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Matt Calland – Rochdale Hornets Head Coach
Photo: Katie Davies
REAL ROCHDALE - AUTUMN 2019
How did you get into rugby?
My dad was a mad Widnes fan when they were a good How will you improve the club’s performance?
I think we need to create a pathway; we need to use the
team in the 1980s. I was about 10 years old when he took academy to attract younger players and get them ready to
me to my first game and I have been hooked ever since. play for Rochdale Hornets. We are trying to get as many
I started playing rugby when I started high school; a guy local players as we can so that most of the players live
called Neil Wood introduced the school to rugby league. nearby. I want the nucleus of the squad to be Rochdale
I played for St Helen’s team on a Saturday and then people and have Rochdale at heart.
Pilkington Recs at Under 18s level.
My coach was best friends with Steve Deakin, who How do you plan on getting Hornets back up to the
coached Oldham St Anne’s at the time, so when I was 18, I Championship?
moved to Oldham to live in Royton. Clubs at the top end of the Championship are spending a
I had a year with Oldham St Anne’s, met some friends for whole lot of money to push to get into the Super League,
life, and played for Lancashire and Great Britain. That is and we don’t have those funds to spend so it is virtually
how four of us ended up signing for Hornets: myself, impossible to compete with those clubs.
Martin Kay, Adrian Belle and Steve Gartland, who has My long-term goal is to create a winning team, get a
sadly passed away. Hornets was my first professional club. winning culture and get a feel-good factor about the place
but then the bigger goal is to get Hornets into the
So you have come full circle - Hornets was your first Championship and have a sustainable organisation so
professional team and you are back coaching Hornets. we can sustain our position. We need to make sure we’re
Yes, that is the reason I am back really. I have been ready, can get up and stay up.
coaching at Hopwood Hall College since 2003. I started I coached Mayfield from 2006 – 2009 then again from
the academy there; the college didn’t even have a rugby 2011 – 2018, and I played last season too in centre
team at the time. I was given a five-year target to become position. I love playing rugby; it’s the only time I feel like
national champions and we won within three years. that’s where I am supposed to be. I can not play now and
In 2007, I joined Halifax to assist Martin Hall, who I initially the transitional period is very hard, you feel sort of lost.
met at Hornets. I had a couple of years assisting before he Coaching is so frustrating because when you play you have
promoted me to head coach. We reached three grand just got yourself to worry about, but coaching means you
finals and won the Championship in 2010. This was the worry about the whole squad.
first time they had won a cup since the Challenge Cup in Everyone learns in different ways and everybody is
1987, so it was a really successful stint. motivated in different ways, you have just got to try and
After that I went to Rochdale Mayfield and spent 10 years get everything right, it is a lot more complicated being a
there still playing and coaching. We won the national cup coach then being a player.
in 2016, which was the year Steve Gartland passed away. It is all worthwhile though, when you get a squad all on the
We actually won the cup on his birthday; it was one of same wavelength and working hard.
those moments you never forget.
In terms of who you have coached, who has been your
How did it feel to come back to Hornets? greatest achievement?
The last three months have been the most testing times Jack Ashworth is probably the most successful. He came
of my career. The Championship is such a good standard to Hopwood Hall. I saw something in him – how hard he
and the squad we’ve got currently just isn’t strong enough. trained and how he was in the gym. I took him down to St
We have tried to make changes but it is too late, so it is Helen’s and he’s now a full-time Super League player and
a case of rebuilding for next season, reshaping the team will be playing at Wembley in the cup final. He is a local
and bringing in people who want to play and compete for Rochdale lad, so it is a great achievement.
Rochdale. We have been relegated now to League One,
but obviously the plan is to get back up eventually. It is What is your favourite memory from playing?
still not easy; this isn’t a quick fix and could take years. You I have got so many. When I signed as an amateur for
have got to be realistic. Rochdale, being a 19-year-old playing with players who
were already my friends, it was such a good time for me. All
Steve Kerr, Hornets CEO, said that you are the ‘missing I ever wanted to do growing up was get paid to play rugby.
piece of the Hornets puzzle’, why does he think that? Playing for Rochdale Hornets was a dream come true.
I had a long professional career, got to a high level of I went playing in Australia which was a really good
performance and have been at the Hopwood academy for experience. I left England a boy and came back a man.
16 years, so I know the game inside out locally. I signed for Featherstone when I got back, then I moved
I have probably come to the club at the worst possible time to Bradford, which was the best move of my career. That
- I have joined a sinking ship which has been really tough to is where everything kick started – I played at Wembley
take on. My teams generally win, I usually create a twice, got selected to play for England with players like
winning culture, and coming to a losing one like this has Jason Robinson and Martin Offiah. We won the Super
really opened my eyes. There needs to be big changes for League in 1997, so you could say that was the pinnacle.
next season and I think I can be the man to do that.
Founded in 1871, Rochdale Hornets is the borough’s only professional rugby league club and competes in the
Championship, the second tier of English rugby league. Hornets is one of the original 22 rugby clubs that formed
the Northern Rugby Football Union in 1895, making it one of the world’s first rugby league clubs.
16 17 REAL ROCHDALE - AUTUMN 2019