Steffan Thomas catches up with Welshman Gafyn Cooper who is head of operations and team manager at Leinster

Gafyn Cooper knows what it takes to keep a professional rugby team ticking over. After 13 seasons at Cardiff, he is now Team Operations Manager at Leinster, helping to oversee a squad packed with Ireland internationals and British and Irish Lions.

It is a demanding job, but one he is relishing and the experience has given the Welshman a fresh perspective on the differences between rugby in Ireland and back home.

“We recently went to South Africa, so we took 41 players and 16 staff away," he tells WalesOnline.

"We took all our returning internationals away on the tour in a conscious effort to integrate them back into Leinster, ready for our return to the Laya Arena (RDS) and to be rugby ready for the Champions Cup which started very early in the season this year.

"My responsibility there is making sure everything is right off the pitch. That’s flights, hotel accommodation, training pitches, gyms, media access, staff and team meals, team activities on the down days, while also liaising with the hotels and security in South Africa.

“You’ve got internal flights and then game-day administration. This time of year is pretty crazy because you’re also doing things like European registration, putting together who is going to be in the squad of 42.

"You’re dealing with the coaches, making sure everything is ready for the deadline.

“You do all the backroom stuff. We landed back in Dublin on a Monday afternoon, so you’re straight back in on the Tuesday.

"There’s team selection, uploading the team into the competition portal, looking after all the scheduling and timings for the lads through the training week and on game day.

“But it’s not just the team that plays on match day. You’re liaising with the commercial and marketing teams, so that the non match day squad are in front of the sponsors and fans pre game.

"I am also making sure that players families are looked after as well, before and after games. It’s quite broad, I would say.

“If the lads have got something going on personally, they’re definitely going to come and speak to me to try and help. It’s more the off-pitch stuff, not on-field stuff. You’re there to try to make things happen for people.”

The responsibility extends beyond travel arrangements and team sheets.

Cooper is often the person who has to find a solution when a player’s circumstances change unexpectedly, whether that means getting someone home for family reasons, rearranging flights or ensuring an injured player can begin rehabilitation back in Dublin.

“You might have a couple of lads with concussion after the first game, and my responsibility then is to try to get those boys home so they can start their return-to-play programme back in Dublin," he said.

"You’ve got personal issues as well, where somebody needs to get home at short notice.

“You’re changing flights and programmes, making sure the right people are where they need to be.

"It’s not just about getting 40-odd players to a destination and back again. You’ve got to look after them as individuals.

“If the boys need something or there’s personal stuff going on, they’re definitely people who would come and speak to me. You’ve got to try to help them. I think the personal touch is a trait you need in this role.”

"An example of the diversity of the role is being responsible for managing the Tadhg Furlong citing after the Munster game.

"The amount of administration work that goes into a disciplinary case like this is huge. There is big media attention around it as well, but my job is to keep focused on the process and working with our solicitor, COO and Tadhg to put our best case forward.

"Thankfully, it worked out this time, but they don’t always go your way!"

Cooper, 50, is well equipped for it. Born in Mountain Ash, with Abercynon his rugby club, he has spent most of his professional life in the game.

After initially considering a career in PE teaching at UWIC, now Cardiff Metropolitan University, he took coaching qualifications and joined the WRU’s expanding development network in the late 1990s.

He worked in Caerphilly, managed development officers, helped establish academy pathways and eventually became Cardiff RFC’s team manager in 2006.

Five years later he stepped up to Cardiff Blues, where he spent 13 seasons before the opportunity arose to move to Dublin in January 2025.

The move was sparked by a conversation with former Llanelli scrum-half Guy Easterby, Leinster’s chief operating officer.

Cooper was trying to contact his opposite number, Ronan O’Donnell, while arranging paperwork for prop Ed Byrne’s move from Leinster to Cardiff. O’Donnell had left his position, and the vacancy caught Cooper’s attention.

“I just got chatting to Guy and asked who was coming in," he said.

"He said nobody, that they were advertising for the role, and it sparked something in me to think, you know what, I might go for that.

“I applied for it through proper channels and went through the interviews. I didn’t expect to get it, if I’m honest, because it’s a different sort of culture and different environment.

“But I’d been a long time in Cardiff and loved all of it. Sometimes you’ve got to take yourself out of your comfort zone.

"Our kids were grown up, and I thought Leinster was a big name in the game, with a lot of internationals in the squad. You’re dealing with Lions and so on.

“When I was there the first six months, the Lions squad was selected and I think we had 12 involved originally then Thomas Clarkson and Jamie Osborne were called into the squad during the tour.

"It felt like a step up in terms of profile. It was a chance to try something different, live somewhere different and test yourself.

“I was trying to back myself and say that, regardless of who you’re working for in the game, the nuts and bolts of what you do as a job are the same.”

What has particularly impressed him is the strength of Leinster’s identity and the connection between its professional players and the wider rugby community.

Unlike the Welsh regions, Leinster operates as a provincial branch of the Irish Rugby Football Union, overseeing everything from schools and youth rugby to referees, community clubs and the professional team.

“It’s like a mini union," he explains. "It’s responsible for all the game in the province.

"It’s the professional game, community game, referees and referees’ development, schools rugby and youth rugby. They run it all.

“Every club in the province is connected to Leinster. We go out on the road to train at clubs, and the whole club welcomes you in there.

"They bend over backwards for you.

“The facilities that clubs and schools have here compared to the Welsh clubs and schools is chalk and cheese.

"They’ve got proper high-performance gyms in schools and clubs, 3G pitches. I couldn’t believe the difference.

“We also try to put players into the All-Ireland League clubs whenever we can. They still need to play rugby, and the boys don’t mind playing for their local clubs when needed. They’re still attached to their roots, which is good.

“We’re not perfect by any means, but that connection piece is certainly part of it.”

For Cooper, that connection is not simply a matter of good public relations. It is built into the way Leinster operates, with the professional side part of a much wider provincial structure.

The senior players remain linked to their local clubs, while those outside the match-day squad can be sent into the All-Ireland League to get meaningful game time rather than spending weekends on the sidelines.

Cooper points to Max Deegan playing for Lansdowne during the autumn international period as an example. Six senior players were due to turn out for All-Ireland League clubs on the weekend of the Cardiff fixture when they were not involved with Leinster.

This weekend Leinster have 30 players between senior and academy playing AIL.

It is a practical way of keeping players match-fit while reinforcing their ties to the clubs that helped shape them.

The culture of improvement is equally visible in the players themselves. Cooper has worked with some outstanding Welsh professionals, and he recognises the same habits among Leinster’s elite: the extra preparation, the attention to recovery and the constant search for marginal gains.

“Gethin Jenkins was an eye-opener for me," Cooper tells WalesOnline.

"The amount of work he’d do to make sure he was right for games was incredible. Sam Warburton would be another one, and Leigh Halfpenny exactly the same.

“It’s not just lifting weights. It’s the prehab stuff, the extra stretching, the mobility work and their own work-ons. You see where these lads go over their careers, and you’re not surprised.

“You’ve got the characters who make the dressing room, who bring the laughs and jokes, and then you’ve got lads who are on a path to wanting to be the best. There are different types of characters, and everyone else in between.

"We also had some fun times at Cardiff. There's a lot that I can't share but one of the more amusing moments was before a Challenge Cup game in Montpellier when Jason Tovey called me up hours before we were about to leave saying his dog had eaten his passport."

His affection for Cardiff remains undiminished. Winning the European Challenge Cup in Bilbao stands out as the highlight of his 13 seasons, alongside watching players such as Halfpenny, Jamie Roberts, Sam Warburton and Gethin Jenkins progress to the highest level.

He also remembers the coaches, staff and supporters who made the club feel like home.

“Cardiff did have and do have great players, there’s no doubt about it," he said.

"We always produced good players, but we were just a little bit short on always having a consistent campaign. We’d pull off a big win, but we couldn’t do it week in, week out.

“When I left, you could see some consistency starting to build, with the same group of players and some nice young academy players coming through.

"Cam Winnett and Alex Mann were in their first breakthrough season, and they’d gone very quickly into the Welsh set-up.

“I loved working for Cardiff. People like Peter Thomas had done so much for the club. I could see what the club meant to him and what he put into it.

"He always used to say, ‘We bleed blue and black,’ and I believe that. That kind of thing becomes ingrained in you.”

The concern for Welsh rugby

It is from that affection, rather than any lack of loyalty, that Cooper’s concerns about Welsh rugby emerge. He was often caught in the middle of uncertainty over mergers, financial pressures and the future of the professional clubs. His responsibility was to communicate what he could to players without turning every rumour into a crisis.

“You have to be honest with the players, but you have to have a certain bit of confidentiality as well," he said.

"You’ll be in meetings where stuff isn’t decided, it’s discussed, and it has to go to the board.

“You’ve got to be able to say, ‘as soon as I know something that we need to talk about, we will.’ But we can’t be worrying about the what-ifs.

“I feel for the Welsh clubs at the moment. There was always a problem in Wales, and it was mainly financial.

"Every couple of years there's talk of a merger whether that's between Ospreys and Scarlets, and I remember at one time Cardiff and Ospreys.

"That was two years previous to when I left. That was all on the table.

"I actually don’t agree with going down from four regions because I think the talent is there across all four. It’s just how do you invest in it without any money?”

He also believes Welsh rugby needs to strengthen its connection with local communities and businesses, taking inspiration from the way Leinster works across its province.

Greater investment, he argues, would allow Welsh teams to make decisions around performance rather than simply cost.

The contrast is apparent even in the details of an away fixture. At Leinster, travel arrangements can be built around what best serves recovery and preparation.

In Wales, Cooper believes, financial constraints have increasingly dictated the options available, with consequences for training time and performance.

It is not that he believes Leinster has no constraints. Player minutes, international agreements and budgets still have to be managed, and there is regular discussion with the Irish national coaches.

The difference, as he sees it, is that those conversations take place within a stable structure, with the emphasis on finding the best solution for the team.

“Here, when we go away, we charter because it’s best for performance and recovery," he said.

"In Wales, you’re travelling to Bristol or Heathrow, and every away game becomes a two-day trip. Lads come back on a Sunday and can’t train on Monday. You’re losing training days.

“They’re all little things that add up. The sponsorship levels are way higher over here because there’s more money, especially in Dublin, and that goes a hell of a long way to running a better organisation.

“The regions and the union have to get out into their local communities and connect with them. I don’t just mean rugby clubs and kids. I mean business as well. Leinster has an identity, and there’s an intent to be successful.

“I want the four regions to keep their own identity. If we felt doing something for us was better, then we should be able to do it. It’s your business, it’s your club.”

Cooper has no immediate plans to return to Wales. He is enjoying his work at Leinster, where the expectation is to compete for trophies and where the structures allow him to concentrate on helping the team succeed. But his roots remain important, and he takes pleasure in seeing Cardiff and the Dragons make progress.

“You never say never, because things change. I’m really enjoying my time here, so I wouldn’t think anything in the foreseeable future.

“I just hope that, in terms of Welsh rugby, everybody over this part of the world wants to see Wales competing.

"They want to see Welsh sides really challenging. It was great to see Cardiff get through to the last eight last year, and the Dragons getting to the semi-finals of the Challenge Cup.

“It is good to see Welsh sides getting wins. I haven’t lost my Welshness from it but, at the moment, I’m very much Leinster.”

For now, the Welshman is firmly embedded in a province whose ambitions match its resources. His job is to keep the operation moving, the players supported and the details under control.

After years spent navigating Welsh rugby’s uncertainty, he has found an environment where the focus can remain where he believes it belongs - on being successful.