Dubai: Sevens coach Ben Ryan says becoming a consultant for France isn’t a swipe at his former employers England, but he does admit to feeling less English after his recent spell in charge of Fiji.
The 46-year-old, who led the Pacific islanders to two World Series titles and Olympic gold last year in Rio, coached England between 2007 and 2013 – winning the Dubai Sevens twice — before an acrimonious split, the details of which still haven’t been made public.
“I signed a non-disclosure agreement, so some of the stuff I couldn’t say,” he told Gulf News of his England resignation, on the sidelines of a HSBC coaching clinic with Hamdan Bin Rashid school in Mirdiff on Sunday.
“Some people have now left the organisation [England’s Rugby Football Union], so I can start to say a few things,” he added, with his autobiography, covering the subject, due out on May 31.
“There’s still bits the lawyers won’t allow me to write but it says all about that and a few other things subsequently. I’m not telling tales but I wanted it to rattle some bones,” he said of the book.
“I don’t think I’ll ever work for the RFU again and I haven’t got any real desire to after the way I left.”
Of his joining France as a consultant last month, he said: “It’s not really a swipe at England, I wasn’t going back there, and France is a new challenge, they’ve underperformed, they wanted me and they’ve made every effort to try and get me.
No axe to grind
“I’ve still got a lot of time for the players in that England set-up, I’ve publicly talked about how they should be doing things differently, but that aside I’ve got no axe to grind, it’s just somewhere I don’t think I’ll ever end up working again.
“I just don’t feel English anymore,” he continued. “I had three years in Fiji [2013-2016], which was part of the British Empire, and with that and going abroad, you sometimes see the worst part of English people’s behaviour as expats around the world. I’m sure you see a lot of it here [in Dubai]. And you begin to see the world a lot bigger.
“My dad’s Irish, my mum’s Welsh, I feel very much a Londoner first and foremost. I’m not anti-England or anything else, but I just feel – and it’s a bit of a hippy thing to say – a bit more of a global citizen. I’m sure anyone who’s lived overseas for a while feels the same. It just softens your tendency to be patriotic.”
Asked if Brexit had played a part, he said: “That was just a reflection of the sad society we are living in at the moment. A lot of things have happened recently in UK politics, not to the same level as American politics, but it does soften you.
“Brexit is a good example of us all looking after ourselves, and I think in Fiji it was the opposite, everyone looked after each other.”
Planning a lot of changes
Explaining his reasons for joining England’s rivals France, he said: “Geographically it’s not that far, they came 11th in the World Series last year and have told me they are planning a lot of changes.
“They were only one score away from the semis in Rio, and I’ve seen some very good players in their system. But there isn’t that history of sevens in France and they don’t have the experience of some of their adversaries in England, like the Tom Mitchells, Dan Bibbys, James Rodwells and Dan Nortons, who have not only played a lot of tournaments, but have also won a lot of tournaments as well.”
France, by comparison, have only won one Sevens World Series event (in France in 2005) and their highest finish in the series is seventh. That’s in stark contrast to their 15s side, who have reached the semi-finals in six out of eight World Cups, losing the three finals they’ve reached.
“They’d be the first to admit they have underperformed at sevens. They’ve been plucking players from the 15s and hoping they make the transition, whereas in England and Fiji players start off in sevens.
“The money is also in 15s club rugby there, so they are also not getting the quality of player.
“As a union they maybe took their eye off the ball over the last decade, and didn’t see the importance of sevens. But Frenchman Baron de Coubertin invented the modern Olympics and now that rugby has become an Olympic sport there’s a requirement from people in France to get better, especially when you think the Olympics is in Paris in 2024.
“That was a key factor in me joining because they’ve got their eye on that as well, and are not just in this for a year, they want to get better and better.
“It would be quite exciting if the French could come into an Olympics at home fully loaded and that could change a lot of things with the 15s guys suddenly putting their hands up for it as well.
“Viewing figures from Rio also show that one of the highest TV audiences for sevens was from France, which shows they want the team to do well.
French flair
“And they could quickly become a bit of crowd favourite because if they start to play with that 1970s and 1980s French flair, which has been lost a bit from their 15s game — but is perfectly suited to sevens — it would really add flavour to the series.”
Asked why he hadn’t got back into coaching, he said: “I’m doing such a wide variety of consultancy and signing a contract with one person would restrict that. But I am starting to miss it [coaching] and there will be a point where I will have to make a decision.
“At the moment I’ve got lots of opportunities and offers because I’m an Olympic gold medal winning coach, but in 2020 there will be another one, so then my value will go down, unless I’ve suddenly managed to win a second one in 2020, which I can’t see happening because I’m not in a programme at the moment.
“I can imagine being in a programme so that I’m at the Paris Olympics in some shape or form. And I could end up at 2020 as a staff member with France, but I keep changing my mind.
“I did have one offer from a team to go in next season that I haven’t really engaged with, so at the moment I’m not going to Tokyo, but that could all change pretty quickly.”
