The Mrsc Catches Up With Paul Mccarthy

Paul McCarthy became full time Scrum Coach at the start of the 2010/11 season with additional responsibility for identifying and developing front row talent to feed into the Munster professional set-up. From Cork, the former Munster and Ireland prop featured on the Munster side that famously defeated Australia in Musgrave Park in 1992. The MRSC caught up with Paul to ask him some questions: What does your role as Scrum Coach entail and how do you feel it has gone so far? The role had a wide specification from developing the professional player down to the under-age player crossing a number of structures , coaching set-ups, clubs and schools. It did take some focus to align with each of these groups and come up with a system to help everybody achieve their individual and team goals but working together towards creating a common goal of developing a continous flow of top class front row players for Munster. The focus is on the short term and long term and already we have had some success in both areas. We have now developed a tiered list of talent from the top down to the underage and it is growing fast. A real positive for me was the help I received from everyone in the system to help drive this area on. Has scrummaging (apart from the law changes) changed much since you played International Rugby? If so, what aspects? In my experience Scrummaging changes from the start to the end of each season. In fact, there is usually more that one shift towards different requirments in any one season. Technique, timing, speed, heights, refs, competitions, are all factors which change on a regular basic. Has the emphasis on lightly-contested scrums in underage rugby been an issue? It is common knowledge that the 1.5 mtr rule had been questioned with regard to front row development. The main issue is where the players go from the under-age system into full scrummaging and some don