Coaching axe falls with soccer-like frequency
You have to wonder whether rugby is starting to copy football in another way. Here we are, still early in the season, and there have already been a couple of high-profile coaching casualties.
Leicester parted company with their defence coach, Scott Hansen, then Northampton and Alex King went separate ways.
Leicester had the decency to afford Hansen a club Press release but Northampton tagged it on at the end of their team announcement, which seems pretty shabby!
When you think of King’s impact with Clermont, and the upbeat tone of the announcement of his arrival in 2013, surely the question will be asked about whether the problem was with him?
King is widely regarded as one of the sharpest coaching brains around, and it beggars belief that Northampton have failed to find the right use for his talents. Paul Grayson, and now King, haven’t managed to work their magic to Northampton’s satisfaction, so surely rugby director Jim Mallinder, and sidekick Dorian West must be under scrutiny?
The timing of the moves will also divide opinion. Some will praise the Tigers and Saints for decisiveness but others might ask how the clubs could have gone through a long pre-season without spotting an issue that just six rounds into the campaign has become so critical?
Might that not say as much about the top management in those clubs, and their judgment, as it does about the departing coaches?
Latest results from the RFU make very good reading, although when you plough through the report, the over-riding feeling is that the rugby comes a poor second to the back-slapping and celebration of the numbers!
What the results show is that you can run a hugely successful World Cup without having a team that’s properly competitive.
In fact, the performance of the England team barely features in the report, bar recording the “deep disappointment at England’s early exit from the tournament”.
Then, reminiscent of the Soviets airbrushing out a Politburo member, it swiftly moves on to praise Eddie Jones, and laud the Six Nations Grand Slam. It’s as if RFU executives want to distance themselves from any involvement in the Lancaster era.
If that sounds harsh then let’s swiftly say that the financial results are startlingly good: record turnover, and profits up 37 per cent, exceeding £100m for the first time, with healthy increases in playing numbers across the board.
Even if they failed to deliver a team that was much good, those boys know how to run business.
This is one in the eye for those sad souls who persist in bemoaning the state of English rugby. Perhaps the smartest move from the RFU has been to restrict themselves to doing the things they do best, like making money and investing in the grass roots game, while leaving professional rugby to those that know best – that seems to be working.
As this season’s Euro campaigns begin, we now know a little bit more about how, in rugby’s imperfect world, those that organise the competitions would like things to work.
The current situation where we play some Premiership games, then a couple of European ties, then go back to the domestic scene, and so on, is a bit of a shambles, and European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR) think there’s a better way.
They’d like December and January dedicated to their competitions: all of the pool games, and then the quarter-finals, giving them a much longer period to market the lucrative semi-finals.
That would seem to leave this schedule: Premiership, interrupted by autumn internationals; Europe; more Premiership; Six Nations; more Premiership; then finals.
But if you’re a fan who likes to follow your team on their Euro travels then compressing them all round Christmas and New Year it won’t suit you.
Of course, the three major leagues would have to approve it (good luck with that!). What’s much more likely is that this is simply another kite being flown by one set of vested interests, and little more will be heard of it.