Dave Alred's departure

I read this morning of DA's departure from the England coaching scene. Not surprising after the RWC and JW's poor kicking and "ballgate" and comments re polo shirts and too much golf. My question is "how much of a loss will his departure be?" Woodward and JW are big fans and say he is a lot more than a mere kicking coach. He is about achieving world class results and is a great person to have on your side. He is apparently very good at the mental approach to the game. He is currently working with Luke Donald who is enjoying an OK season. Dave Alred rejoined Eng after a few seasons without him when their kicking seemed to have declined. Jon Callard was the coach and kicking out of hand and place kicking was not the standard of 2003 (when has it ever?). Now Jon Callard is coming back......is this a retrograde or positive step? Anyone with any knowledge on this please share with me. Thanks.

Dave Alred is meant to be a genuis at what he does, he has fallen on his sword because of the media fallout. Out of the 30 or so players that went to the world cup im sure not all of them viewed dave alred as brilliant...i doubt he had much to do at all with the pack so can see why they were questioning his involvement...but he is very highly regarded in the game... i would say this is a massive loss.

Basically we have a coaching system that seems to have been picked on a popularity contest from the players.....to me this is massivley wrong. Who cares if someone like dylan hartley didn't like some of the coaching staff..... If you look at the bigger picture we won 10 out of 13 games last year and won the six nations for the first time since 2003 as well as stuffing australia in their back yard.......This whole massive clearout thing is refreshing and exciting for fans in the short term but that will fade when we start losing......it all smacks of football to me.

Martin Johnson made some stupid selection decisions against france that was all...we lost to a better team (a team which on a different day would have won the RWC) Everything since has been OTT and bordering on vindicative.

SirTidy.....my concern, which is also yours, is the losing of a world class coach from the team. I only hope that going forward the right Chief Executive is appointed, which facilitates the right head coach being appointed and that that person is allowed to pick his own coaching team from scratch.

The odds against all that happening must be high.

I am not sure that Alred has been a good coach in hi ssecond stint with the England camp.

The tactical kicking, which was dire under Callard, did not improve at all with Alred's return. So often it looked aimless. Whatever it is he has done to Flood's goal-kicking - I wish he hadn't. Every time we get him back he has developed a stutter to his run-up, and it takes forever for him to smooth out the problems working with Paul Burke.

Alred worked well first time round as part of that huge coaching set-up that SCW developed. Personally I think it is time to simplify the coaching set-up. As far as kicking goes, the players should be working on technique when at their clubs while the tactical approach shoul dbe down to the Head coach and the Backs Coach.

LT
Absolutely agree regarfing simplifying the coaching set-up. Why does an international side require a kicking coach? I can understand the role at elite club level, to iron out any technical kinks that develop (and as someone who used to be an OK goal kicker, I always think of place kicking as similar to a golf swing, with issues about rhythm, swing planes and direction at the point of contact being the key factors in good kicking).

If (for example) Flood goes through a sticky patch in the first couple of 6Ns games, he should be on the phone to HIS kicking coach at Leicester - someone who has worked to develop his technicue and can probably give the right advice and tips in very short order.

I thought Alred was actually Wilkinson's kicking coach at Newcastle before he got involved in the England setup, so at that time (i.e his first stint), he was the right man for the job. Second time up, perhaps less so.