Lost generation of for great things?
Dwayne Peel, Mefin Davies and Jonathan Thomas. All of those have had to cut their coaching teeth outside the regional game, though.
“Jonathan is going to be an excellent coach.
“I’ve spoken to people in English rugby and I know he and Mefin are highly respected.”
Holley hasn’t coached since leaving Bristol in 2016. “It’s strange,” he laughs. “People see me on TV doing my analysis – in a lot of people’s eyes, I’m probably a better coach now than I ever was.
“That’s just the way it goes. “But I’m not sure I want to be out on the field in a tracksuit any more.
“I’m not closing the door on an involvement of some sort. Maybe there could be a role in mentoring young coaches or offering advice on the various aspects that go towards making up a regional rugby operation – I don’t know.
“Maybe there’s someone who might think I could be useful. If that were the case, I’d be prepared to listen.
“Never say never but it would need to be the right role.”
Perhaps in a social media world local coaches are not cut the same slack as imports, though it wasn’t exactly cheers all the way for Bernard Jackman at the Dragons.
Steve Tandy came in for a lot of flak during his final months as Ospreys head coach, notwithstanding the budgetary problems that were afflicting the region at the time.
Happily, he seems to have performed a significant bounce-back operation in Australia.
Like Holley, Tandy gave everything to his local region.
But circumstances against him.
There’s another Welsh coach who has a big development opportunity in Mark Jones at the Crusaders.
But right now homegrown team bosses are out of the head-coach picture in these parts.
“You’d hope that at some point conspired someone at regional level would back a local head coach again and their faith would be rewarded,” says Holley.
“There are some excellent homegrown people on the undercard with Wales, among them Stephen Jones and Jonathan Humphreys.
“For me, ability of our coaches never has been the issue. It’s all about having opportunities.”