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WHILE WE WAIT for our order at a café in the heart of Canberra, Andy Friend goes to help the waitress gather up a cluttered table of dishes alongside us.
Clearly, not much has changed in the last two years since he left Ireland.
Connacht fans will tell you that Friend was always a gent. That remains the case.
He was a breath of fresh air during his five-year stint in charge of the western province, open and engaging with the media and supporters alike. The Connacht players loved him and you’d struggle to find anyone who has a bad word to say about him.
The good feelings towards Friend were very much reciprocated. He and his wife, Kerri, loved living in Galway for those five seasons. It was family that brought them home to Canberra. They’re grandparents now.
The Friends made lifelong friends in Ireland and not just through rugby. They bonded with neighbours, Kerri’s work colleagues, and lots of other people they met along the way.
“There was an energy in the rapport we had with the people of the west of Ireland,” says Friend.
“You’ve got to be a pretty special person to live out that way. And they’re my type of people. There’s an authenticity about the people who live out there. I just love their way of life in terms of, ‘We’ll find a way to get shit done.’”
In his first year back home, Friend stayed in touch with the coaches and staff in Connacht but in the summer of 2024, he made a conscious effort not to communicate with them. He felt it was time for everyone to move on.
Not that Friend has stopped being a huge Connacht fan.
“I’ve watched virtually every game from afar,” he says. “If I don’t see the game live, I follow the score live.”
Connacht’s games can kick off at 2am or 3am in Canberra but Friend invariably wakes up to check the score. He might doze off and check again 20 minutes later to see that all is well. If it’s a tight game, he gets out of bed and turns on the TV.
Yet Friend doesn’t miss the daily grind of being a head coach in club rugby. He certainly doesn’t miss the relentless text messages and phone calls it entailed.
He did 29 years of professional coaching in Australia, England, Japan, and Ireland. He and Kerri lived in 21 different homes during that time and were often away from their two sons.
“I’m one of the lucky ones that my wife’s still with me and I’ve still got a very good relationship with the kids because it’s a brutal game,” says Friend.
His first-ever coaching job was at the Canberra Institute of Sport and he recalls a time when he and Kerri brought their first son Josh in when he was still just two weeks old. A lady working in the Institute asked them whether they were married. They weren’t yet, but Friend said they were.
“Good luck,” was the response. “80% of coaches are divorced within three years.”
Around 15 years later, the Friends met the same lady at a function and were beginning to tell her that she wouldn’t remember them.
“I do,” came the response this time. “You’re in the 20%.”
Friend says the secrets to survival were lots of conversations, a very patient wife, and two sons who “put up with a hell of a lot.”
So when Friend signed a new two-year contract extension with Connacht in 2021, he told Ruane that it was the last one for him.
“It’s time to give back now,” says Friend. Before moving home, he and Kerri went on a six-month campervan trip that took in France, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Italy, Slovenia, and Greece. They started with a clear plan but soon switched to meandering and following the breeze.
He did lots of cycling along the way but their rule was that by 5pm every day they had to be playing backgammon with a beer or wine in hand.
Their youngest son, Jackson, now has two babies of his own. That was the big draw to return to Australia. They’re in the thick of birthday parties and helping out with their grandchildren.
Not that Friend is letting all those years of rugby experience go to waste. He coached the Brumbies’ Women in their short Super Rugby campaign this year but most of his time is occupied with his own business, Performance Friend.
Before he left Connacht, IRFU coaching specialist Darragh Sheridan offered to do a 360 review of Friend’s work in Ireland for him. Sheridan interviewed coaches and players in Connacht and the key feedback was that Friend’s expertise couldn’t go to waste.
Friend also spoke to world-leading coaching expert Roddy Coyle and he also encouraged him to give mentoring a go. So it was that Performance Friend was born and though he hasn’t advertised, word of mouth has meant a growing number of clients.
Friend now works with USA head coach Scott Lawrence, the Australian Women’s coaching staff, the Australian rowing coaches, Water Polo Australia, World Rugby’s referees, and five or six other individual rugby coaches.
He also works with non-sporting businesses, meaning he will miss Wednesday’s game between the Lions and Brumbies because he’s running a leadership programme for a daycare centre.
“To me, the most important thing in coaching and in leadership is connection,” says Friend.
“There has to be a connection between you and whoever you’re working with. And the only way to do that is to actively listen, to seek information, to be authentic and show a genuine want to get to know them.”
Friend did a good job of connecting with people in Connacht and he’s already planning a visit to Ireland in December 2026.
He’s proud to see Mack Hansen, Finlay Bealham, and Bundee Aki in the Lions squad, particularly given that Hansen and Bealham hail from Canberra.
A big point of pride during his tenure was reaching the URC semi-finals in his last season in charge, but Friend’s main pleasure was that Connacht were hard to beat.
“The Connacht crowd recognise that. They’re not expecting you to win everything, but as long as you turn up and you have a go… on the whole, I thought we did that.
“I honestly always felt if we were within two scores within the last 10 minutes, we could still win the game.
“I just love the fact that it didn’t matter the size of the fight we’re about to go into, we knew we were going to fight. We weren’t scared of that.”
He was delighted to see the province’s high performance centre opening and is excited for the stadium redevelopment to be completed in January. Stuart Lancaster coming in this summer only adds to the sense that Connacht are moving in the right direction.
But he does have one word of warning for Connacht. Friend would hate to see them begin training under the roof of the new training centre all the time, rather than being out in the wind and rain that make Galway such a difficult place to visit.
“We still need to be the best team in the country and in the Northern Hemisphere at playing in these conditions, because that’s what makes us us,” says Friend.
“That’s what hurts other teams when they come to the Sportsground. I call it ‘Carty Corner,’ that bottom right-hand corner. We’re gonna put you down there because you can’t get out of that thing. We know how to get out of it because we’re playing it all the time.
“So I love the fact they’ve got it, but I reckon they’ve got to be really smart with how they use it. And do not let it be the crutch that says, ‘We’re not going to go out training today.’ No, that’s what keeps you being you.”
As we stroll outside and he bumps into someone he knows through rugby, greeting them warmly, the impression is only strengthened.
Friend has never stopped being himself.
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