How do you think that your coaches best laid plans have prevailed...?

A RWC for any nation is a four year program of building, strategising, repairing and coaching.

Each of the four six nations teams qualified for the Quarter Finals have won the six nations since the last RWC in 2007. Three with Grandslams one without.

The prep started as new roles were taken in the early part of that cycle by all four nations. Those teams Six Nations plans came to fruition at different times, they played well and they played appallingly for periods over those four years.

How do you feel your Coaching/Management team have dealt with their personal tenure, now that your team is going into the Quarters, or has just been knocked out of the RWC...?

Warren Gatland, Rob Howley, Shaun Edwards and Robyn McBride have taken loads of stick off 80% of the Welsh fans on any forum site over the last three years since we lost to France on a Friday evening in Paris.

Persisting with the wrong players when others were showing better form was a popular accusation. Though not a one sided one as even now when form players are performing well, like Priestland, some fans are calling for out of form experienced internationals, like Stephen Jones to be reinstated.

Faith in players recoveries from injuries has been a regular and insurmountable debate. Lee Byrne, Ryan Jones, Gethin Jenkins, Mike Phillips, Shane Williams have all come under harsh criticism for not hitting form after injury, or being out so long that they should be out of consideration.

In Hindsight, Gatland and co seem to have got everything pretty close to perfect going into the Quarter Finals. I don't think we have better players than the ones playing, 90% of those players are in the best form of their careers. (Notable mention to Huw Bennett).

Not only that, Wales seem to be tactically aware, patient, solid in defence without conceding masses of penalties and clinical in attack. More so every game.

I am very happy with what the Welsh management has produced as a result of last for years.

Ireland will have to be at their very best to beat us this Saturday, and if they are, then they deserve their spot in the later stages more than us.

From a NZ point of view it seems Henry wants solidity on the wing as he's picking two fullbacks and Kahui on the left. He's sure of his top 15 but the 22 remains a mystery.

Losing Carter was his worst nightmare but he gave Donald 3 years to prove he was good enough-Donald wasn't so Henry had to cut his losses. Slade looks the most solid but he's been injured most of 11. He'd be tempted to call Evans but if that sort of carry on starts where will it end?

Argentina is a good result QF wise-would be the biggest gulf in class between the four games. Then it's kitchen sink time. No he hasn't found a backup 7 yet (though IMO Todd is not far off a black jersey), but a specialist 7 backup wouldn't be in the match day 22 anyhow.

We have two world class 13s-Smith and Kahui-so finally the tradition of makeshift centres at WCs for NZ will end it seems. Defence has been a bit lax but we look still the most potent side in the comp due to Aussie's injuries. Weepu is extremely important now as his game reading is great. Slade is no DC but if you look at the other 10s in the comp, then noone is. He's just head and shoulders above the rest so if any of those other blokes were Kiwis they'd get the same scrutiny Slade is getting as they each have weaknesses.

DC aside I think we're getting there. Will be still tough to beat at Eden Park. Kudos to Kaino, Dagg and Nonu for some inspired play.

Next week is NZ's scheduled nervous breakdown.

erm ok not sure if i can agree to england doing us proud- but i did tick it , because the other option isnt right- we do deserve to be were we are.

The 6 Nations coaches;

I'm not saying he's the best but I have to put in a word for Robinson. I think he got it tactically correct against both Argentina and England. But the players just fell short. I see the SRU are standing by him and I haven't heard any Scottish fans calling for his dismissal, which is good. He's a good coach.

I'm surprised by the English lack of discipline off the field. Johnson said he trusted his players to behave when he let them out. That trust has clearly been misplaced for handful of players. I'm sure he's learned his lesson in that regard, so I wouldn't be to critical. Where I would criticize him is his tactics. He has the likes of Tuilagi, Ashton and Foden at his disposal but they're not getting their hands on the ball enough. England have shown that when they need a try they can score. So why aren't they using the strengths they have in their backline more often?

Kidney has broken the seedings and finished ahead of Australia with four wins and so deserves a lot of credit. It was a tactical masterclass against Australia, which probably had more to do with his coaching team than with him, but he's the one who put top class coaches in place and gave them the freedom to do their jobs. Ireland are also in decent nick injury wise. Is this because of the player management program that Kidney enforced on the provinces all year? We can't know for sure but it hasn't done any harm. He's being helped by a core of very experienced and very good players. BOD, POC and ROG seem to be possessed with a desperation to do well which is feeding into the whole team and resulting in very high intensity play from the Irish. It's an intensity which is being sustained by the massive Irish crowds and the fact that Kiwi's seem to have adopted them as their 2nd team. Sometimes it seems like the stars are aligning in Ireland's favour this time. Then you realize there's a similar feeling about another team too. Our next opponents, Wales.

Gatland is another one who seems to be drawing the most out of his team. Their attack was so predictable in the last year but they've suddenly found some real penetration. Only New Zealand have scored more tries. The team are playing well and even better, are playing a style of rugby which the Welsh fans love. Even if they get knocked out in the next round I'm sure the Welsh public will be happy to keep Gatland because, oddly for a World Cup, it looks like the beginning of a great team rather than the end of a long journey. I love Gatland's trust in young players to do the business. And they're doing it for him so far. I thought they were unlucky to lose to South Africa but it now looks like it was a lucky result. They're on the kinder side of the draw and playing well. So well done to Gats.

Lievremont is an absolute clown. I believe he called his players cowards in the build up to the World Cup. He's had no consistency in his selections for 3 of the last 4 seasons. He picks players out of position. He's crazy. He's lost to Tonga. And everyone seems to agree that France's best chance of progressing beyond the quarters is if the players lock him out of the dressing room and just play. The worst of the lot.

Mallet hasn't done a particularly bad job. But he hasn't managed to cause an upset either. He got Italy to play a tough first half against both Australia and Ireland. But they collapsed under the pressure in the 2nd half of both matches. They played well against the minnows. They achieved pretty much exactly what was expected of them. I think Mallet's only hope was if Ireland played a howler against them, but they actually played really well. And there's not much he could do about it.

disneychilly wrote:
Next week is NZ's scheduled nervous breakdown.

I think Argentina will come out all guns blazing for this game but Argentina will run out of Energy as they did against England and Wales.

I was meaning we'll have it during the semi Maesteg

disneychilly wrote:I was meaning we'll have it during the semi Maesteg

NZ should comfortably beat the Argies, but the Argies have a lot to play for here. We know they are capable of playing out of their skins at times and may make life very hard for NZ.

But to look at the game you would have to expect that Kiwis will only be happy if the ABs put 30 plus points difference on them going into, as you say a difficult Semi against one of two sides that have both recently beaten the ABs.

I'd like a tough game. We need the workout. With teams like Argentina we can swing the ball wide as soon as we get some go forward, as we like to take the ball away from their strengths and exploit their wide defence which cannot cope with our strike runners. Aus and SA know how to negate this so the Kiwis will need to get even more go-forward. I'd like to see us get more of a platform as it would be great prep for the semi should we go through.

disneychilly wrote:I'd like a tough game. We need the workout. With teams like Argentina we can swing the ball wide as soon as we get some go forward, as we like to take the ball away from their strengths and exploit their wide defence which cannot cope with our strike runners. Aus and SA know how to negate this so the Kiwis will need to get even more go-forward. I'd like to see us get more of a platform as it would be great prep for the semi should we go through.

GH has built an intelligent team.

They like to play good rugby too. Carter is a massive blow to that.

The Argies are great on the counter attack too. I am hoping that the referees this weekend will clamp down on cynical penalty conceding defensive play. This may benefit either team.

Considering the banter pre RWC on all sides deriding the coaches of the respective nations mentioned above, PDV, Gatland and Kidney possibly taking the biggest criticism, I am surprised to see only one negative vote here, and from an Englishmen, the English were previously on a Six Nations Championship high pre RWC.

The Tables have definitely turned and many of us have been made to regret our previous opinions.

mystiroakey wrote:erm ok not sure if i can agree to england doing us proud- but i did tick it , because the other option isnt right- we do deserve to be were we are.

The thread was meant to be judging the management and not so much the players.

Do you still think your opinion applies?