'People like Joe Schmidt and Andy Friend are so generous with their time'

Murray Kinsella Reports from Sydney

RUGBY AUSTRALIA’S HEADQUARTERS alongside the Allianz Stadium, where Ireland pipped the Wallabies on Saturday, is busy with people at work trying to make Aussie rugby improve.

The sleek building is situated in Moore Park, a 115-hectare area that includes another big stadium, the Sydney Cricket Ground, lots of other entertainment, dining and leisure attractions, as well as the Sydney Swans and Sydney Roosters’ training bases. Rugby union has plenty of competition for attention.

Some 7s players are working out in the gym with music pumping. Upstairs, a full floor of development and administrative staff are ferreting away on projects they hope will make Australian rugby stronger with home World Cups looming in 2027 and 2029.

All things going to plan, Irishwoman Gillian Bourke will be involved in the women’s World Cup in 2029. She is an assistant coach for the Australia women’s team, the Wallaroos.

A new head coach is due to be appointed soon and Bourke, who won 51 caps for Ireland and played in two World Cups, hopes to continue with the national team.

The Rugby Australia building is an ideal place for someone learning their coaching craft.

“What’s so lovely is being Irish and realising how much people love Ireland, love the experiences they had in Ireland, and have such a connection to the place,” says Limerick native Bourke, who has been working with Rugby Australia since 2023.

“People like Joe Schmidt and Laurie Fisher and Stephen Larkham down in Brumbies and Andy Friend, all of them have spent time in Ireland, so they naturally feel a connection to you, and they’re so generous with their time.

“Especially coming from the women’s game, having access to really experienced high-performance coaches, I’m so grateful for the environment that I’m in.”

Bourke’s coach mentors for the last two years have been former Connacht boss Friend and Matt Wilkie, who was previously the IRFU’s head of coach development.

“I don’t think there are better guys you could have like helping you along your journey,” continues 41-year-old Bourke, who played club rugby with UL Bohemians.

“Friendy is a brilliant coach. He’s a great human. And he loves Ireland.

“And then like people like Joe and Laurie and Mike Cron, they’re so generous with their time that if you say to them, ‘Can I grab you for 20 minutes? I want to run through something,’ they’ll give you an hour.”

It’s stimulating for Bourke as a coach. She’s always trying to build the rugby IQ of the young Australian players she works with, so being able to do things like asking Larkham if a developing out-half can sit in on some Brumbies meetings is invaluable.

She praises the men’s coaches around Australian rugby for their openness, mentioning Wallabies assistant coach and fellow Ireland native Eoin Toolan as another person who has been great to work with.

The last two weeks have been difficult for Bourke following the death of her former Ireland coach, Philip ‘Goose’ Doyle.

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He had a major influence on Bourke. She was a key figure at hooker when Doyle’s Ireland won the Grand Slam in 2013 and reached the World Cup semi-finals in 2014.

Sitting in the big meeting room upstairs at Rugby Australia’s base on the same day as Doyle’s funeral, Bourke says she finds it very difficult not to be at home with her old team-mates and close friends.

“I was really lucky I had a coach like Goose who put a lot of faith and trust in me, and I had a great Irish career,” says Bourke. “I loved it.

“I think back to Goose and how he influenced the best days we ever had on the pitch. He was the guy leading all of that. So I can’t really wrap my head around the fact that he’s gone.

“I’d love to be at home today. This week of all weeks, you’d want to be at home and going to pay your respects to Goose and his poor family.

“And it doesn’t matter how many times you pop on a phone call with any of the girls, it’s not the same. It’s tough.”

Doyle would undoubtedly be proud of Bourke and her determined coaching journey.

Concussion ended her Ireland playing career prematurely. It was a very nasty injury, with the effects lasting for well over a year. She had an involuntary flicker in her eyes, she couldn’t balance well, suffered from migraines and was dizzy nearly all the time.

“Mine was really bad,” says Bourke. “It went on for probably a year and a half, living in misery.

“Not feeling part of something that was really big for you, all of that really takes a toll on your mental health.”

And she says she felt like she didn’t get the support she really needed from the Irish rugby system at that time, something that has left a bad taste in her mouth. Bourke isn’t sure whether she could ever go back to Irish rugby as a result.

Happily, she eventually got back playing with Stade Français and then in the English Premiership Women’s Rugby.

Bourke always had an interest in the technical and tactical sides of the game, while she studied sports science and then data science, taking a Master’s degree in the latter while she was playing with Loughborough University in the UK.

Bourke linked up with former team-mate Lynne Cantwell in South Africa in 2022 when the latter was the high performance manager for women’s rugby with SA Rugby. 

Bourke’s role was as an analyst, while she also did a bit of coaching, and that led to the move Down Under in 2023, when she applied for a high performance analyst role with Rugby Australia and was successful.

But a few days later, tragedy struck when Bourke’s brother, Shane, passed away suddenly after suffering a heart attack.

“I had just come back from South Africa two weeks earlier, so I was kind of lucky that way,” says Bourke.

“I’d been living abroad for a good few years, so you don’t see people so much. It happened completely out of the blue, and I had literally just got this job, so that kicked everything down the road.

“It was a big question mark if I should come or not because obviously I was leaving my Dad, and he was having a really tough time after Shane passed.

“But I did come out because I think it was the right thing to do, but yeah, the first year was tough because you wonder if you’ve made the right choice.”

Bourke is happy that she made the move, with her role developing into a coaching position. She was supported by World Rugby’s Gallagher high performance academy programme for female coaches, but has earned her way in Aussie rugby.

Bourke was an assistant coach for the Wallaroos at last year’s World Cup, working on the breakdown and forward play alongside her analysis role. Ever since, she has focused on leading Australia’s defence.

She was a ferocious defender as a player, so it makes sense, although Bourke has enjoyed learning all about the many other roles involved in defending that she didn’t occupy as a hooker.

She works closely with Wallaroos and players of national interest in the four women’s rugby hubs in Sydney, Perth, Canberra and Brisbane, with the ongoing Super Rugby Women’s season providing plenty of work.

The Wallaroos are back in action next month against New Zealand before the WXV Global Series launches in September.

Currently ranked eighth in the world, Australia have ambitions of becoming one of the leading forces as that home World Cup in 2029 begins to loom. As with the men’s game, Aussie women’s rugby has big challenges due to competition from other sporting codes, but Bourke is excited about the potential within the game.

She would like to be a head coach at some stage but for now, she’s happy doing what she’s doing and learning the ropes from some masters of the trade like Schmidt.

“The first time I met Joe in here was so funny because obviously I’ve got the Irish accent which kind of stands out in the office,” says Bourke.

“He would have come in to coach us in camp when I was playing with Ireland. Anyway, he introduced himself to everybody, and he’s like, ‘Hi, I’m Joe.’

“I said, ‘Hi, I’m Gill,’ and he was like, ‘Oh, that’s a lovely accent. I spent a bit of time in Ireland.’

“I was like, ‘I know, Joe, I know who you are.’ This is like meeting Taylor Swift, you know, but he straight away was like, ‘Oh, were you in the Ireland team when I came in coaching one day?’ His memory is amazing.”

The experienced Tim Walsh has just been appointed as Rugby Australia’s director of women’s high performance, so there is seemingly intent to push this area of the game on.

Bourke is determined to play her part.

“I want to be a really good coach here in whichever area I’m doing,” she says.

“I want to be part of these girls having a really good rugby journey. The game deserves that. The players deserve that.”