Bernard Jackman will be unveiled on Tuesday by French Top 14 club Grenoble as their new head coach from next season.

The former Ireland and Leinster hooker, 37, has enjoyed a meteoric rise with the club since joining them as defence coach in 2011, helping the side win promotion to the elite Top 14.

Subsequently, he became collisions and breakdown coach and, after talks in recent months with current head coach Fabrice Landreau, the Carlow man was given the responsibility of coaching the side currently lying 7th in the table.

This rules him out of the possibility of becoming a successor to Jono Gibbes as forwards coach with his former club, Leinster, although it is believed that current second-row Leo Cullen has been earmarked for that role.

“I’m delighted to have been given this opportunity,” Jackman told the Irish Independent.

“It was always in my sights to become a head coach at some stage and this is an environment in which I am comfortable in and my family are very settled here. I owe it to the club who have placed faith in me but I want this challenge for myself too.

Jackman, 37, who won nine caps in Ireland, cut his coaching teeth from an early age, helming Tullow as a 23-year-olf before enjoying stints with Newbridge College senior schools’ team, Coolmine, Clontarf and St Michaels’ College.

Online Editors