Blues set to bring in Mark Ring for backs coach role?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/20272879

He's highly rated in Wales. About time he had an opportunity at this level. Shame he won't get much time to work with Roberts should he be arriving at some point during this season.

Good move?

Would be better if Mark Ring just played for the Blues.

Not sure if its the backs that are the problem, we've scored some good tries this season, its the defense and forwards that are letting us down at the moment.

I'd say most of those tries were mostly down to individual brilliance from Cuthbert, Halfpenny and on the rare occassion James, as opposed to what they've been taught. Who is the defence coach? I was under the impression Ring was in charge of defence when at Cross Keys. Their defence was good.

I'd have liked to have had him progress into a job with the Dragons if I'm honest. I wish him well.

BABER IS LEAVING!!! Partytime

wales606 wrote:BABER IS LEAVING!!! Partytime

Yeah a few Dragons fans are having nightmares that he'll be coming our way soon

Should b a good move for the blues and ring has a good rep- watever he cant b as bad as baber.

I reckon the blues will have a tough season but as long as they blood their youngsters and use the money saved from roberts on a top notch tight head then they could rise back up quickly. Roberts shouldnt be too much of a loss as he rarelly plays and doesnt play as well for the blues as he does for wales

Risca Rev wrote:

wales606 wrote:BABER IS LEAVING!!! Partytime

Yeah a few Dragons fans are having nightmares that he'll be coming our way soon

Yeah, he's worked with Dragons U18s in the past. He better get his ass to the premiership, he might look okay there, for a bit.

Mark Ring is a Cardiff legend.
Love it.

Lets hope the Dragons can get the Chief involved

This move says all I need to know about the Blues...

Scrum is a mess,

Lineout not much better,

Tight 5 getting beaten all over the park,

No quality at 9,

and leaking territory and tries up the middle,

so whats the natural order to correct these things? BACKS COACH???

the report says cardiff rfc though doesnt it? Will he act be involved with te blues?

bedfordwelsh wrote:Lets hope the Dragons can get the Chief involved

HANDS OFF!

thebluesmancometh wrote:This move says all I need to know about the Blues...

Scrum is a mess,

Lineout not much better,

Tight 5 getting beaten all over the park,

No quality at 9,

and leaking territory and tries up the middle,

so whats the natural order to correct these things? BACKS COACH???

Baber is by FAR the worst coach at the Blues and needs to go. Good move in my opinion, short of being able to bring in Graham Rowntree or Graham Henry I don't think our coaching is going to improve much except for replacing Baber.

wales606 wrote:

bedfordwelsh wrote:Lets hope the Dragons can get the Chief involved

HANDS OFF!

606,

You have been poaching from us for seasons now lol

GavinDragon wrote:the report says cardiff rfc though doesnt it? Will he act be involved with te blues?

http://www.cardiffrfc.com/Teams/Squad

bedfordwelsh wrote:

wales606 wrote:

bedfordwelsh wrote:Lets hope the Dragons can get the Chief involved

HANDS OFF!

606,

You have been poaching from us for seasons now lol

You gave us Tovey just as he tipped over the edge of promising to liability. Unless he picks up form a LOT, you owe us one....we will take Lydiate.

From the armsparkforum

Report in the Rugby Paper yesterday (page 18)

1. We are on course to break even for the first time since we became the Blues.
2. We offered JR £300,000 a year
3. Phil will be given about £500,000 per year for wages to strengthen squad.
4. Are starting to offer new deals to players who's contracts are up in 2014, Warb's 1/2p etc....
5. Have offered Cuthbert a deal that Hodges thinks he will take

All good news apart from the indication Phil Davies has a long-term future there.

Morgannwg wrote:All good news apart from the indication Phil Davies has a long-term future there.

I don't think Phil can be blamed for everything, he has hopeless coaches around him and no choice in players. His selection decisions have actually been pretty good - Navidi and Patchell for example.

Phil's paying the price for the frivellous spending on sub-par players from last season. Behind the scenes seem to be shaping up and taking the business side more seriously in the past and credit too them. I just hope this 500k isn't wasted and at least 3 quality players are to come in.

Still can't believe we offered Jamie Roberts 300k, utterly ridiculous considering the lack of time/performance for the blues which is a shame considering how he came on the scene. Don't blame him for leaving but keeping him on a wage like that would have been wasteful.

I think we need to get in a loose head as i believe Borrustt has done rather well at THP for us since he's joined. Add to that a second row and number 8, you could probably get all 3 and maybe a 4th player from the 500k. Would they be NWQ? More than likely but we need players who are with us all year round and can compete in the short term so that players coming through can learn from them and step up in the long term.

Blues have also signed one of the Romanian props on a 6 month contract, 21 year old Petru Tamba who is a Loose Head
/ramble

gcBlues wrote:Phil's paying the price for the frivellous spending on sub-par players from last season. Behind the scenes seem to be shaping up and taking the business side more seriously in the past and credit too them. I just hope this 500k isn't wasted and at least 3 quality players are to come in.

Still can't believe we offered Jamie Roberts 300k, utterly ridiculous considering the lack of time/performance for the blues which is a shame considering how he came on the scene. Don't blame him for leaving but keeping him on a wage like that would have been wasteful.

I think we need to get in a loose head as i believe Borrustt has done rather well at THP for us since he's joined. Add to that a second row and number 8, you could probably get all 3 and maybe a 4th player from the 500k. Would they be NWQ? More than likely but we need players who are with us all year round and can compete in the short term so that players coming through can learn from them and step up in the long term.

Blues have also signed one of the Romanian props on a 6 month contract, 21 year old Petru Tamba who is a Loose Head
/ramble

We need a scrum half more than anything at the moment - more so than we need decent frontrowers really.

Great Scrum Half or Crap Scrum Half, doesn't matter unless they get the ball and platform to work with.

gcBlues wrote:Great Scrum Half or Crap Scrum Half, doesn't matter unless they get the ball and platform to work with.

Perhaps, but we can't win a game even when we have a platform because Lloyd Williams and Lewis Jones are crap.

wales606 wrote:

gcBlues wrote:Phil's paying the price for the frivellous spending on sub-par players from last season. Behind the scenes seem to be shaping up and taking the business side more seriously in the past and credit too them. I just hope this 500k isn't wasted and at least 3 quality players are to come in.

Still can't believe we offered Jamie Roberts 300k, utterly ridiculous considering the lack of time/performance for the blues which is a shame considering how he came on the scene. Don't blame him for leaving but keeping him on a wage like that would have been wasteful.

I think we need to get in a loose head as i believe Borrustt has done rather well at THP for us since he's joined. Add to that a second row and number 8, you could probably get all 3 and maybe a 4th player from the 500k. Would they be NWQ? More than likely but we need players who are with us all year round and can compete in the short term so that players coming through can learn from them and step up in the long term.

Blues have also signed one of the Romanian props on a 6 month contract, 21 year old Petru Tamba who is a Loose Head
/ramble

We need a scrum half more than anything at the moment - more so than we need decent frontrowers really.

He's right about the scrum half. There's a few good ones from other Regions you could nick, but I'm just not sure whether the team would be appealing right now.

In response to GC's first point. That is possitive news. Phil is more suited to some rugby director role rather than coach, in my opinion.

That's a big wage for JR. I didn't think you could earn that much playing in Wales. If he did say and accept that I would assume the WRU would pay half or three quarters of it (a dual contract). You might need to offer that to Halfpenny and Cuthbert.

I don't think Trevett is too bad a LH but behind that you seem to be a bit light. All I know is you have Will-Griff on your books, big lad and looked good at U20 level, and a couple former Cardiff Uni players. Agree that Bourroust is a good TH. After his first impressive game Phil decided to bench him for some odd reason.

While i agree that we do need better options at scrum half, i feel that there are a fair few scrum halves in wales who can be given a chance. I think in the immediate, we need to look at bringing in some bulk and experience in to the pack, because aside from Filise, it's a relatively young 8. But i'm looking forward to the return of patterson, he's better as a 6 so i wonder how Navidi will fit in to this. Whether they shift Patterson to second row or, dare i say it, they bench Sam.

Seems Phil is doing some sort of rotation policy early doors so he can see what he has available, i would hope by now that he knows what his ideal starting squad of 22 would be. I'm intrigued as to how this Romanian prop comes along, from what i read he seems very highly regarded as a young prop who for his age is already at a good level.

We forget we have Sam Hobbs at LHP as well and i thought he was going to get a run at some point but hasn't, he's been good for us the last few seasons.

What's annoying is that we were starting to really come together as a team and then Patchell got injured and i think we suffered. We had a very young 10 who was willing to try things and was bringing in players and then he gets injured and we find ourselves where we are.

Morgannwg wrote:

wales606 wrote:

gcBlues wrote:Phil's paying the price for the frivellous spending on sub-par players from last season. Behind the scenes seem to be shaping up and taking the business side more seriously in the past and credit too them. I just hope this 500k isn't wasted and at least 3 quality players are to come in.

Still can't believe we offered Jamie Roberts 300k, utterly ridiculous considering the lack of time/performance for the blues which is a shame considering how he came on the scene. Don't blame him for leaving but keeping him on a wage like that would have been wasteful.

I think we need to get in a loose head as i believe Borrustt has done rather well at THP for us since he's joined. Add to that a second row and number 8, you could probably get all 3 and maybe a 4th player from the 500k. Would they be NWQ? More than likely but we need players who are with us all year round and can compete in the short term so that players coming through can learn from them and step up in the long term.

Blues have also signed one of the Romanian props on a 6 month contract, 21 year old Petru Tamba who is a Loose Head
/ramble

We need a scrum half more than anything at the moment - more so than we need decent frontrowers really.

He's right about the scrum half. There's a few good ones from other Regions you could nick, but I'm just not sure whether the team would be appealing right now.

In response to GC's first point. That is possitive news. Phil is more suited to some rugby director role rather than coach, in my opinion.

That's a big wage for JR. I didn't think you could earn that much playing in Wales. If he did say and accept that I would assume the WRU would pay half or three quarters of it (a dual contract). You might need to offer that to Halfpenny and Cuthbert.

I don't think Trevett is too bad a LH but behind that you seem to be a bit light. All I know is you have Will-Griff on your books, big lad and looked good at U20 level, and a couple former Cardiff Uni players. Agree that Bourroust is a good TH. After his first impressive game Phil decided to bench him for some odd reason.

Griff John is a LH, as is the Cardiff Uni captain.

Sam Hobbs is the best LH at the Blues, but he has missed the start of the season through injury - he was on the bench against Wasps though I think.

Does this now confirm Cardiff RFC and the Blues are one of the same as Ring is RFC backs coach and also Blues backs coach has he pulled a fast one and got two jobs.

wales606 wrote:From the armsparkforum

Report in the Rugby Paper yesterday (page 18)

1. We are on course to break even for the first time since we became the Blues.
2. We offered JR £300,000 a year
3. Phil will be given about £500,000 per year for wages to strengthen squad.
4. Are starting to offer new deals to players who's contracts are up in 2014, Warb's 1/2p etc....
5. Have offered Cuthbert a deal that Hodges thinks he will take

Considering all of the doom and gloom around plus where we seemed to be going this time last season ie nowhere very fast indeed, this is fantastic and unexpected news (Thank you Lord for The Arms Park). Not so sure offering Jaw 300k was a good idea mind you. 1/2p possibly as he's a damn fine kicker as well as a very good FB, so it might be worth breaking the bank to hang on to him even though he'll only be available some of the time.
Also Warbs, 1/2p, Cuthbert, Brad?; I believe that their contracts are up this season too. We'll find out soon enough whether we can keep these, but in my opinion what's really needed desperately is a replacement for Xavier Rush. A leader of men in other words coz I don't believe Pretorious is up to it. Nor is Warbs and neither was Martyn Williams, our best openside ever. All are good or great players, but leading from the front is another thing altogether.
A no nonsense O'Connell or Martin Johnson type figure should do the trick
Over to you Phil.
Go ahead and scour the world.

gcBlues wrote:Great Scrum Half or Crap Scrum Half, doesn't matter unless they get the ball and platform to work with.

Bang on.
Forwards win games not scrum halfs.

Well you have two crap scrum-halfs getting kicks charged down and putting your poor platform-makers under pressure in their own half it puts things into perspective. Forwards are key, as are 9 & 10.

Dave, how about Copeland? I seen a lot of leadership abilities in him in has last few outings; he always seems to give 100% and actually looks as if he is fighting to get into the starting XV. Pretorious looks very, very poor this season. He looked quite the opposite when he first signed.

wales606 wrote:

We need a scrum half more than anything at the moment - more so than we need decent frontrowers really.

Oh come on 606. That's nonsense and you must know it.

27 October 2012
Leinster 59 - 22 Cardiff Blues
40-3 at half time (how embarrassing is that? Game over basically)

What scrum half of your choice would have made a difference in this game and this was our best available Cardiff Blues XV?

Morgannwg wrote:Well you have two crap scrum-halfs getting kicks charged down and putting your poor platform-makers under pressure in their own half it puts things into perspective. Forwards are key, as are 9 & 10.

Dave, how about Copeland? I seen a lot of leadership abilities in him in has last few outings; he always seems to give 100% and actually looks as if he is fighting to get into the starting XV. Pretorious looks very, very poor this season. He looked quite the opposite when he first signed.

Giving 100% does not necessarily a leader make. Martyn Williams gave 100%, but he never seemed that comfortable being captain and Pretorious seemed better last season when he wasn't captain. Warbs I don't think should be a captain, yet, and Copeland has no pedigree. He may look eager and gives it everything, but he's not a proven leader.
A partial vacuum was left at Cardiff Blues last season with Tito and Rush and all the others leaving the fold. They need a new face and a big one, but this season is all about hanging on in there and I reckon the way things are going Cardiff Blues are doing alright.

glamorganalun wrote:Does this now confirm Cardiff RFC and the Blues are one of the same as Ring is RFC backs coach and also Blues backs coach has he pulled a fast one and got two jobs.

Shock, horror, probe.
Main story on Newsnight apparently.

Doing alright???

Deluded, the lot of you, we are one step from extinction!!!

The Blues don't need NWQ players, they need to offload some they have and focus on the boys who are willing to live and die for the club.

Andrews, Dacey, Hobbs, Davies, Navidi, Pretorious, Tovey, Patchell, Allen, James, Hewitt, Fish etc... build a team around these guys, we will get a tonking this season but we're getting tonkings now anyway with the likes of Borrust, Kryciou etc.

The biggest annoyance for me is offering the likes of Roberts, Warburton huge contracts and see them half a dozen times per season to get match fit for Wales, at least Cuthbert, 1/2p and Davies play regularly and look like they give a crap!

Mark Ring isn't a bad signing (ish) but as Dave said we will still be 40 points down by half time with the best backs coach's in the world at the club!!

I agree that the Blue should focus on building from within.

The Blues Academy gave the Leicester Tigers academy a tonking the other day and I think they should be looking to bring the youngsters through as early as possible. Yes it will be rough for a season or two but they will emerge a much stronger club after that. There is no need to sign any overseas players. The Blues have plenty of them and they are mostly rubbish.

thebluesmancometh wrote:Doing alright???

Deluded, the lot of you, we are one step from extinction!!!

No we are not.
As long as rugy will be played, Cardiff will be invloved in some shape or form regardless.
What are you on about?

doctornickolas wrote:I agree that the Blue should focus on building from within.

The Blues Academy gave the Leicester Tigers academy a tonking the other day and I think they should be looking to bring the youngsters through as early as possible. Yes it will be rough for a season or two but they will emerge a much stronger club after that. There is no need to sign any overseas players. The Blues have plenty of them and they are mostly rubbish.

Agreed and i'm enormously happy with that.

glamorganalun wrote:Does this now confirm Cardiff RFC and the Blues are one of the same as Ring is RFC backs coach and also Blues backs coach has he pulled a fast one and got two jobs.

Ring isn't the Blues backs coach. He is the CRFC backs coach, Baber's contract runs until the end of the season - at which point it is expected that Ring will take over

Cardiff Dave wrote:

wales606 wrote:

We need a scrum half more than anything at the moment - more so than we need decent frontrowers really.

Oh come on 606. That's nonsense and you must know it.

27 October 2012
Leinster 59 - 22 Cardiff Blues
40-3 at half time (how embarrassing is that? Game over basically)

What scrum half of your choice would have made a difference in this game and this was our best available Cardiff Blues XV?

I didn't say that the ONLY thing we needed was a SH and a SH was the only thing separating us from Leinster.

What I said was that SH is clearly our weakest position on the field and we could well have won some of the close games this season with Ritchie Rees at 9.

If I could choose anyone to bring in however, it would be Shaun Edwards for obvious reasons. The scoreline would have been a lot closer if the players had Edwards shouting at them all week.

wales606 wrote:

glamorganalun wrote:Does this now confirm Cardiff RFC and the Blues are one of the same as Ring is RFC backs coach and also Blues backs coach has he pulled a fast one and got two jobs.

Ring isn't the Blues backs coach. He is the CRFC backs coach, Baber's contract runs until the end of the season - at which point it is expected that Ring will take over

Mark Ring will be coaching Cardiff Blues players. End of.

wales606 wrote:

Cardiff Dave wrote:

wales606 wrote:

We need a scrum half more than anything at the moment - more so than we need decent frontrowers really.

Oh come on 606. That's nonsense and you must know it.

27 October 2012
Leinster 59 - 22 Cardiff Blues
40-3 at half time (how embarrassing is that? Game over basically)

What scrum half of your choice would have made a difference in this game and this was our best available Cardiff Blues XV?

I didn't say that the ONLY thing we needed was a SH and a SH was the only thing separating us from Leinster.

What I said was that SH is clearly our weakest position on the field and we could well have won some of the close games this season with Ritchie Rees at 9.

If I could choose anyone to bring in however, it would be Shaun Edwards for obvious reasons. The scoreline would have been a lot closer if the players had Edwards shouting at them all week.

The SH position isn't and has never been our weakest position. Ever. I agree with you, we have lesser no 9s across the board, but they are not the weakest link in the current set up. The forwards are.

wales606 wrote:

Cardiff Dave wrote:

wales606 wrote:

We need a scrum half more than anything at the moment - more so than we need decent frontrowers really.

Oh come on 606. That's nonsense and you must know it.

27 October 2012
Leinster 59 - 22 Cardiff Blues
40-3 at half time (how embarrassing is that? Game over basically)

What scrum half of your choice would have made a difference in this game and this was our best available Cardiff Blues XV?

What I said was that SH is clearly our weakest position on the field and we could well have won some of the close games this season with Ritchie Rees at 9.

Totaly agree. Why Baber let him go was an absolute ridiculous decision.
He would have been available all season, and had lots of experience with such a young side.
For that decision alone, Baber should be sacked at end of the season when his contract finishes !

Risca Rev wrote:

wales606 wrote:BABER IS LEAVING!!! Partytime

Yeah a few Dragons fans are having nightmares that he'll be coming our way soon

LOL!
Dont blame them.

Why wait to the end of season, if they can't get shot of him, get Baber to clean the bogs if he is a S**t coach and get Ring into the job ASAP.

The backs are the least of the Blues problems at the minute though...

If the scrum is constantly wheeling backwards, the pack falling off tackles and committing the worst crimes to rugby then a backline will just be making scores look slightly more respectable as they are doing now! Well at least Cuthbert and James are doing now anyway!

Little point, anyone think James was going to get a call up?

No it was just you who thought Tom James was going to get a call up.

The forwards are a problem. But the backline has been cr*p for 2 years now, Baber is by far the worst coach - even though our back are better than our forwards.

Imagine how many tries the Blues would have score if Cuthbert wasn't there.

Morgannwg wrote:No it was just you who thought Tom James was going to get a call up.

James is playing well, but is not liked by the Welsh coaches and is rightfully behind Liam Williams.