Mark O'Leary is all about the player

NICK FRIEND: After two decades working in university cricket with Cardiff Metropolitan and Cardiff MCCU, O'Leary has been tasked with leading Western Storm in a new era for the women's game

For more casual observers of the domestic women’s game in England and Wales, there might have been some surprise last year when Western Storm were missing from the final of the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy.

The previous summer, after all, a team bearing their name had dominated the Kia Super League, winning nine out of 10 group games and then romping to victory in the competition’s final fixture.

Reinforcing this nuance, then, is one of the tasks on the to-do list of head coach Mark O’Leary as he attempts to concoct a fresh story for his new side. Though the badge remains the same for the most successful side in the KSL’s brief history, this is a different entity at the start of a separate journey. Western Storm 2.0, as it were.

“It’s interesting because in that final that we won, at the end of that last game we were all presented with a bottle of champagne to say that this was the end of the KSL,” he tells The Cricketer. “So, even though we have the same name, it is a new legacy. It is totally different from that KSL period.”

Indeed, the 2020 squad included only six survivors from that 2019 campaign – and two of those are Heather Knight and Anya Shrubsole, whose regional availability will lessen once the international summer gets underway.

That season, when Storm were for the most part an irresistible juggernaut, was the first to involve O’Leary as assistant and bowling coach to Trevor Griffin.

Not that he was new to women’s cricket. Rather, the Welshman set up the women’s team that didn’t previously exist at Cardiff Metropolitan University and worked closely with Knight and Sophie Luff, his new Storm captain, during his time with Cardiff MCCU, where he spent six years as head coach – part of an affiliation with the university that spanned two decades in a variety of positions.

“Eventually my role was combined so I was head coach and lecturer,” he says. “But before I was a development officer, I was a receptionist, I worked in the fitness gym, I was a sports development manager. I had quite a lot of jobs there, but it was a great place to work.”

^{Western Storm won the final edition of the Kia Super League, with Mark O'Leary working under head coach Trevor Griffin}

To a certain extent, therefore, O’Leary’s latest endeavour – as the man charged with leading Western Storm into this new era – is a natural progression of sorts: two roles with development at their heart, albeit with an extra layer of competitive intensity compared to MCCU life, where the priorities are more complex.

“This is cut-throat business,” he says, speaking ahead of a landmark summer for women’s domestic cricket, featuring not only a second outing for the Heyhoe Flint Trophy but also a debut for the Regional T20 and the belated launch of The Hundred.

“For myself as a coach, if I’m not successful, I’m potentially going to be sacked. At university, the fundamental was that the players were there to get their degree. What the players that went on understood was that if you were on top of your work and you get your degree, then your performances went hand in hand.

“For example, if you’ve got a game tomorrow and a hand-in date at 10pm tomorrow night, when you go out to bat or bowl, you’re thinking about your hand-in date. Whereas if you get it all done and dusted, you’ve only got one focus.”

England spinner Jack Leach and opener Rory Burns were among those to emerge from Cardiff MCCU in the last 10 years, as well as several others. Worcestershire wicketkeeper Alex Milton, he says, “was always going to be a professional cricketer”. Conversely, in the case of off-spinner Alex Thomson, “through his first and second year, you probably thought he wasn’t going to make it”. The 27-year-old is currently on loan at Durham from Warwickshire – an example, O’Leary reflects, of someone “who worked so hard on and off the field” to achieve their dream.

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“I’ve got an inkling from my experience of being there, of who I can see going on and being signed, but it’s up to them really,” he adds. “A lot of them probably look back and slate me because I used to run a really tight ship – we used to have strength and conditioning sessions at 7am, but it was so rewarding. But more so, it was even more rewarding seeing them stand on stage at their graduation and then a couple of weeks later being offered a professional contract.”

As O’Leary discusses that philosophy – “I’m all about the player and my staff,” he stresses on two occasions – his attraction to this role with Western Storm makes total sense. The region’s squad in 2020 featured 11 players under the age of 23, as well as Knight and Luff, whose careers he has tracked ever since they were students. For all the talk of what the new regional structure can offer the nation’s youngsters, he is excited too about the opportunities it might present to the likes of Luff, 27, a stalwart of the county circuit who until now might have felt as though the door to the international arena had been shut on her.

On Luff especially, he is effusive in his praise: “I’m quite open about this: she’s one of the best professional cricketers I’ve ever worked with. She’s exemplary in all areas, on the field and off it. Sometimes, she probably over-practises and over-trains, but she’s so driven. For somebody to not get selected (for England) and to keep the drive going, you know, that’s wonderful.”

^{Heather Knight is an experienced figure in the ranks for O'Leary to turn to}

O’Leary follows the progress of all of his protégés: when Knight was awarded a fellowship at the university in 2018, he was invited to the ceremony. On the rare occasions where he and a student didn’t necessarily “see eye to eye”, the passing of time has often brought them back together, with former players contacting him with a message of thanks or meeting up for a coffee to ask for advice.

“That’s sport and that’s life,” he says with the wisdom of a 44-year-old who has been around the industry for most of his adulthood, having been on the books of Cardiff City as a promising teenage footballer, before representing Glamorgan and briefly Somerset at second team level as a young leg-spinner.

In 2018, he was recognised as coach of the year by the ECB, an award decreed on account of his contribution to the game over a 20-year period. Among the last of his pupils to take the step up onto the professional circuit was Dan Douthwaite, now one of the country’s leading young cricketers with Glamorgan.

Does he miss his MCCU post? “Of course, I do,” he says. “I was really passionate about it and it was so rewarding. But the transition happened at the right time. It was a great job and I had some great times and met some wonderful people. But things happen, you have to move on and I want to develop as both a coach and as an individual for as long as I’m not retired.”

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Of the challenges he has faced up to this point, none were tougher than a desperately sad beginning to 2016, when two former Cardiff MCCU students – Matt Hobden and Tom Allin – passed away within days of one another in two separate tragedies. Hobden, a highly rated seamer, was on the staff at Sussex, while Allin had represented Warwickshire and played minor counties cricket for Devon.

“They were great people, lovely people,” he recalls. “I had a phone call about Matt and then I had another phone call about Tom.

“How do you grieve after that? More so, my job was to look after the players in the squad who knew them. The support from the university was immense.”

He pauses for a second, before adding: “I’m convinced that Matt Hobden would have played for England.”

O’Leary describes himself as emotional by nature and remembers how in the aftermath to their deaths, a T20 game was set up for former MCCU teammates to assemble “just to celebrate their lives”.

He says: “We had really good fun actually – people travelled from all around the country for it, but it was quite lowkey. It was just nice to get together, celebrate their success and talk about them.”

For a coach so invested in the fortunes of his players, there can be no news more difficult to fathom.

^{Matt Hobden tragically passed away in January 2016}

Looking ahead to this summer, however, there is a pleasing optimism to O’Leary’s tone; this winter was the first for six of his players on full-time, professional contracts. As well as Luff, there were deals last year for Dani Gibson, Fi Morris, Georgia Hennessy, Nat Wraith and Alex Griffiths – all of whom, their coach believes, have already shown signs of significant progress without the burden of having to fit training around other commitments as a part-time exercise.

Indeed, one of the upshots of the pandemic has been the necessity to operate in small groups – a quirk that has benefited the players, with more individual coaching time than perhaps might have been possible with a bigger party.

“They didn’t start bowling until January but just being able to be able to sit back and chat about technical and tactical stuff and work on their fitness – and not have to just go into a net and rush – has been a huge part of it,” he says.

“But I think what is really going to show how this has worked is if the players at all the regions have developed. I’m sure they have, but this is about the female game. It’s all well and good saying that I hope the Western Storm players develop, but I really hope that everybody has benefited across the regions.”

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Because, when the serious business begins, it is no secret that the game’s growing professionalisation will be accompanied by increased scrutiny – especially for the 41 women in possession of domestic contracts. Part of O’Leary’s job, then, is to minimise any weight of expectation they might feel, with the help of a support team including a strength and conditioning coach, physio and sports psychologist.

“As much as they’re professionals, it is only a game,” he insists. “I know that’s easy for me to say, but there is no doubt that there’s going to be pressure on them. I just want them to take the confidence forward and show what they’ve been working on all winter.

“But it is cut-throat – these contracts are only a year long. We’ve got academies in place at each of the regions and the strength of the player pool is going to get bigger. It should be competitive and it should be cut-throat sport. We try to make them feel as relaxed and as comfortable as possible. Of course, when you get good scores under their belt, it does make them feel a little bit better. We’re going to have to see how they deal with the pressure when it happens.”

^{O'Leary speaks highly of Sophie Luff, his new captain}

The Professional Cricketers’ Association is assisting as well in that regard, helping its new members to cope with their transition to professional status: Charlotte Edwards is the new president and Knight is the organisation’s co-vice-chair, while Luff was one of four female domestic players added to the PCA players' committee alongside male representatives from each of the 18 counties. A seven-strong women’s players' committee has also been established, involving Knight, Shrubsole and Luff.

Knight and Shrubsole, though, have both been here before as part of the initial tranche of central contracts awarded to England players in 2014, and O’Leary is keen to take advantage of their expertise on the subject. He explains: “There’s no doubt that I will be sitting down with those girls and asking them to share their wisdom, their experiences and how they’ve seen other players going through the process of becoming professionals – not only dealing with success, but also dealing with failure as well.”

For his players still balancing cricket with other work or studies – something that remains important for many, given the length of contracts and their financial terms – he is conscious of the balance at play: on one hand, it means that runs and wickets don’t have to be everything; on the other, he worries about how a conflation of different focuses might affect their cricket.

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“It does help,” he explains, “but it can put a strain on it. For example, if somebody is working in the morning and they have to rush to training, potentially they’re then not focusing on training and they might then have a bad practice and then their confidence is low.

“However, that could turn around and be the other way: they could be at work and be really excited to train. There are two ways of looking at it, but it’s just about managing your time, I suppose.”

In the case of 34-year-old off-spinner Claire Nicholas, who is expecting her second child shortly, O’Leary is keen to emphasise her importance to the Storm cause. “We will welcome her back with open arms,” he says. “We have to support her. If she’s fit, ready to play, successful in her practice and her fitness is where it needs to be, there is no doubt that she will figure in some way at some stage.”

^{Rory Burns and Jack Leach both came through the Cardiff MCCU scheme}

When Covid-19 restrictions prevented the squad from practising at times, she was heavily involved in team calls, quizzes and other activities. “We’ve got players who have got young children and, being a mother away and managing their time is very difficult. At Western Storm, we will support with whatever’s needed to help those people.”

Because, when all is said and done, winning remains the main objective, even with a primarily youthful squad and, in Southern Vipers – who won last year’s Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy at a veritable canter – a formidable rival with a name familiar to those of a KSL persuasion.

“It’s professional sport, so you have to want to win,” says O’Leary. “The hunger’s there and I can see it in the girls. They want to win. From a coaching perspective, I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t want them to win because every coach wants their team to be successful.

“From my previous role, I’m all about the player and my staff. That’s something that we try to promote at Western Storm: the player comes first. I think if there is success on the field in winning trophies, then I think the players will be standing out and putting themselves in the shop window to play for England Academy or the main senior squad.”

And in Mark O’Leary, widely respected for a body of work covering most of this millennium, there stands a man well-versed in achieving precisely that end goal.