Rate your national coach as it stands NOW. (6Ns)

Do what it says on the tin.

Twelve months ago many posters had different views regarding their national manager/coach than are currently popular.

Rate your current your opinion.

And next year the results a repeat poll outcome can be compared.

Poll closes before SH Rugby Championship

I'm a Scot and I'm very concerned about Robinson.

A successful summer tour does nothing to help me forget about a dismal 6N and even worse RWC.

Should we fail to win our home games in the 6N or be drubbed in a similar way to Ireland by NZ or fail to give the Springboks a tough test Robinson has overstayed his welcome.

I suspect that many people will desist from eulogising/damning their coaches as the future remains unknown.

Wales: I am primarily a Scotttsh Fan - I'm concerned about Gatland

I am a Scottish fan, but I couldn't give a natt's chuff about Warren Gatland

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:I'm a Scot and I'm very concerned about Robinson.

A successful summer tour does nothing to help me forget about a dismal 6N and even worse RWC.

Should we fail to win our home games in the 6N or be drubbed in a similar way to Ireland by NZ or fail to give the Springboks a tough test Robinson has overstayed his welcome.

Radge - I told you I would remind you if you make a comment like this. "A successful summer tour does nothing to help me forget about a dismal 6N and even worse RWC". Well, when the irish fans criticised what Kidney was doing with the Ireland team, you brought up Kidney's success with Munster and his grand slam win. Well in the same fashion, his (irrelevant in this case) success with Munster and his one great moment of helping Ireland win a grand slam, does not take away from the terrible performances that this irish team has been producing over the past few seasons. Yes, sometimes we put in a very good performance (England 2011, Australia 2011) however we are far too inconsistent and a large part of that falls down to the coach.

The coach does actually play a large role in the team performances, and you disagreed with this statement when you were defending Kidney. Yet now you must put some blame on the coach and the results that the team produces, after saying that. I agree with you too, Robinson has made some bizarre decisions with this Scotland team, nor is he getting the best out of them, but this is exactly the same situation with Kidney. You need to show some consistency if you want to criticise the irish for our comments on Kidney, and then say this sort of thing about Robinson. It comes across as very hypocritical.

I think Declan is a fine man, don't want him near our team though.

Rory_Gallagher wrote:

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:I'm a Scot and I'm very concerned about Robinson.

A successful summer tour does nothing to help me forget about a dismal 6N and even worse RWC.

Should we fail to win our home games in the 6N or be drubbed in a similar way to Ireland by NZ or fail to give the Springboks a tough test Robinson has overstayed his welcome.

Radge - I told you I would remind you if you make a comment like this. "A successful summer tour does nothing to help me forget about a dismal 6N and even worse RWC". Well, when the irish fans criticised what Kidney was doing with the Ireland team, you brought up Kidney's success with Munster and his grand slam win. Well in the same fashion, his (irrelevant in this case) success with Munster and his one great moment of helping Ireland win a grand slam, does not take away from the terrible performances that this irish team has been producing over the past few seasons. Yes, sometimes we put in a very good performance (England 2011, Australia 2011) however we are far too inconsistent and a large part of that falls down to the coach.

The coach does actually play a large role in the team performances, and you disagreed with this statement when you were defending Kidney. Yet now you must put some blame on the coach and the results that the team produces, after saying that. I agree with you too, Robinson has made some bizarre decisions with this Scotland team, nor is he getting the best out of them, but this is exactly the same situation with Kidney. You need to show some consistency if you want to criticise the irish for our comments on Kidney, and then say this sort of thing about Robinson. It comes across as very hypocritical.

I don't want to go digging up this discussion again, my comments on Kidney related to the fact that when Ireland got humped by the All Blacks your team missed more than 30 tackles. You can't win test match rugby making that ammount of Mistakes.

My Reasons for being concerned with Robinson are completely differant from yours for wanting rid of Kidney. Robinson has made numerous errors in team selection. Most notably begging Dan Parks out of retirement to play against England instead of picking Laidlaw who was the form player, who had helped steer Edinburgh into the knockout stages of the HC for only the 2nd time in the clubs history.

He was too conservative and picked Parks for no reason. He then had the brass neck to talk to the press (before the match) that Parks had a varied game plan that could cause defences problems with the ball in hand. He took the Scottish fans for absolute mugs.

Contrast that with Ireland who IMO had an off day when New Zealand gubbed you guys. As I said Ireland picked the wrong day to have a bad day. Ireland weren't good and NZ fancied running riot. Combine the The 2 factors and it spelt disaster for Ireland. Just a week before we were all recounting how desperatly unlucky you were not to come away with at least a draw. The disparity in performance between the 2 games can't be the coaches responsibility IMO and certainly missing that ammount of tackles has nothing to do with him (the coach). These guys are experienced and seasoned pro's, they know how to defend their channels and close out test matches. Leinster, Ulster and Munster wouldn't be so successful if their players missed 30 tackles per match.

If Scotland missed that ammount of tackles in a game I couldn't blame the coach for the result if we got thumped. I could and did blame the coaching for our ability to gather restarts. That facet of play cost us dearly in the RWC and the 6N.

I should also add I hugely respect your opinion Rory but calling me hypocritical is tad harsh. Especialy when I do my best to justify my comments and try and show you where I see the differance between your comments in wanting rid of Kidney and mine in wanting rid of Robinson.

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:If Scotland missed that ammount of tackles in a game I couldn't blame the coach for the result if we got thumped. I could and did blame the coaching for our ability to gather restarts. That facet of play cost us dearly in the RWC and the 6N.

We really could take a leaf out of the SH as far as restarts go - watching some of the recent S15 rugby, and their restart drills are immaculate

I'm reasonably satisfied with Lancaster. We have made progress and he is still learning as a manager, but we should have won a game in SA and there are a few selection issues in the second row and especially the bench. I also dislike that Clark has been brought back into the overall squad.

AsLongAsBut100ofUs wrote:

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:If Scotland missed that ammount of tackles in a game I couldn't blame the coach for the result if we got thumped. I could and did blame the coaching for our ability to gather restarts. That facet of play cost us dearly in the RWC and the 6N.

We really could take a leaf out of the SH as far as restarts go - watching some of the recent S15 rugby, and their restart drills are immaculate

We lost 2 of the most critical games in the RWC thanks to not collecting restarts, and to make matters worse we lost more in the 6N.

I also think we lost a couple against Fiji. Worrying that this hasn't been adressed yet.

Fair enough, I respect your opinion too of course, however I just think our reasons for not being happy with our coaches are more similar than you think.

Kidney has also been very conservative in his selections and basically the Parks/Laidlaw battle mirrors many other instances where Kidney has went with the "safe" option. D'Arcy for example has been around for far too long. DOC took ages to be displaced by Ryan, when really it could have happened a season or two before. Ryan only established himself during the 6N. He is 28 years old. We don't even have good back ups to certain positions because Kidney hasn't looked that far into the future, so we are pretty snookered as a result.

Also, why do you criticise the coach for the players not gathering restarts, but you don't criticise him for defensive issues? It isn't simply missing tackles (though in that NZ game there really was far too many) but our whole defensive organisation, which was usually very good, just completely shut down. We had even contained SBW until that final test. So again, tactics do come into play here.

Kidney has not been a good coach since negative rugby was branded near useless back in 2010. His tactics and approach have been appallingly founded and executed and while he was once a good motivator I don't believe he is good at this either now.

The man has been in the job 2 years too long

I think Kidney seems like a really decent guy and a loyal friend, but he is just not an international level coach.

I don't know if he is up to it at international level but he would certainly be able to do a job at a lower level Roar.

Happy with Gatland but if he gets Lions job how much will we see of him and I am no overly happy with Howley

Yeah I was meant to say international level, rather than professional. Editing it now.

I'm entirely satified with Gats (apart from him having the cheek to break his heels!). There were many points in the 2009 and 2010 seasons where I seriously questioned whether he should be in charge with him ignoring youth and consistently chooing out of form players.

But we now seem to be playing our exciting youth, senior players have rediscovered their form and gats seems to be selecting on form and making good use of our physicality.

I'm happy to see what he can do up til the next WC, but I do expect to see a drop off in the 2014 6Ns after the Lions tour, like what happened in 2009

I am a New Zealand fan, I'm entirely satisfied with Steve Hansen but I wont be the moment he loses a test.

ChequeredJersey wrote:I'm reasonably satisfied with Lancaster. We have made progress and he is still learning as a manager, but we should have won a game in SA and there are a few selection issues in the second row and especially the bench. I also dislike that Clark has been brought back into the overall squad.

I'm an England fan and I have a few worries. This feels like some kind of crisis group...

I'm concerned that at the moment Lancaster is a very lucky spin merchant who's managed to say all of the right things to the press while reminding them how horrible Jonno was and then been massively lucky to do well in the 6N's.

The summer tour was pretty depressing and some of the selection decions were odd. His use of the bench and impact players is pretty much rubbish and he seems to love average Saracens players a bit too much (maybe being steered by Farrell snr?).

All in all i'd hoped that after chancing our arms with relatively untried coaches these last few times we'd go for some experience in the set up especially with top men headhunting them, what we got was an ex Leeds coach who spent a few season with the Saxons to mixed success getting given the wheel and now apparetly picking his own noob coaching team to help him out. Brilliant.

I do feel better after that!

Gatland has a lot to prove but he has put in some great ground work, RWC exceeded our prior expectations and everyone else's.

Backed that up with a second GS as coach.

Looking forward to the new season. But the fans all demand a wins over the touring SH touring sides in Cardiff this Autumn.

He has raised expectation, expectation has raised the bar...!

maestegmafia wrote:Gatland has a lot to prove but he has put in some great ground work, RWC exceeded our prior expectations and everyone else's.

Backed that up with a second GS as coach.

Looking forward to the new season. But the fans all demand a wins over the touring SH touring sides in Cardiff this Autumn.

He has raised expectation, expectation has raised the bar...!

I agree maes but isn't it funny that even after 2 Slams Gatland is still very much on the blocks with so much to prove and also n a situation where he is now under real pressure to produce the results he talks about and which we now are in the tank. I think RWC surprisied everyone and that most fans had no expectations beyond getting out of the group which was no shoo in.

This pressure is largely self induced, a result of the feast or famine nature of Welsh inconsistency in the 6 Nations and our failure this spring.That and talking ourselves up. I wonde what might have been had Gatts been in charge down under but the players looked so tired that i think we were shafted. Do you recall, was Gatts supposed to be managing the tour until he fell of his high heels?

What we need to do is to dominate the NH 2 seasons in a row and start putting Aus and SA away.It is so bl00dy doable we just need to get on with it.

aucklandlaurie wrote:
I am a New Zealand fan, I'm entirely satisfied with Steve Hansen but I wont be the moment he loses a test.

GH lost 15 tests Laurie...but we still like him ay?

So Hansens got 15 to go?

Taylorman
I cannot believe that Hansen would ever survive 15 losses. If I remeber rightly Henry only survived by the skin of his teeth at the end of 2007.
In fact he would have to come up with a pretty good excuse if the ABs lost to anyone lower ranked than Australia and South Africa.

aucklandlaurie wrote:
Taylorman
I cannot believe that Hansen would ever survive 15 losses. If I remeber rightly Henry only survived by the skin of his teeth at the end of 2007.
In fact he would have to come up with a pretty good excuse if the ABs lost to anyone lower ranked than Australia and South Africa.

Gosh the Deans and Henry fiasco split the country in two and I for one can proudly admit to being FIRMLY in the GH camp. (Being a Jafa helps mind!)

Me to, GH all the way, and not even a jafa.

I too am a little concerned with Lancaster's current performance. The attack game plan has gone back at an alarming rate of knots and is know back in the Andy Robinson era with Lancaster's reluctance to combine Flood and Youngs with a backline playing in their natural positions. The 6N preference to defend, kick, defend was depressing and we were exceptionally lucky to get away with it.

On the upside the defence has improved and the scrum that Johnno and Rowntree worked so hard to upgrade is still there even if Lancaster seems to be making a mess of our lineout.

In short I see no movement forwards since Lancaster took over. This is concerning, especially, when the RFU had three very good candidates in Mallinder, Cockerill and O'Shea to choose from within the AP. Mallinder and O'Shea have previously worked with the RFU and Cockers is the AP's most successful coach currently and has experience from working in France as well as being an England international.

Taylorman it has nothing to do with where the coach is from, at least it should not have anything to do with that. GH was the coach and Deans went off to Australia. Well you get behind the man who is NZ coach. No point in throwing all your toys out of the cot because your man didn't get the job (which obviously has a lot to do with regional pride for some).

To be honest, I was glad when Henry was reappointed. Too often the NZRFU sacked a coach without giving him an opportunity to learn from his mistake. Continuity is a good thing.

Anyway I should point out there is a thread for the SH coaches and this is the 6N. So to balance things out, SL's honeymoon period is well and truly over now. If he doesn't get at least 2 wins out of the 4 tough matches (Fiji first up is a given but it is the cumulative effect of playing 4 tests in a row with the SH powerhouse 3 at the end), the knives will be out and that may have a negative effect in the 6N because when your job is on the line you tend to become conservative and don't improve your attack.

AR is hanging on to his job by the skin of his teeth but at least had a positive tour down south. It will count for nothing though if he gets poor results in the autumn and if Scotland get another poor 6N result, he's gone in my opinion. I hope though he can turn things round results wise.

Kidney is another whose job is in peril. He needs to find a solution to the centres and he needs better tactics to get the best out the players at his disposal. A win against SA buys him time but a poor 6N and his head is on the block. Enough slack has been given.

Gatland is in the curious position of getting the results up north but still finds himself with plenty of detractors. If results don't go his way, it'll get even uglier.

So really add in France and no coach up north is feeling comfortable at the moment. There is pressure to perform. And I can't help but think that pressure for results is making their jobs even tougher. I think more leniency would be shown if the coaches lost but went out with a clear attacking gameplan. Then again, it's all too easy to say then that the tactics were wrong and the team played too loose. Who'd be a coach?! It's up there with referee for thankless jobs.

If Hansen loses 15 tests in 8 years that's ok for me. As long as there are no WC losses!

I was in the GH camp too. All that over one game. Despite it being bloody important-it was just one of those games where everything went wrong. I heard a few NH commentators (after all the schadenfreude had died down) call it a freak loss. Kinda what it was-and I'm glad he got to build on the good work he did in 05 and 06 as well as atone for that one game.

disneychilly wrote:If Hansen loses 15 tests in 8 years that's ok for me. As long as there are no WC losses!

I was in the GH camp too. All that over one game. Despite it being bloody important-it was just one of those games where everything went wrong. I heard a few NH commentators (after all the schadenfreude had died down) call it a freak loss. Kinda what it was-and I'm glad he got to build on the good work he did in 05 and 06 as well as atone for that one game.

greedy bugger ain't ya?

Half of those losses will be against SA, anyway.

During Henry's tenure.

Vs SA

12 wins
8 losses

Vs OZ
19 wins
5 losses

vs FRA
8 wins
2 losses

60% wins against SA is par for the course-think it's 50% overall. Take out one of those French losses and add another win to the SA column-that's what I'd have liked...

Ah, the South African loss added being the RWC07 final, right?

I voted for I'm concerned about Gatland

I can't argue with the sucess Gats has had, two grand slams and a RWC semi is pretty good. However I struggle with the selection policies, the 'honesty' in the camp when it comes to pinning the blame on a single player, and a few other things.

Before the RWC we looked like a team that were stagnet, and we looked IMO like we were going to stick with the same players and tactics come rain or shine. Players who were performing well, like Jon Davies, were being overlooked for James Hook. Then before the RWC we were forced into making some adjustments in personnel due to injuries etc, and we looked a better side. I wonder if those chances would have come if they were not forced.

I think pre-WC Gats had (finally) started to blood some youngsters/form players like Lydiate, Warbs & JD2 (to a certain extent) but it was very close to being too little too late.

It was only because Priestland came in (because of injury) and took to int rugby like a duck to water, JD2 formed a great partnership with Roberts, Phillips rediscovered his enthusiasm and form, and T Faletau was a revelation after being given his chance with so little exp.

it was also lucky Halfpenny played so well at FB.

But I think rather than the fault being with Gats (at least solely) we have a big problem in this Wales team in that when Phillips has played well and top of his form we've won (2008 GS, WC 2011, 2012 GS) and had exciting back play and strike runners, but when he's off form (2009/20011, Summer tour 2012) we've suddenly looked laboured, predictable, cumbersome and bereft of ideas.
This was made worse in Oz by the fact our 10 was injured and out of form/confidence and meant as well as this he was getting slow ball.

We really need to learn to play without Phillips and change our gameplan, so when he's off form we can change the style of attack with fast ball and sniping runs and still break down defences, but when he's on form we can suddenly change it up and let him give the defence some serious problems.

Lancaster:

Pro's:
Defence improved
Scrum still pretty strong
Breakdown has improved vastly

Con's:
Lack of apparent direction
No attacking threat
Continued Selection issues from previous regime

I also think that the close scores in SA were misleading as had Morne Steyn hit his kicks...SA would have been out of sight in the first two tests.

Geordie i'd say that while our defence was imdominatable in the 6N's it was lacking on the summer tour, there was little cohesion between players and SA punched wholes at will in the Tests and mid week games. SL was defence coach on tour and he has take the blame for it. In that regards i'm pleased Farrell is back on board.

Agree with the rest though mate.

Sam, it would have been interesting to see how Cockers went if he had got the England role. As you say he's the most successfull of those three options and he is surprisingly innovative. Unlike the others he also has a lot more experience of managing a large squad and rotating players to get the best from them (bar Twelvetrees). Maybe he'll get a Saxons gig?

Kidney:

Pros:

You get a feeling that you're watching Father Ted every time he's being interviewed which is always a pro.

Cons:
He isn't and never has been up to scratch as an international coach. He did not bring us the grand slam as it was not possible for him to have made his mark on the side in such a short time. He's had the time now and we can all see the mark he has made, a continuous downward spiral that doesn't look like ending until he has the common decency to resign.

Thin you're being harsh on Deccie on the GS, but yeah he needs to go.

AsLongAsBut100ofUs wrote:

Wales: I am primarily a Scotttsh Fan - I'm concerned about Gatland

I am a Scottish fan, but I couldn't give a natt's chuff about Warren Gatland

This option just get pick by Shingler.

ChequeredJersey wrote:Ah, the South African loss added being the RWC07 final, right?

Got it in one CJ! Mainly because I would have been at the Stade de France and had tickets to the official afterparty due to a mate working in the NZRU due to come over for the semis and final. He actually cancelled his trip and didn't leave NZ LOL.

That's not to say we'd have beaten SA. I'm 100% sure we'd have won the semi but that final would have been a hell of a game and I'm sure I'd have been having a nervous breakdown like October last year.

Kidney's time was up in 2010 when the IRB introduced new laws that are explicity designed to stamp out the type of game Kidney has always played. The way we played in 2009 is just not good enough to regularly beat good teams any more. It's not a style that suits our small mobile players anyway.

And Kidneys brief attempts to play a more attacking brand of rugby were disastrous. Which isn't surprising. He's never coached a team to play that way. And his supposed strong point, motivation, can't be considered a plus any more. The morale of the Irish team is awful. They play well sometimes. But collapsing to huge defeats is becoming a regular occurrence. That's a morale problem. The players aren't happy. He's simply not the right man for the job.

Kidney hasn't always played like this. Munster's way of playing was far superior and better than the dross we churn out. To say Kidney and Munster play like that is a bit of a joke.

I agree. Kidney isn't doing well now but there is a lot of exaggeration, belittling his excellent past achivements and what I think are a few cheap digs coming in these days.

Who do you Irish fans think are the candidates/possibles to take over from Kidney?

Do you think Schmidt would manage Ireland after next season? Particularly if he wins the HEC again.

I don't think anyone has belittled what Kidney has achieved in the past with Ireland and Munster?

However the current Irish side has been on a downward trend for 3 seasons and although that is not all down to Kidney, it's time for a change and the sooner the better.

Kidney has taken a lot of unfair stick of Irish fans for the recent drubbing by the ABs and there are issues that need adressed across all levels of Irish rugby if we are to continue to be competitive at world level....

but the fact is Kidneys win:loss ratio over the past 3 years is unacceptable and no serious International team would or should accept the current standard of play and run of results.

Schmidt probably won't take over I'd say. I wonder how god is he, he has an incredibly talented group of players, he is a pretty good coach but does he look better due to his players? I don't think so but we'll see when he leaves Leinster.


I would like Conor O'Shea he has done a great job with Quins but he doesn't seem to have many friends at the IRFU. After that Jake White seems to be one of the few free rugby coaches who would be decent but I think he would emply astyle similar to Deccie which doesn't suit us. So in short I haven't a clue!


Rodders, it'c reeping in a bit and some people saying it's a style Kidney has always palyed when he hasn't. He has by and large played a forward oriented style (although we could mix with our backs and our offloading was insane) but it is nothing like Ireland's style.

Would you accept Ruddock?

Yeah, he is doing a good job with the U20s, they play a nice style and everythign. Kinda forgot about him actually, I think he will replace Deccie when the time comes.