Gatland for Lions coach 2017

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Well Gatland went down under and brought home the goods, for the first time in 16 years. That is one great achievement for him and an equally great group of players from 4 Nations. He will be coaching Wales up until 2019, meaning he will be ready and available to step in and deliver once more in 2017. In my mind the greatest coaches in the NH are Kiwi so the single, logical choice for head coach is Warren Gatland, otherwise known as the Great Gats. Fact of the matter is Gats instrumented the first Lions series win in 16 years which boosts an already good CV on his part and would have been coaching in the NH by then for 15+ years giving him a great wealth of experience.

It ain't rocket science like, Great Gats will be the Lions head coach for the 2017 tour to his home land.

Can we suggest other suitable candidtates other than Emporer gats without any accusations of anti-Welshness Saint?    lol. A long long way to go before the next Lions head cheese is selected.

Well he won't have to do that till March, will he. It usually doesn't hurt us in the Six Nations.

I'd say Howley is the attack guru anyway.

I'd quite like Conor O'Shea if we're just making a wish list. His has Quins playing good rugby but lack a bit up front. I'd think with the players he would have available we'd get some good rugby and personally I think the most we can hope for is that.

I think outside the international coaching arena the top candidates would be:

1. Dean Richards - former Lion and international legend, understands the Lions concept fully and has an excellent coaching record in England. Against him would be "Bloodgate", and he certainly isn't an establishment man (for better or for worse).

2. Ian McGeechan - former Lion and international legend, understands the Lions concept fully and has strong (albeit not unblemished) coaching record. Against him would be the fact that he's been out of the game for a while and may be seen as slightly outdated. I also don't think he'd take the role.

3. Jim Mallinder - an outsider with next to no international experience (as a coach or a player) with zero Lions experience. Whilst his Northampton side may be good, and have consistently been so for a while, I don't think his claim is any stronger than O'Shea or Cockerill.

My neutral choice would be Dean Richards. I dont care about bloodgate, thats histrory. He is too good a manager and rugby man to dwell on that and people should be given second chances etc.

I dont mind national coaches being involved in the coaching team such as Farrell the last time round.

Head coach: Dean Richards
Backs: Joe Schmidt
Forwards: Graham Rountree
Defense: Edwards

That would be a fairly special coaching ticket.

Would Schmidt go along as second fiddle to Dean Richards? I suspect if Ireland go well over the next few years that would be a potential issue. No question in my mind though that Schmidt knows a thing or two about coaching backs.

funnyExiledScot wrote:Would Schmidt go along as second fiddle to Dean Richards? I suspect if Ireland go well over the next few years that would be a potential issue. No question in my mind though that Schmidt knows a thing or two about coaching backs.

hard to know but he might. He is a great head coach in my opinion but reading between the lines in Schmidt's interviews I always get the feeling he is most comfortable purely with coaching rather than being the guy overseeing everything. His strength is very much in his innovative coaching. He is a genius at getting his teams playing very fluid rugby in unison as a team. If he is given free reign to put his stamp on the backs I'd say he would be happy to do so. Richards being a forward would probably be happy enough with this arangement too.

Risca Rev wrote:

Scrumpy wrote:

bedfordwelsh wrote:

Thats debatable also, Wales for me won the 6 Nations despite of Howley not cos of him.

What has a guy got to do to win over the Warrenball lovers?

Howley did a good job considering even his own countrymen wanted him to fail!

No wonder the welsh game is in turmoil.

What has a living legend got to do to win over the Warrenball haters?

Win the first Lions series for 16 years, and in style i:e playing warrenball (scoring lots of tries).

Breadvan wrote:Can we suggest other suitable candidtates other than Emporer gats without any accusations of anti-Welshness Saint?    lol. A long long way to go before the next Lions head cheese is selected.

Of course. You'd think living legend Gats might actually get some long overdue credit for his achievements though. He doesn't. He isn't even allowed to say the accusations and slanderous abuse upset him otherwise he'll get criticised even further.

GunsGerms wrote:My neutral choice would be Dean Richards. I dont care about bloodgate, thats histrory. He is too good a manager and rugby man to dwell on that and people should be given second chances etc.

I dont mind national coaches being involved in the coaching team such as Farrell the last time round.

Head coach: Sir Warren Gatland
Backs: Sir Warren Gatland
Forwards: Sir Warren Gatland
Defense: Edwards

That would be a fairly special coaching ticket.

There, I fixed that for you.