Former Wallabies captain Ben Mowen is in Whangārei with the Japan women's rugby team as their assistant coach.
Photo / Tania Whyte
Former Wallabies captain Ben Mowen is happy to play second fiddle to a Canadian as the assistant coach of Japan during the Women's Rugby World Cup, including two pool matches in Whangārei.
The former loose forward is perhaps the most high-profile ex rugby international in Northland at present and while it's his first trip to the region, he's already spotted his good mate Rene Ranger and hopes to catch up with him for coffee some day.
Both played club rugby for Montpellier in France.
Mowen linked up with Japan early this year as one of its two assistant coaches and said the team proved itself this year it was capable of beating any team after victories over Australia, Fiji, Ireland and South Africa.
Japan's head coach is former Canadian international Lesley McKenzie and she's the only female head coach at RWC2021.
"One of the privileges working with the girls is they don't have as deep a training history or playing issues as men do, so in terms of technique-based work, it's very easy to pivot them and change what they are doing because it's not something they've been doing since they were little," Mowen said.
Women's rugby was growing, he said, and it was really exciting to see the super high standard of rugby women were delivering and the great athletes playing the game and the longer and more growth their game has, the more those athletic qualities would come to the fore.
Although there were certainly physical advantages, size-wise, other sides have over Japan but Mowen said there was also positive his side has in terms of their speed, fitness and extremely skilful players.
"I think it's exciting for this Japanese women's team because they're just starting their journey and this is going to be a big World Cup for them."
In MacKenzie, he said the team's got someone with great knowledge of the game, good connection with the players, clarity on how she wanted them to play which tied in with the Japanese culture of playing really high-tempo rugby and very detailed discipline.
"I really enjoy working underneath her because she's a good coach who understands the strengths of our team and she builds her training programmes towards that and I think that's what good coaches do. They understand the athletes they're working with so that they cater to that," Mowen said.
After the RWC2021, Mowen will link back to the East Rugby Club in Brisbane where he's the head coach and in the short to medium term he sees his coaching career in Australia. He hasn't ruled out another coaching stint in Japan.
"It's been such an enjoyable experience, should the opportunity open up next year to work more with the Japanese women's team I'd love to because they are an exciting punch of players, they've got an amazing team culture."
He's all for bringing RWC games to provincial centres like Whangārei which he said has great accommodation, ease of access to all the training needs, nice being by the coast and a bit of a cruisy lifestyle, particularly for a lot of the Japanese players who came from the hustle and bustle of that nation.
"I think it's important finals are definitely played in those major hubs to make sure the right crowd exposure gets to the games but in terms of the pool games, this is a great set-up in Whangārei.
"It's beautiful. You've got amazing parks, you've got the skate park, the BMX tracks, all those great outdoor activities and being so close to the water.
"One of my good mates Rene Ranger lives here, we played together in France. I saw Rene training with Northland so I am going to catch up with him for coffee. I am surprised he's still going," he said with a grin.
Looking ahead at the Rugby World Cup in France next year, Mowen said it was difficult not to pick the hosts as favourites but others like Ireland, England and South Africa were not too far behind.
So are the All Blacks, despite their recent patchy results.
"The All Black jersey is just synonymous with success. If they're having inconsistent patches, they don't last long.
"They've got such as talented group of players, they know how to win tournament rugby as well and I think that period of rugby where it was a lot of noise around what the coaching staff is going to be like, they seem to have settled that down and got some results behind it now so I expect them to be right there at the end of the tournament."
On the recent saga surrounding All Blacks head coach Ian Foster and the team's inconsistent form, Mowen said: "A lot of international sides that have had a lot of injuries, the bar seems to be getting raised higher and higher in terms of physical needs and so teams are trying to get the balance right.
"Their training of pushing their athletes towards those physical needs but not try and break them at the same time and at the moment, the athletes are going through an adaption period but that will end soon enough and imagine everyone will be getting their full playing complement back for the World Cup and be ready to go."
For the Wallabies, Mowen said their end of the year spring tour would provide a good gauge as to the team's form leading into the global tournament next year.
"We've always enjoyed the structure of a World Cup and playing tournament rugby, that really suits us. Results this year has certainly been inconsistent and ideally you'd want sides playing consistently leading into the World Cup.
"I think the team's well aware of that, they've had injury interruptions as has a lot of sides but for me, I know they've got the right coaches in there, they've got the right players so it's going to be a case of getting everyone healthy on the park for the right amount of time."