Do not mistake Clarke Dermody’s laconic Southland drawl and laid-back persona for a lack of ambition.
The long-serving Highlanders assistant coach is not leaving the club because he feels spent or has nothing more to offer.
He is actually supremely energised about his looming move to the Ulster club, and sees it as an opportunity to keep pushing his professional development with a view to moving up to the international coaching ranks.
‘‘I’ve had 13 years coaching with the Highlanders, and I’ve pretty much done every job you can do,’’ Dermody told the Otago Daily Times.
‘‘I feel like if I genuinely want to be an international coach, I need to get a bit more experience in different environments.
‘‘Going to Ireland, getting back into playing African teams, the European style — if that’s the next step for me to be able to get into that international role, then so be it.’’
Dermody missed out on a coaching gig with the New Zealand XV a couple of years ago.
That disappointment, plus the realisation there were unlikely to be any vacancies on the All Blacks staff for a while, helped him make the decision to head to Ireland to continue coaching at club level and keep an eye on international opportunities.
‘‘Obviously, there’s been a change in All Black coaches here, so if there’s no step for me from Super Rugby to get into those conversations, I felt like Ulster was a good opportunity.
‘‘It’s a good club, playing in a pretty strong competition.
‘‘If there is nothing available with the All Blacks, hopefully I can do a good job with Ulster and see what happens over the next few years with maybe some of those home unions or somewhere else.’’
It will be strange seeing the Highlanders go into a season without Dermody in the building.
The former All Blacks and Highlanders prop has become an institution at the club and is — as far as we can tell — the longest-serving member of any coaching staff across the New Zealand teams.
An early stint as a scrum coach was followed by graduation to an assistant’s role, a temporary stint and two full seasons as head coach, and two more years as an assistant.
Full reflection on his Highlanders tenure might have to wait until after he has embarked on the next stage of his coaching career.
‘‘It’s a funny job, rugby coaching. You sort of just pick up the next job and move on. Players do it all the time, and being a coach is pretty transient.
‘‘I think I’m pretty lucky to have done as long as I have in one place. It’s probably unusual nowadays to be involved for so long with one team.
‘‘I haven’t given it too much thought yet. It’s a job I’ve chosen, I suppose.
‘‘I probably didn’t get everything out of my playing career for the Highlanders. Maybe I left two, three years too early to be counted as a really good Highlanders player.
‘‘But my contribution as a coach ... I’m really proud of fit. I’ve been pretty loyal.’’
Dermody’s passion has been helping players develop under his watch.
He highlighted a fellow Southland prop, Highlanders star Ethan de Groot, as the best example of that.
‘‘Ethan came in as a pretty young, inexperienced fellow. He was pretty stubborn for a start — probably is a wee bit now — but he’s definitely grown over the past five or six years.
‘‘He’s in a position now where he leads the team really well, he’s married with a young daughter, he’s a seasoned All Black, and I feel like he’s had his best season for us.
‘‘Having stories like that, where you can progress a guy through not just the footy stuff but watch them grow as well ... they’re probably the highlights when you get to spend as long as I have at a club.’’
Dermody points out being a coach at the Highlanders was effectively his first real job.
‘‘I was travelling up twice a week from Invercargill at first, but pretty quickly moved up here permanently.
‘‘I’ve definitely grown, just through experience and learning on the job. My coaching has definitely progressed from the guy that was putting training pants together in the truck on the way up.’’
Rugby fans can get locked in a cycle of bemoaning the evolution of their sport, but Dermody does not feel too much has changed.
There was certainly more management involved — squads were significantly bigger from when he joined the Highlanders — and there was an ongoing challenge to keep things fresh and interesting for players who returned each season.
He has spent most of his Super Rugby career in the assistant ranks but, as well as coaching Tasman to back-to-back NPC championships, he had a temporary stint as Highlanders head coach in 2021, and was fulltime head coach in 2023-24.
‘‘That was a different challenge again. A lot less time on the whistle with the boys on the field, and I feel that’s probably my strength.
‘‘It was a lot more about managing the group and sorting out weeks and that sort of stuff. But I’m hugely proud of that coaching group and where we got to.’’
It has not been a particularly glorious few years for the Highlanders.
But while they plunged to the wooden spoon in 2025 and were ninth this year, there remains a groundswell of support for the club in the community, indicated by the fact their average crowd is not much less than that of the table-topping Hurricanes.
Dermody is quietly optimistic the first Highlanders squad to take the field after he leaves will track in the right direction.
‘‘I know the boys believe that they can do it,’’ he said.
‘‘It’s just a matter of now, I guess, getting those extra two or three wins a season to give ourselves that opportunity.
‘‘Over the next wee while, once the squad starts to get the big moments right in games that we’ve been getting wrong for the last couple of years, we will be able to execute.
‘‘And like I say, two or three more wins and then you’re mid-to-top table and then you can start pushing on in these playoffs.’’
It is no surprise that Dermody has one major lament about the modern state of Super Rugby.
The competition lost something when the South African teams left, he said.
‘‘We definitely miss touring. Those genuine two or three weeks, going to South Africa and back through Argentina or Australia ... we’ve got guys playing now who never experienced that.
‘‘And it was about preparing for a different style of rugby, the whole challenge around that, especially for coaching against that opposition.
‘‘It’s just a shame that the boys don’t get to experience that now. Until they play test rugby, I suppose, and that’s only 35 blokes a year get to do that.
‘‘I don’t know what it’s going to look like in the future, but that’s definitely part of rugby that’s important.’’
Dermody is an Irish name and the Highlanders assistant has had a few brushes with the Emerald Isle.
He played over 100 games for the London Irish club and two of his three tests for the All Blacks were against Ireland.
While he has not met Ulster head coach Richie Murphy in person, the pair have talked several times.
‘‘He coached with Joe Schmidt when he was with the Irish team, and he did the Irish under-20s for a couple of seasons and they were pretty successful with that. I think he’s been sort of two years with Ulster now as head coach.’’
Dermody also sought advice from Andrew Goodman, the former Southern club player with whom he coached at the Mako and who has been in Ireland for several years.
Ulster finished ninth in the United Rugby Championship this season and reached the final of the European Challenge Cup.
Dermody will fly out of Auckland, where son Carter is at university, on July 13. He will be joined by wife Sarah and daughter Maggie after his daughter has finished year 12 at Queen’s High School.
