Michael Bradley’s coaching career has already taken him to some far-flung spots in Europe so he understands better than most the challenge that awaits him with Zebre.
Bradley – who won 40 Ireland caps in his playing career as a scrum-half – has coached Connacht, Edinburgh, as well as Bucuresti in Romania and Georgia where he was assistant coach.
But now his travels have taken him to Parma and the re-formed Zebre who are preparing for the new-look PRO14.
Now under the umbrella of the FIR rather than as a distinct franchise, Zebre are looking to turn their fortunes around after finishing bottom of the table last season.
Indeed the Italian side have been bottom every year bar one since they joined the league back in 2012 – so why does Bradley love taking on these challenges with the ‘smaller’ nations?
“I think as a coach, you need to assess the opportunites that come your way and ask yourself, can you make a significant difference? And I think in those countries you can because you have a lot of knowledge relative to what is available to them,” he said.
“I spent four years with Georgia and they won four Grand Slams, then had six months in Romania and helped a little bit with the national team and they end up beating Georgia.”
But what about the challenge here in Italy, what can Zebre accomplish this season?
“Zebre Rugby Club has 14 current internationals, so they have a lot of talent,” added the 54-year-old.
“That is good and reassuring so the challenge for me is to get confidence and structure into these players and see how they perform.
“We have gone through that process now of organising what we want to see on the pitch, now the challenge will be to see if we can get over the line in terms of performance.
“For us initially, the club has been reconstituted so we have to re-engage with our fan base, we have to put a strong foundation in for the players and for the supporters, create an identity, get some values in there that we are comfortable with that can drive the club forward.
“At the same time, we have matches in less than two weeks’ time and we have to perform well.
“Winning X number of matches, and a winning season, those things are not on our agenda today.
“Before you even start that sort of stuff you have to have the foundations in place, you are wasting your time otherwise and just going round in circles.
“There is a significant change in personnel, and a new coaching staff so there is a lot of stuff that has to come together and then you have the pressure of competition.
“So at the moment my job is to get everything set with a strong base to push forward.
“How quickly will it happen? Maybe next year we will talk, maybe the year after or maybe in three weeks’ time we will be top of the league – I don’t know.”
There is an increasing number of Irish faces in the Italian rugby set-up now, not least Conor O’Shea who is in charge of the Azzurri and Stephen Aboud as his head of Technical Direction for Player & Coach Development.
And Bradley admits that Irish connection attracted him to the role, and the head coach is excited about helping grow the game here alongside former Italian internationals Carlo Orlandi and Alessandro Troncon.
“There is a big job to be done in Italian rugby but it is moving forward now,” he added.
“We have a role to play in that which is exciting, it will be difficult though.
“You can see what Ireland have been able to do by separating the amateur game from the professional game and that is our structure, to try and filter into Italian rugby and that will help everyone.”
Zebre, along with Leinster, are the first club to head down to South Africa to take on the newest additions to the league in the Cheetahs and Southern Kings in rounds three and four.
And Bradley is excited about the new-look league and insists his side will go out to attack this season.
“From a league point of view it just blows it wide open and makes it a lot more interesting,” he added.
“It’s stimulated a whole lot of interest and re-generated a whole lot of enthusiasm which is good.
“Change is good. From Zebre, we are part of that, we are one of the first teams going down as well which will be a good trip.
“Cheetahs are an interesting side, because when they came into Super Rugby they didn’t have the physicality so they actuially blue printed the 15 run around game.
“They will be a dangerous side in this tournament, at altitude and on hard decks. I will be very interested to see how they go
“Rugby players want to play rugby, coaches potentially complicate that with system and processes.
“From a Zebre point of view, the answer is yes we want to expand, we will to play off ten primarily, that is the direction we want to go.
“Munster were given a lesson in the final, and Leinster against Connacht the year because they stuck to the same blueprint.
“So they need to change and develop their way of playing and so do we.
“We will fail on some occasions, but if we get better in our skillset then we will improve and improve. And that in turn gives better options to Conor and Italy who also need to improve so I don’t see any negatives in that.”
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