{"id":787560,"date":"2026-09-30T15:38:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T15:38:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/787560\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T15:38:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T15:38:17","slug":"complete-package-omahony-has-no-hesitation-in-erasmus-vs-farrell-call","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/787560\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Complete package\u2019: O\u2019Mahony has no hesitation in Erasmus vs Farrell call"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Published: 5 hours ago | 30 September 2026 06:03 EDT
Updated: 4 hours ago | 30 September 2026 07:10 EDT <\/p>\n

mens<\/p>\n

international<\/p>\n

South Africa head coach Rassie Erasmus and Ireland head coach Andy Farrell before the Quilter Nations Series 2025 match between Ireland and South Africa at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. (Photo By David Fitzgerald\/Sportsfile via Getty Images) \"Google <\/a> <\/p>\n

Peter O\u2019Mahony has picked Andy Farrell over Rassie Erasmus as the best coach he worked under, despite offering a glowing assessment of the Springbok boss\u2019 coaching ability.<\/p>\n

The former Ireland<\/a> and Munster<\/a> captain was speaking on the For the Love of Rugby podcast following the release of his book All In, having worked closely with both Farrell and Erasmus during his career.<\/p>\n

While Erasmus initially arrived at Munster in more of an overarching director of rugby role, O\u2019Mahony explained that the South African was also an accomplished hands-on coach when circumstances required him to take a greater role on the training field following the death of Anthony Foley.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo Rassie arrived as a director of rugby to us, and there were days where he\u2019d stay in the office and wouldn\u2019t come on the pitch. Then Axel [Anthony Foley] passed away, unfortunately, the worst time in the club. So then he was forced to be actually on the pitch with the forwards, and technically he was really good with the forwards.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe took on the lineout until Fla took over and did a bit of our mauling stuff, and his technical side of it was good. But his main stuff was the director of rugby stuff, the motivating, the tactics, the technician stuff was his baby.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fixture<\/p>\n

Nations Championship<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Ireland <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

South Africa <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

For all his praise of Erasmus, though, O\u2019Mahony had little hesitation when asked which of the two coaches he would choose to work with for an entire career, describing Farrell as the \u201ccomplete package\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d take Faz. Faz is the best coach I ever had. Don\u2019t get me wrong, how are you going to argue with Rassie with what he\u2019s won and what he\u2019s shown his ability to do? But if you were telling me I could only pick one coach to coach me for my whole career, it would have been Faz.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, he\u2019s the complete package. Just a normal fella, sound man, easy to talk to, obviously a proper leader, and just never seemed to get a room wrong. Meetings, just always great meetings. Holds his voice for the right moments. You\u2019re not going to hear him all week, but when you do hear him, it\u2019ll sit with you. A great philosophy in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Mahony also discussed the rivalry that has developed between Ireland and South Africa, believing Erasmus\u2019 history with Munster, coupled with the movement of coaches and players between the two countries, has helped add another layer to their meetings.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s definitely a bit of a dynamic there since Rassie came to Ireland. The way he\u2019s with the media and stuff, and we\u2019ve just had some big games over the years. It kind of rolled into it.<\/p>\n

\u201cRassie and Jacques came over to us, then they went back. Obviously, then Jacques is back here with Leinster. So we\u2019re kind of a little bit intertwined, and you have a few of them over here. RG was with us, he\u2019s with Leinster<\/a> now.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo you\u2019ve a few different aspects to it, but the main reason was that they were so competitive and such good games, and physical encounters. But it\u2019s definitely turned into a big fixture for us. Definitely.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published: 5 hours ago | 30 September 2026 06:03 EDT Updated: 4 hours ago | 30 September 2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":787561,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-787560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=787560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/787561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=787560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=787560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=787560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}