Dai ticks all the boxes, just like all the others!
At the risk of putting every snout in every trough out of joint, it has to be said that Cardiff Blues don’t half make a pig’s ear of hiring and firing coaches.
As if to prove their touch remains none the worse for the passing years, the capital region marked the new one with a scenario all too familiar to followers of a once great club. John Mulvihill’s abrupt exit as head coach on Monday demanded an urgent official reaction, however terse.
There wasn’t one, which raised the possibility that the board under chairman Alun Jones had checked en bloc into the nearest Trappist monastery. The silence grew louder daily and by the time the Blues eventually got round to saying something, everyone knew not only that Mulvihill had left but that Dai Young had returned.
At this point it might be instructive to spool the tape back some 30 months. Having seen the writing on the Arms Park wall, Danny Wilson turned down an extension to his contract before guiding the Blues to a Challenge Cup victory over Gloucester as thrilling as it was implausible, the only trophy the region has won in the last ten years.
Mulvihill arrived in the summer of 2018 to the customary roll of drums. Blues chief executive Richard Holland said: “John will be the perfect fit.”
The 52-year-old Australian could have been forgiven for wondering what he’d let himself in for. The Blues lost their training base to be followed by their ground and while the requisitioning of the Arms Park as an emergency field hospital left the club no choice, neither was conducive to a winning environment.
His Blues had lost five of their last seven matches in the PRO12 going into the New Year and a home derby relocated to the Cardiff City stadium. Ospreys won at a canter, leaving Mulvihill to pick up the pieces and talk about improving discipline for the next match, except that, in his case, there wouldn’t be one.
When the Blues finally got round to confirming his departure, fully three days after it had been reported, they claimed that the head coach had left for ‘personal reasons’.
“He has not seen three of his daughters for two years now and that has played a significant part in the decision,’’ Holland said in a statement. “Therefore, it makes sense for both parties to move on immediately.”
Some of the club’s long-suffering fans might have asked themselves: “Well, well. What could be more significant than losing six of the last eight matches?’’
The statement gives the impression that Mulvihill’s exit six months before the expiry of his contract had nothing to do with results and everything to do with a family issue which had never been aired publicly before.
No sooner had they put their belated spin on Mulvihill’s departure than the Blues issued a statement saying they were ‘thrilled’ to announce Young’s return to the club as director of rugby almost ten years after he left to save Wasps.
The Blues say Young is keen to reach ‘a long-term agreement’. They then proceed to muddy the waters by referring to ‘widespread interest in the position’ and stating that ex-Wales wing Nigel Walker will head a selection panel. Why if Young is the man is there any need for a selection panel? As Holland said: “Dai ticks all the boxes.”
It might be more instructive to spool back to May 2014 and the hiring of another ex-international front row forward, Mark Hammett. All Black Hammett arrived to a fanfare of trumpets which sounded like the intro to Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire. “We believe his long-term vision for the Blues will take us to the next level and achieve our ambitions,’’ said Holland.
Needless to say, the chief executive was ‘absolutely delighted’. That euphoric state of mind lasted only as long as it took Hammett to start his overhaul of an under-achieving squad. Gethin Jenkins and Matthew Rees were then coming up 34. Rees, who had played his last match for Wales that summer, tells in his autobiography of Hammett asking him if he thought ‘Melon’ (Jenkins) ‘needed to change as a character’.
Throughout his illustrious career, Jenkins’ dour persona was often the subject of mickey-talking within the Welsh camp. If Hammett wanted to see a more positive attitude, the penny never dropped.
“I was stunned,’’ Rees wrote. “No, he (Jenkins) didn’t need to change.’’
Rees said Hammett told him: ‘Bear in mind I got rid of Andrew Hore and Ma’a Nonu at the Hurricanes’. “The message I took from that was that it was going to be his way and no compromises, no matter what your stature in the game.”
The message which went back to the board was that the senior players didn’t like the way Hammett was running the show. As the Kiwi subsequently acknowledged, he had ‘hurt their feelings’ not least in referring to Welsh rugby being 15 years behind New Zealand. They must have been easily offended.
Instead of telling the sensitive souls where to go, the board decided otherwise.
Had those running Manchester United in the late Eighties applied the same misguided thinking, Alex Ferguson would have been out on his ear before he had time to win the first of 13 Premier League titles. Nobody will ever know to what extent Hammett might have changed the Blues for the better.
By February 2015 he had gone, six months into a three-year contract. The Blues cited ‘personal reasons,’ which sounded like a euphemism for player power. Six years on, nothing much has changed except the names.
“What could be more significant than losing six of the last eight matches?”