeaten.

“Now that doesn’t really mean much – besides the points in the board, that can all change very quickly. It’s not like we’re unaware of what’s to come in the next couple of weeks.

“Starting off with City of Armagh this weekend, which will be a challenge at home, and then we’ve got Clontarf away. Armagh always seem to put it up to us. We played them in their first game up in Division 1A at the start of last season.

“They’re 100% made for this league, they show that every year, and they’re resilient. They fought in the last game of the season last year, and they held on to get a bonus point. That game (a 40-24 win) was not as straightforward.

“We had to go up there to get points, and Armagh made it as hard as possible. They’re just doing a great job up there, to be fair to them.

“I know they have their own challenges, but we’ve been preparing like any other league game for this weekend. When we’re on the momentum that we have, we just try to keep it on now.

“You can’t really look beyond the team that’s in front of you, and that’s what focuses us as coaches and then focuses our points to get across to the players on the weekend.

“It just keeps us single-minded, driven in a way that we’re just saying, ‘This is all that matters’. You can’t win this week, it doesn’t matter about next week.

“I think with those losses earlier in the season, that probably makes us way more aware of the importance of every single match. Because you can’t afford to lose anymore really to get your home semi-final, which everyone is going for.”

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