SALT LAKE CITY — As the head coach of a first-year team in a start-up league, Alf Daniels found himself in situations that were both unexpectedly challenging and surprisingly fortunate.
And like most good coaches, the Utah Warriors head coach will use the lessons of last season to build a better franchise for both players and fans.
“I honestly believed we had a team that could win the championship,” he said. “Probably the biggest lesson I learned, and I guess I knew it already, but it’s not a one-man job. I’ve got to have quality people around me. I did what I had to do because of how it came together, but for a team to be successful you’ve got to have a great (group) of coaches.”
As soon as the season ended with the Warriors first-round playoff loss, Daniels went about recruiting both players and a staff that could deliver the kind of product he believes Utah fans deserve.
“We learned a lot of things, but probably three to five of the most important things to come out of it, and the first was that we need to have an experienced management team,” he said. “Second, most of our fans and supporters saw the conditioning of our team. We had a big emphasis on making sure our boys have done a lot of work on fitness and conditioning.”
In the team’s first season, the tryouts were held just weeks before the season began and after Daniels was hired. So there wasn’t a lot of time to develop a quality strength and conditioning plan, and some of the players weren’t playing when they decided to try out and made the team.
Daniels said both players and coaches did the best they could with the time they had, but it became evident they lacked depth when season-ending injuries struck, as they often do, and the Warriors couldn’t always replace what they lost.
“We’ve gone hard with our recruitment,” Daniels said. “I think we have nine different nationalities on the team this year. …We don’t want to have (depth) issues again, so we’ve done a lot of work around recruitment and getting quality players.” A good core of last year’s team will return, and they may be inspired by the success of one of last year’s team captains — Paul Lasike — who signed with the Gallagher Premiership Rugby’s Harlequins club. Lasike signed with the Quins after being called up to play on the U.S. National Team, USA Eagles.
“That was a reality check for these boys,” Daniels said. “We tell them, ‘The world could be your oyster if you want it.’ But I don’t think they believed us until that happened.”
One way in which Daniels will address both player development and on-field education is with his new assistant coaches — Stevie Scott, a forwards coach, and James Semple, the backs and kicking coach.
Scott was a professional rugby player from 1999 to 2006, after which he began coaching in Scotish Premier League’s amateur level. He worked his way up through Scotland’s club programs until he’d secured a job with the Scottish national team. Daniels said Team USA’s men’s head coach Gary Gold recommended Scott.
“I’d spoken to a half dozen or so other guys, but as soon as we started talking, I just felt like this is the right guy,” he said. “It was a little bit of chemistry, and it was his attitude toward how coaching should be done, how the team should be run, and just everything about it…There is nothing he’d ask the boys to do that he hasn’t done himself already.”
Scott said he knows rugby isn’t nearly as popular in the U.S. as it is in Scotland, but that’s part of what made the job offer attractive.
“I want to be in it from the start because it’s going to grow,” he said. “It’s an opportunity to gain different experiences, coach in a different culture and coach different players. But the bottom line for me is to make the players better. That’s my job.”
Semple played in the BT Scotland Premiership for Currie Rugby Club until 2016, and he was coaching with Waikato Rugby (New Zealand) as the development coach. Daniels crossed paths with him as they both coached for Waikato, and both admired the other’s abilities and ideas.
“Seeing him coach at Waikato,” Semple said, “I always respected him, and the buy-in he got from the players.”
Daniels said Semple will offer expertise in coaching the team’s backs, but also in improving their kicking.
“I think that probably cost us one or two games last season,” Daniels said.
Hiring Mark Drown as the team manager is something Daniels said will be critical to the team’s success but much more difficult for fans and supporters to see.
Drown retired from the Army National Guard in August and immediately began helping the Fijian Sevens team, as they embarked on a world tour. As soon as he finished, Daniels asked him to join the new staff.
“He drilled me for about an hour and a half,” Daniels said to laughter. “It’s a very, very tough role. People see what we do, in the players, in the scores and what happens on the field. None of that would come to pass without the team manager.”
The team held a combine in October, and is still in the process of signing a few more players, even as those under contract work harder to start the season much earlier than the inaugural season.
The 2019 season begins for the Warriors on Feb. 1 when the team travels to Texas to take on Austin Elite. Their first home match is Feb. 23 when they host Glendale, a team that played for the Major League Rugby championship last season, losing to Seattle in July.
Scott said he’s been impressed with the players he’s worked with just the first two weeks on the job.
“They’re very coachable,” he said. “I feel like we’ll make a big difference pretty quickly. …In professional sports, the small detail is such an important thing. You can win or lose games through the most minor thing.”
He said Utah’s players, many of whom were playing professional sports for the first time last season, want to improve and they want to succeed. With two new coaches to assist Daniels, the attention to detail will benefit the players, who now have the option to dream big when it comes to rugby.
If there was one thing that surprised Daniels most in his first season as a head coach in America, it was the level of fan support.
“That was one thing that was really way above what I expected,” he said. “The fan and community support were amazing. …I think it kind of encourages you and lifts you because you know there are so many genuine people out there who really are concerned about the success of the team.”
Editor's note: A previous story misspelled Mark Drown's name as Mark Brown.