Coach Connolly delights in new challenge

North Shore’s inaugural premier women’s rugby team had its first competition match last weekend. Head coach Phil Connolly spoke to Helen Vause about his hopes for the side and his path to the role.

Phil Connolly remembers throwing his boots into a rubbish bin after his last game of rugby in Harare, Zimbabwe. After numerous injuries and bedevilled by bad headaches, the young Kiwi decided he was done with playing his beloved game, and it wasn’t worth the risk to his health. He was 28.

But he was far from finished with rugby itself and Connolly went on to build businesses and a career around the game, driving computers on his desk rather than running around the field; harnessing technology to collate all aspects of rugby data to inform those within it, from coaches and management, to players.

Years later, the field still beckons. When the Flagstaff caught up with him at home in Bayswater, Connolly was excited about his role as head coach for the first premier women’s team out of North Shore Rugby Football Club in its 150-year history.

He coached for many years after his playing days, but it is the training material and coaching resources curated on his website The Rugby Site that he hopes will provide the best platform for his new team.

It seems to be working so far. The women won their first game last weekend against Papakura 69-17.

Connolly grew up one of six boys (with one sister) at Waikanae, on the Kapiti Coast outside Wellington, in a rugby-mad family. “From the time I was five, almost for as long as I can remember, I was keen on the game. Dad had a season ticket to Athletic Park in Wellington. That was our life. That’s what we did. It was rugby, rugby, rugby; playing it, talking about it and watching great games.”

His father owned a wine shop and some of the Wellington greats of the early 70s – Grant Batty, Joe Karam, Bernie Fraser, John Dougan and Graham Williams – were regular customers. As was the secretary of the Wellington Rugby Union, so Connolly senior could secure a couple of plum seats near the commentary box where young Phil was able to watch the wine enthusiasts live on the pitch.

A flanker or number eight, he played two seasons for the Kapiti College first XV, age-group rep rugby for Horowhenua and made the Manawatu under-19 team when he went off to Massey University to study economics and accounting in Palmerston North.

Injuries seemed to follow him and they were not always rugby-related. While he was flatting with former politician Steven Joyce in their student digs, Connolly recalls the time he ran through a glass door, adding a new ailment to an already long list.

On graduating in 1984, instead of settling down to a career path, Connolly took off to, a dishwashing job on the Gold Coast.

“My motto was ‘have boots will travel’. I wanted to get out and see the world.”

In those days, prior to professional rugby, the arrangement was accommodation and a job. He saw an ad in the publication Rugby News for players in Perth. He signed up for the Wanneroo Club. “We had around 12 Kiwis turn up.”

The club won the championship and Connolly made the state side, playing eight matches, including a win over Canada. He was leading try-scorer that season with eight. But again, there were the kicks in the head and the concussions that followed, then the migraines.

A move to Pontypridd in Wales fell through, so he played a season in Darwin, making the Northern Territory (NT) side.

Injuries began to hamper his rugby career. He hurt a shoulder playing for NT; returning to New Zealand he hoped to play in a Horowhenua Ranfurly Shield Challenge but was injured again. Then a potential player/coaching job at Syracuse University in the United States was derailed by injury as well.

“I ended up in South Africa and didn’t make the senior side in Stellenbosch, so hitchhiked to Zimbabwe.

“It was my final stint. I’d had too maneconcussions and was having migraines. My team won the national knockout competition and afterwards I literally threw my boots in a bin.”

These days though, the severity, frequency and risk of head injuries is much worse, maintains Connolly.

“It’s a disaster waiting to happen. The dementia and brain-injury wards are going to be overloaded as a result of the current game.

“It concerns me that the impacts we’re seeing in some community games are way beyond where the players are at.”

“It’s a complicated issue. It’s not for me to say, don’t take that risk. But I am saying there needs to be more awareness and understanding by everyone.

“However, contact sport is contact sport and we love to play it. We are who we are,” says Connolly, who continues to live with the ongoing headaches resulting from injuries incurred during his playing days.

Professionalism has in some ways made the risk of injury worse. Rugby and rugby league players, particularly those coming from lower socio-economic families, are prepared to take the risk of serious injury for financial security, Connolly says.

When Connolly came home to New Zealand after working in accounting and technology in London, he took up coaching. But he also put his professional skills to work on what he saw as the potential of technology for sports use, in particular for big sporting organisations.

In the early 2000s, he worked on contract for New Zealand Rugby developing a cloud-based system to track player data from club level through to international.

“It allowed for cradle-to-grave management of participants in a sport.” Among the resulting benefits to administrators was that with precise player numbers, coaching resources could be more accurately allocated..

“With the technology we had then we were the first to integrate a whole sporting organisation. By using the system, NZ Rugby would have been the first to be able to collect and integrate the data to identify all their members correctly with relevant information about their games.

“They could see what registrations were looking like from year to year, and much, much more.”

The business took Connolly all over the world to diverse sporting organisations – such as the Australian Cricketers Association and the Gaelic Athletic Association in Ireland – offering a complete picture of their codes on their computer screens.

It was an exciting and innovative time – a massive change in the way of operating for many sporting organisations.

“There’s one thing that is always true,” he says. “You can’t get good performance without good management. And when performance goes, look at the management for answers.”

Since 2015, Connolly has been CEO of The Rugby Site, an online platform for rugby coach-education resources. Elite coaches and players worldwide are among the site’s subscribers. The client list includes All Black coaches such as Graham standing of the emotional side of developing better kids and better people through being part of this game.”

Henry and Wayne Smith. All Blacks Richie McCaw, Dan Carter and others are there, as well as national coaches, British and Irish Lions coaches, Springboks, and leading female coaches and players. Many of these individuals contribute segments as well.

Subscribers have access to extensive video content relating to all parts of the game, relevant at many levels from school rugby up. Coaches can also sign up to leadership programmes.

As the sporting world moves on from the first Covid years, he notes a changing landscape for many clubs and codes, with an almost universal drop-off in numbers coming back to play since the lockdown days. In the UK, he says as many as 25 per cent of the rugby-playing kids have not returned, leaving many historic clubs scrambling with uncertain participation. Connolly maintains it could be the same picture with club contact sports in New Zealand this winter and expects to see falls in player numbers

“There are lots of reasons for this. Over this time, the way many families have been living has changed and their focus has changed.”

Connolly’s appointment as North Shore women’s coach came through a casual approach from his mate Callum McNair when they were training at North Shore Rugby Club’s gym.

Connolly believes one of the site’s most important functions is its videos on how to tackle – “A tackle culture – how to tackle properly – putting your head on the right side, the importance of bending.”

It could have a major impact on improving safety in the modern game.

“It’s one of the most important things we will be teaching our Shore (women’s) team – how to tackle.

“As a coach you have got a duty of care and responsibility for the welfare of your players.”

Connolly is proud to claim The Rugby Site has created more content for women in rugby around the world than any other.

Coaching styles and approaches have changed and continue to evolve, he says.

“It’s not just about the technical side of the game any more. Coaches also need the soft skills. Now it’s about a better under-

“Callum said they were putting a women’s team together and had the management side sorted out, but needed a coach.”

Connolly was happy to oblige as long as the women were treated as a full senior club team and had their own changing rooms.

Connolly shares his home with wife Julie and his adult twin daughters Bridget and Ciara. Raising his family hasn’t been all about rugby. Bridget is a top golfer and newly qualified coach heading overseas. Ciara plays tennis, and skis and surfs.

Maybe bringing up girls has added to his awareness that coaching the new North Shore women’s team calls for a modified approach to working with men.

“They have a different philosophy about the game and about how they are playing and about each other. I’m very aware of that.”

It’s sure to be a memorable first season for the team and for Connolly.