Irish Triple Crown Winner Michael Bradley will be a familiar face in the Georgian camp when they come to Lansdowne Road on Sunday. Cork-born Michael Bradley has been the assistant head coach with the Georgian national team for over a year at this stage and will be the one Irishman in attendance hoping the men in green don't make it two wins from two for their November internationals campaign.
For those newer to the sport, Michael Bradley was a scrumhalf on the Triple Crown winning Irish side of 1985. The Munster player made his debut in 1984, and played for Ireland for 11 years, getting 40 caps, 15 of which were as captain. 1985 marked the second Irish Triple Crown win of the '80s, and the third Irish 6 Nations triumph in the same decade. Unfortunately for Ireland, the next Triple Crown wouldn't come until Brian O'Driscoll's Ireland won in 2004 sparking another run of 3 wins in 4 years before the Grand Slam was claimed in 2009.
After retiring in 1995, Michael Bradley came back into rugby in 2002. He was appointed Irish U21 coach in 2002, overseeing the likes of Rory Best, Tommy Bowe and John Muldoon. A year later, he was appointed as Director of Rugby at Connacht, while also taking up the Ireland A coaching job. Bradley guided Connacht to three Challenge Cup semi finals in his 7 years in charge, while qualifying for the knockout stages in six of those seven years.
After taking interim charge of Ireland's tour of New Zealand in 2008, Michael Bradley stepped down from both Connacht and Ireland in 2010. He first started working with Georgia the next year, and helped them win a grand slam in the 2011 ENC Championship, which Georgia compete with Romania, Portugal and other countries like Ukraine or Germany. Georgia claimed their 3rd win in four years under Bradley, and have won consecutive championships since.
Bradley then took over at Edinburgh, memorably taking them to the Heineken Cup semi finals by beating Toulouse in the quarter finals in 2012. Bradley spent two years in Edinburgh, but his European success didn't match their league form and he was let go.
Since then Michael Bradley has been involved with Georgia again, and will be plotting Ireland's downfall on Sunday. It's also worth noting that according to the Irish Independent, the Georgian head coach Milton Haig, is man who recommended Joe Schmidt for his first rugby coaching job. He's the first familar face that will attempt to do so in the next two weeks.
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