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

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

coach and a former international player. He was recently the head coach of the

Leicester Tigers Leicester Tigers (officially Leicester Football Club) are a professional rugby union club based in Leicester, England. They play in Premiership Rugby, England's top division of rugby. The club was founded in 1880 and since 1892 plays its home ...

. O'Connor has held head coaching positions with the

Queensland Reds The Queensland Reds is the rugby union team based in Brisbane 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 ...

(co-head coach alongside

Nick Stiles Nick Stiles (born 17 October 1973) is an Australian professional rugby union coach and a former player for the Queensland Reds. He also played in twelve Tests for Australia as a loosehead prop. Family and early life Stiles was born in Melbourn ...

during 2016); at Irish province

Leinster Leinster ( ; or ) is one of the four provinces of Ireland, in the southeast of Ireland. The modern province comprises the ancient Kingdoms of Meath, Leinster and Osraige, which existed during Gaelic Ireland. Following the 12th-century ...

, 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. For sponsorship reasons the league is known as the Vodacom United Rugby Championship in ...

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

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

against

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

in 1994. He signed for

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as rugby league in English-speaking countries and rugby 13/XIII in non-Anglophone Europe, is a contact sport, full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular Rugby league playin ...

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 Leagu ...

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. Sup ...

, 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 () or simply PSG, is a French professional Association football, football club based in Paris. They compete in Ligue 1, the French football league system, top d ...

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 to 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 feral horses which inh ...

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 Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Canada, Japan and the United States. First held in 2006, the tournament is intended to strengthen the Tier 2 rugby teams by providing competitiv ...

competition. O'Connor joined the

as the backline coach under

Heyneke Meyer Heyneke Meyer (born 6 October 1967) is a professional rugby union coach, best known for coaching the Springboks from 2012 until 2015. Prior to coaching the Springboks, he spent many years at the domestic level in South Africa before coaching L ...

, replacing another Australian former centre,

Pat Howard Patrick William Howard (born 14 November 1973) is an ex-head coach at Leicester Tigers and a former Australian rugby union international who played centre or fly-half. He was the General Manager, Team Performance – for the Australia nationa ...

. 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 and since January 2024 has been the Head Coach of the Georgian National Rugby Team. Prior to this he was the manager of Top 14 side Montpellier and wa ...

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 ...

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

. 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 Rugby league centres Rugby league players from Canberra Rugby union players from Canberra Rugby union centres Australian expatriate rugby league players in France Australian expatriate rugby league players in England Australian expatriate sportspeople in Ireland Australian expatriate rugby union players in Japan Expatriate rugby union coaches Footballers who switched code