'Cranky soul' James Coughlan navigating rigours of ProD2 life at Biarritz

Irish Examiner

15-05-2025

'It's been mad.'
Former Munster backrow James Coughlan summed up a year as sporting director of ProD2 side Biarritz in three simple words, as he marked the first anniversary of his arrival at the club.
'It really is a rollercoaster of a job,' he said. 'It's been great. We've been doing our best to get everything sailing as smoothly as possible. There have been loads of difficult times, loads of really good times – every directeur sportif in any rugby club would tell you the same thing.'
They probably would, too. Not every directeur sportif has, however, arrived at a rugby club in such flux as Coughlan did on his first day at Parc des Sports d'Aguilera, Monday, May 13, 2024.
At the time, the club had been under new ownership for less than a month and bosses were still ironing out a few stubborn financial details with the league.
Meanwhile, departing interim coach Simon Mannix – now in charge of Portugal, who will host a Lions-shorn Ireland in July at the Estádio Nacional in Lisbon – was completing a relegation escape, with a little help from rivals, having taken charge the previous December. They finished 14th of 16, with 53 points.
Biarritz were told they would not be demoted to the amateur leagues last June, nearly a month after the season had ended. That was the good news.
But, Coughlan said: 'We had 22 players and a whole new staff to bring in – I didn't sleep much for May, June, or July.'
The day after the green light from the league, he announced in a press conference that veteran Samoan second row Piula Fa'asalele would join from Toulouse. It started a wave of announcements. In the end, 20 players arrived in the off-season.
That was enough to give Coughlan's new coaching team – ex-Stade Francais academy head and Algeria coach Boris Bouhraoua, Remi Bonfils, Jérôme Filitoga-Taofifénua and Sebastien Buada – something to work with.
But there's no denying they all walked into the eye of a perfect rugby club storm.
Coughlan saw that as a plus-point: 'If you're at the start of a story, then it's the best place to come in. If you're not excited by a challenge, don't go looking for jobs in professional sports.'
While sleep has been easier to come by since those first few months passed, Coughlan and his staff have set a punishing pace.
'We've been to Dubai with a sevens team. We had a really good start to the season and then a difficult period in the middle. We've given 10 guys from the academy their first game in a pro rugby match.
'When you're in the mix of it, you don't really take the time to step back and have a look.'
But, while he's pitchside at training sessions – and while Canal Plus' cameras will track him down during the weekly televised games – he leaves the day-to-day coaching to the staff he's assembled for the job.
'The best way to describe it is that I look after the club project, and the staff look after the team project,' he explained, succinctly.
Former Munster No. 8 James Coughlan joined Biarritz as director of rugby last summer. Pic: Biarritz.
Meanwhile, he's busily rebuilding long-strained relations with the important amateur arm of the club – the association – which holds, as is standard in French rugby, the FFR licence that permits the Biarritz Olympique to play the game every week at all levels.
'It's a work in progress,' he said. 'Like any relationship, there are times you agree, and times you don't. It's making sure you try and get as healthy and open a relationship as possible so everyone is on the same wavelength.'
After a strong start to the ProD2 campaign – they were second with six wins after nine matches – Biarritz slipped down the table. A seven-match losing streak at the start of 2025 had them glancing nervously into the relegation singularity as they dropped to 13th in mid-February.
Four wins in their last eight – including an impressive victory at surprise strugglers Oyonnax – means the Basque club are 12th, with 60 points and nothing to fear when they host play-off contenders Colomiers on final night of the regular season this Friday.
Coughlan, ever the sporting professional, has mixed feelings about Biarritz's campaign.
'I'm a cranky soul unless we're winning. That's what you're judged on in professional sport: wins and losses.
'Am I happy that we're [safe] in the ProD2? Of course I am. That's all I wanted at the start of the season. I had an idea that, if we finished between 64 and 68 points, we'd be in the top six or seven. But there's more of a gap between the top six and the bottom eight this year.
'I'm happy we're making progress. I'm happy we're going in the right direction. I'm not happy to celebrate 10th, either. It's not being arrogant – it's just wanting to win. That drive will never go away.'
Recruitment and retention is at the top of Coughlan's mind now. Some 20 players have signed contract extensions, while six arrivals have so far been reported. A few more will follow. But there's no repeat of last season's squad turnover.
'We're missing a bit of power up front,' Coughlan said. 'The ProD2 is a difficult league if you're missing big, powerful men.'
The long-term plan – in common with every professional club in France – is to enhance the age-grade pathway through to the senior squad.
With near-perfect timing, the club's academy squad secured promotion to the age-grade's elite competition recently, and will face the likes of Toulouse, La Rochelle, and Bayonne next season.
There's clearly talent there. And Coughlan wants to tap this homegrown potential so they become local heroes in the years to come.
'We want to make it so the club doesn't just continue to feed the top 14 players,' he said, citing the likes of Joe Jonas, Lucas Peyresblanques, and Maxime Lucu, who came through the Biarritz system but who now play their rugby elsewhere.
Another former academy player, Yann Lesgourges, will return next season from Bordeaux. He was one of three ex-Biarritz under-20 players involved in Montpellier's Top 14 win over the Champions Cup finalists last weekend.
'With any professional team, the foundation of the club is your academy setup,' Coughlan said. 'We need to get those things so that the club isn't just feeding other teams, but promoting Biarritz and trying to get us back into the Top 14.'
Promotion ambitions come at what Coughlan describes as 'the pointy end' of a five-year plan at the club. Year one – survival and renewed stability – is one game from being done. 'The next two years is to try and make sure that we're in the top six fight. That doesn't happen overnight – it takes three, four or five years of being in the top half.
'You get to the pointy end of the league and be like Colomiers – who are finishing like a train, who could sneak all the way in and get to the Top 14 – and you get sponsors in the area seeing that the club is developing. Then you can elevate your budget, improve your recruitment, and develop homegrown talent, so they come through.
'In five years, the plan is to be pushing to qualify for the Top 14.'
That's the long-term on-pitch goal.
More immediately, Coughlan is looking forward to welcoming Munster to Biarritz for a preseason friendly on August 22 – which honours the shared history of the two clubs in Europe, and celebrates the 20-year anniversary of the epic 2006 European Cup final between them.
'That will be brilliant for the club here,' he said, 'but also for regenerating those friendships between supporters, between the lads, having the older fellas over as well as the younger fellas.
'That's what rugby is about.'