Quiet Man Behind a Renaissance at the Recreation

At the end of last season, when Bath had escaped relegation with a last-gasp win on the final day, the coach Mike Foley and the director of rugby Jack Rowell resolved to confront the club's owner Andrew Brownsword. They told him that unless there were changes a club with a tremendous history had little future other than to keep bumping along the bottom of the league.

Foley had armed himself with a list of players he wanted and a list of those he wanted rid of. More importantly, he was prepared to admit that he and his coaching staff just did not have the experience to turn the club around.

Foley had joined Bath as Jon Callard's deputy not long after retiring as Australia's hooker. A few months later, when Callard was sacked with Bath in trouble for the second season running, Foley was thrust into the top job.

At that end-of-season meeting he told Brownsword he had not enjoyed the experience. By the start of this season there were 16 new players at the Rec, 15 old faces had left, and John Connolly, formerly of Queensland, Stade Français, and most recently Swansea, had been installed as head coach.

Today as they head for Saracens with 12 games gone and 10 left, Bath are 10 points clear in the Zurich Premiership. They have been beaten only once - by Newcastle - and they reversed that result last weekend after which Rob Andrew, Newcastle's director of rugby, predicted Bath would finish the regular season top.

A miserly defence has conceded less than a try a game, Olly Barkley, once the great underachiever, is the country's leading points scorer, and the pack (for years Bath's achilles heel) has been bullying sides all over the land.

So it is all down to Connolly, is it? He is the one who has blended the new team into a winning machine with almost indecent haste?

Not if you listen to the man himself. He may have a record of turning losing sides around - within six weeks of arriving in Paris, Stade had won the championship and reached the Heineken Cup final - but his conversation is so self-effacing ("no, Jack did that" and "Michael was responsible for that") that you wonder whether he is taking Brownsword's money under false pretences.

Over 45 minutes, he talks enthusiastically about his start in coaching - "When I finished playing I expected to work behind the bar not coach" - the problems with Welsh rugby, the World Cup, and the column he writes for The Herald in Brisbane.

But when it comes to Bath he parries and moves on. It is not that he does not answer questions. He is wonderful company and his conversation is full of humour. It is just that he does not answer the question.

"Michael [Foley] drove the recruitment process," he says. "When I got here most of the turn-around had been done by Mike with the assistance of Jack."

Of Stade, he talks fluently. It was fun and made him a better coach. Two years of hands-on coaching - "very different from the role I have here where I am more or less working with the coaches" - Foley (forwards), Richard Graham (backs) and Brian Smith (defence).

So is he pulling the work of those three coaches together? "No. They're more or less doing that themselves. I'll do the team runs and the planning ahead and some peripheral things."

So why are they so successful? "It's very much a player-driven team," he says. "The players have bought into what we are trying to do. Michael brought some very good people into the club."

So what is he doing? "Everyone has a role and my role is to make sure it comes together."

Connolly is far happier when talking about the men he works with - Foley "is incredibly meticulous and organised whereas I'm the other way", the captain Jonathan Humphreys "never gives up" and Steve Borthwick "may well captain England one day. He's got a very good rugby brain."

The only hint of any personal pride comes when he talks about the 73% win rate he had in 10 years with Queensland. The only suggestion that he is anything other than an easy-going, mild-mannered, slightly greying 52-year-old, comes in an aside while talking flatteringly about Michael Lynagh, who "carried Australian rugby in the late 80s".

"One of the first things I had to do was take the captaincy away from Michael," he says.

It seems that the only way to understand the man is to talk to those central to his brief, but remarkably successful, six months at the Rec.

The Connolly formula, according to Humphreys, is a mixture of experience, determination and affability. "He's like the calm face of it all," says the former Wales captain. "He may be self-effacing, but he is very determined - not a guy you mess about with.

"You know he's one of us. You feel he is in the same boat with you, but if you don't come up to his standards he will drop you. His whole ethos is that the club should be run by the players and he gives responsibility to you."

Humphreys says Bath were "on the bones of their arses" last season. "The biggest thing he [Connolly] has done is take the pressure off the coaches. I have always said that last year we had a fantastic coaching team but the pressure they were put under was unbelievable. John Connolly recognises that Foley, Graham and Smith, are good and he is allowing them to grow as coaches."

And what of Foley, who has known Connolly for 13 years but has not always seen eye-to-eye with his new boss? "There's no bullshit about him," says Foley. "I've seen him be quite hard on players, myself included.

"I don't think he spoke to me for four years when I first went to Queensland. I was a stubborn young bastard with plenty to say for myself and he made sure I toed the company line.

"He expects standards and values from his players. He expects honesty from their performance and whether the team is performing well or performing badly he does keep an even keel.

Connolly, says Foley, was one of the three men who influenced him to try coaching "but I think John's reason was that he couldn't wait for me to go through the hard times so he could ring me up and make fun of me. He's got a very twisted sense of humour but a great perspective on things generally, not just rugby but life.

"I always say that if there was nuclear war, the cockroaches and John Connolly would survive. He's so resilient."

Tale of two seasons:

Premiership 2002-03 (after 12 games)

P 12 W 3 L 7 D 2

Sep 1 2002 London Irish 22-24 Bath

Sep 8 Saracens 28-3 Bath

Sep 14 Bath 27-27 Wasps

Sep 21 Northampton 24-3 Bath

Sep 28 Bath 21-21 Gloucester

Oct 5 Leicester 22-20 Bath

Oct 26 Bath 20-22 Leeds

Nov 2 Harlequins 18-9 Bath

Nov 10 Bath 24-18 Sale

Nov 17 Newcastle 20-24 Bath

Nov 24 Bath 19-30 Bristol

Nov 29 Sale 36-18 Bath

Premiership 2003-04 (after 12 games)

P 12 W 11 L 1 D 0

Sep 14 2003 Leeds 32-44 Bath

Sep 20 Bath 24-6 N'ton

Sep 26 Sale 9-14 Bath

Oct 5 Wasps 19-20 Bath

Oct 11 Bath 47-3 Rotherham

Oct 19 Bath 25-3 Saracens

Oct 25 Newcastle 19-17 Bath

Nov 1 Bath 31-17 Leicester

Nov 8 Gloucester 14-20 Bath

Nov 22 Bath 18-10 Harlequins

Nov 29 Leicester 12-13 Bath

Dec 20 Bath 20-10 Newcastle