inept coaching costing the regions dearly

for a good two or three seasons now it seems pretty clear to me that poor coaching is costing the regions dearly, with a slight exception to scarlets and dragons, in fact this is more aimed at the Blues and O's XD.

Anyway, the frightning thing about the Osprey's coaching staff is that they seem to have this wild idea that Biggar is a better fly half than Hook. All those years where they underachieved, putting hook at 12 and continuing with Biggar at ten. This has forced Hook out of the side and in my view has cost Osprey's dearly. With a backline of Shane, Bowe, Beck and even Byrne in recent years it was clear Biggar was not intelligent enough to be able to bring them into the game. His poor decision making skills such as kicking for a line out with a three man overlap has put the Osprey's back a couple of years in my opinion, losing their big names and not really finding replacements for them, leaving them slightly weak this season, and worse is that Biggar is still there in the 10 jersey, with Morgan not even getting a sniff, as shown with a pathetic time of four mins against saracens to somehow turn the game around. The Osprey's need to get shot of Johnson and Holley, otherwise finacially with the low crowds could be in a bit of trouble if they don't get their act together.

Dai Young for me was absolutely awful. So many times I thought Blue may be going somewhere, EDF and Amlin for instance. Yet time and time again they played such poor rugby that their attendances have suffered, no one wants to go watch a side that doesn't play good rugby, that's just fact. Young decided that in order to bring the talented backline of the blues into play, he would buy a full back from Australia, play him at fly half, and let Nicky Robinson go when he seemed to be playing to his potential. Out went SNK and in came Dan Parks. Now don't get me wrong, Parks on his day is vital in the close matches, as proven against Edinburgh at home and Racing away. But Blues desperately needed a fly half who could create something and bring the likes of Roberts, 1/2p and Laulala into the game. Parks is not the answer and again we are seeing the Blues in a scrap in what looked like a relatively straight forward group.

Then we look at the world cup. The coaches got the players together for a good three months. Result: Semi-final of the world cup. These were the same players that had played pretty awful for their regions all season. It's clear in my view, that the coaches in charge of our regions are abysmal, and in my view are contributing to many of the welsh players leaving to go to France. Now money being the prime factor, I know, but I get the feeling that they weren't enjoying their rugby, and that in my view is down to the coaches. Blues now have two guys in completely out of their depth and have all their hopes on Henson firing on all cylinders at fly half, when I think he has to play 12, being his best position. Osprey's are out again of the Heineken, Scarlets are all but out and Blue need Racing to beat Edinburgh and beat Irish away. Get these awful coaches out of the regions, bring back some quality into the rugby they play and more people will turn up and pay to watch their team play. Would you go pay 20 quid to go watch Blues or Osprey's now?

The Blues and Ospreys have a real problem with their coaching.

Baber in particular is miles out of his depth.

It seems most of Wales and wide afield realise this bar Cuddy and Pie Man

I totally agree.

You look at the regional coaches and what jumps out at you is that they were all mediocre players at best. Other than Nigel Davies I don't think any of them ever got an international cap and were often not first choice players for their club or region. So what real skills and experience are they passing on?

Now I realise that you don't have to have been a top player to be a good coach (NZ have proved that) but it certainly helps I would think to know what it takes to get to the top rather than what it takes to be 2nd choice scrum half for Cardiff rfc.

martyr_94 wrote:All those years where they underachieved, putting hook at 12 and continuing with Biggar at ten.

Er, they won the Magners with Biggar at ten.

The Ospreys management and coaches seem to have built up this us against the world attitude and make decisions just because they can. If the general perception is they should do one thing they almost always go the other way to prove a point. I think their ego's get in the way of making the right decision.

The Blues have stuck with Dan Parks almost because they have to. He is not the right 10 for them. They need to play to their strengths and play a high tempo game. They played their best rugby over the last few seasons with Nicky Robinson or Ceri Sweeney at 10. Neither of them are world beaters but their style was much better suited to the Blues strengths. Are they hoping Henson is going to be their saviour?

Eclipse wrote:The Ospreys management and coaches seem to have built up this us against the world attitude and make decisions just because they can. If the general perception is they should do one thing they almost always go the other way to prove a point. I think their ego's get in the way of making the right decision.

The Blues have stuck with Dan Parks almost because they have to. He is not the right 10 for them. They need to play to their strengths and play a high tempo game. They played their best rugby over the last few seasons with Nicky Robinson or Ceri Sweeney at 10. Neither of them are world beaters but their style was much better suited to the Blues strengths. Are they hoping Henson is going to be their saviour?

At the moment, Parks isnt the problem. The entire gameplan has been wrong two weeks in a row and the coachs and players seem unable to alter it if its going wrong. Parks has been one of our best players for the last 2 weeks.

martyr_94 wrote:

Young decided that in order to bring the talented backline of the blues into play, he would buy a full back from Australia, play him at fly half, and let Nicky Robinson go when he seemed to be playing to his potential.

I understand it wasn't Dai Young's decision to recruit SNK.
Also it wasn't until after SNK signed up (as a back up 10 and a 15), that Nick Robinson said he wanted to leave. Dai Young tried to persuade him to stay, but to no avail.

I agree that Parks isn't playing too badly but the way the Blues need to play and the way that he plays are 2 opposing styles of rugby. In oder to bring Jamie Roberts into the game he needs to be hitting the ball hard near the gainline. The Blues pack aren't strong enough in the tight to play a slow static game so the game needs to be played at pace. That would suit Warburton even more. I completely agree that the game plan is all wrong but a lot of that comes from having Parks at 10. The Blues need a 10 to take the ball up to the gainline and to be a threat. At the moment the opposition just shuffle across and wait for the ball to be passed to the backline who are so deep that it's nearly impossible to get any go forward. They say that they see Henson as a second distributor at 12 but there's no point in having a second distributor 20 yards behind the gainline. I think they have to give him a go at 10 to see if he can get the backline moving. It may end in abject failure but I can't see any other options because they can't carry on as they are.