Carl Hopkinson has spent the winter working with Ireland as a specialist fielding coach and is currently preparing the squad for their match against the UAE at the Gabba on Wednesday.
The former Sussex batsman has been working with the squad since the acclimatisation tour to Australia and New Zealand in September / October last year and will continue to work with the team throughout the World Cup.

After a successful career on the pitch with the county, which saw him win both the County Championship and C&G Trophy as a player, Hopkinson moved into coaching.

“I played in a pretty successful era at Sussex and played in the double winning 2006 team that won the C & G final and the championship which obviously was very special for me.

“I was sort of in and out of the team from then onwards and from that moment on I was always really eyeing up a coaching career.”

After impressing as a coach at Sussex, Hopkinson has been involved with international cricket, and specialises in fielding, although there is much more to his coaching than that.

“When I’m at Sussex I’m an all-round coach, I take the second team, which is my main role, so I have the team experience from that point of view, so when I come to work for Ireland or the ECB I also bring that specialism as well, which is hopefully as important.”

Fitting into the Ireland set up was not a problem for Hopkinson, and his decision to get involved was an easy one.

“Obviously I agreed instantly because Ed [Joyce] has told me a lot about Ireland, the set up, and the way things work and it was something I was very keen to get involved with.

“Everybody cares for everyone else which is nice, everyone seems to have everybody’s back which is very similar to Sussex. We call it the Sussex family and it’s a very similar type of environment here so it didn’t really take me too long to fit in with everyone when I first went over to Australia.”

Whilst the preparation for the opening match of the tournament in Nelson was seamless, with great conditions in Coogee, Sydney and Nelson in the run up to the match, things have been a little different in the past week, as Cyclone Marcia forced training indoors.

“We tried to change it up a bit and tried to combine the fitness element and the fielding together. We did a couple of quite high intensity fitness-fielding circuits indoors. Which sometimes is quite a good thing, it’s a good blow-out for the lads, and to have them replicating skills that they do outside indoors, but also under physical fatigue is another element that you can add to that fielding circuit.”

As the weather subsides and training moves outdoors again, Hopkinson is pleased to have the opportunity to train under the lights in the Gabba.

“Fielding under lights does bring a different dynamic, the depth perception of when the ball goes up into the sky is different as you don’t have anything the judge the ball against so it tends to hit you a couple of feet before you think it’s going to.

“I’m really pleased we’ve got a good practice session under lights because it’ll give the lads that bit of extra time to get used to it and to have a little feel for what it’s like. “

Ireland’s next game is against UAE on Wednesday (3.30am GMT) – you can follow all of the action on www.cricketireland.ie and join the conversation on twitter using the hashtag #BackingGreen.



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