Matt O'Connor (born 29 January 1971) is an Australian professional

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In it ...

coach and a former international player. He was recently the head coach of the Leicester Tigers. O'Connor has held head coaching positions with the

Queensland Reds The Queensland Reds is the rugby union team for the Australian state of Queensland that competes in the Southern Hemisphere's Super Rugby competition. Prior to 1996, they were a representative team selected from the rugby union club competitions ...

(co-head coach alongside Nick Stiles during 2016); at Irish province

Leinster Leinster ( ; ga, Laighin or ) is one of the provinces of Ireland, situated in the southeast and east of Ireland. The province comprises the ancient Kingdoms of Meath, Leinster and Osraige. Following the 12th-century Norman invasion of ...

, where he won the

Pro12 The United Rugby Championship (URC) is an annual rugby union competition involving professional teams from Ireland, Italy, Scotland, South Africa, and Wales. The current name was adopted in 2021 when the league expanded to include four South Afr ...

in 2013–14; and in a previous stint with Leicester, where he won the Premiership in 2013.

Playing career

O'Connor played rugby for the ACT in the 1990s and was awarded a single cap for

the Wallabies The Australia national rugby union team, nicknamed the Wallabies, is the representative national team in the sport of rugby union for the nation of Australia. The team first played at Sydney in 1899, winning their first test match against the ...

against

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

in 1994. He signed for

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 11 ...

club the

Hunter Mariners The Hunter Mariners were an Australian professional rugby league club based in the Hunter Region's largest city, Newcastle. Hunter was formed in mid-1995 and was later disbanded at the end of 1997. The club was formed because of the Super Leag ...

in 1996, but the club's existence was threatened by the

Super League war The Super League war was a commercial competition between the Australian Rugby League (ARL) and the Australian Super League to establish pre-eminence in professional rugby league competition in Australia and New Zealand in the mid-1990s. Super ...

, so he played in only several trial matches that year. He played for

Paris Saint-Germain Paris Saint-Germain Football Club (), commonly referred to as Paris Saint-Germain, Paris, Paris SG or simply PSG is a professional football club based in Paris, France. They compete in Ligue 1, the top division of French football. As Fr ...

in 1997. O'Connor spent three years in Japan playing for and then coaching Kubota Rugby Team. He lived in Japan with his wife and three children.

Coaching

Returning to Australia, O'Connor joined the

Brumbies The ACT Brumbies (known from 2005–2022 as simply the Brumbies) is an Australian professional rugby union team based in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory (ACT), The team competes in Super Rugby and named for the brumby, feral horses whi ...

as a backline coach in Canberra. He was appointed head coach of Australia A for the

Pacific Nations Cup The Pacific Nations Cup is an international rugby union competition held between three Pacific states: Fiji, Samoa and Tonga. The 2019 edition of the tournament will also include the national teams of Canada, Japan and United States. First hel ...

competition. O'Connor joined the Leicester Tigers as the backline coach under Heyneke Meyer, replacing another Australian former centre, Pat Howard. Leicester won the English Premiership in 2009. O'Connor remained as attack coach when

Richard Cockerill Richard Cockerill (born 16 December 1970) is an English rugby union coach and former player, he was the national team's interim head coach between Eddie Jones and Steve Borthwick. He played as a hooker, spending the majority of his career at ...

took over as head coach for the following season with the club going on to win the Premiership again in 2010. Cockerill was promoted to the position of director of rugby and O'Connor was appointed head coach of Leicester in July 2010, and he was extremely influential in the Tigers Premiership win of 2013. He was signed as the head coach of Irish province

in 2013, and won the

2013–14 Pro12 The 2013–14 Pro12 (also known as the ''RaboDirect Pro12'' for sponsorship reasons) was the 13th season of the Pro12 rugby union competition originally known as the Celtic League, the fourth with its current 12-team format, and the third with Rab ...

title in his first season. The following season, when the team missed out on a play-off spot in the

and lost at the semi-final stage of the Champions Cup, O'Connor was sacked by Leinster after completing two years of a three-year contract. O'Connor joined the

as attack coach for 2016. After Richard Graham was sacked two games into the season, O'Connor was appointed as co-interim head coach of the team alongside Nick Stiles. In March 2017, following the sacking of Richard Cockerill as director of rugby in January, Leicester Tigers announced that O'Connor would return to the club as head coach, with current head coach Aaron Mauger leaving with immediate effect. On 3 September 2018 it was announced O'Connor had left Leicester with immediate effect.

References

External links

Matt O'Connor
Leinster Rugby profile {{DEFAULTSORT:OConnor, Matt 1971 births Living people Australia international rugby union players Australian rugby league players Australian rugby union coaches Australian rugby union players Leicester Tigers coaches Leinster Rugby non-playing staff Paris Saint-Germain Rugby League players Hunter Mariners players Rugby league centres Rugby league players from Canberra Rugby union players from Canberra Rugby union centres