erskinechilders wrote:I think people are being extremely unfair on this current coaching ticket.
There are a lot of people posting about how people are being unfair on the coaching ticket but very few people actually posting unfairly about the coaching ticket. Its a bit like the (apocryphal?) communist party cell in California that was infiltrated by an FBI agent only to find out that the entire cell was composed of infiltrating FBI agents.
There is no way on earth that you can in any way suggest that last seasons european campaign was anything less than a complete f%~king onmishambles. Even the win against Bath highlighted what a poor campaign it was because all the exciting younger players that made what should have been a run of the mill win against dreadful opposition something worthwhile and valuable were promptly dropped for the next round.erskinechilders wrote:They are all inexperienced coaches ( apart from McQuilkin ) and as was previously pointed out in this forum, knowing your own weaknesses is far from a weakness in itself. I truly believe we will have a far better European campaign this year. When you look back at it, apart from both Wasps matches, we didn't have all that bad of a Champions Cup. For a coach in his first year to have to deal with a World Cup where the vast majority of his starting XV and substitutes where gone he did well at the beginning of the Pro 12.
Both Wasps matches were disasters, granted. However, apart from a poor decision to kick at goal from half-way away to Bath instead of going for the try when we were in the complete ascendancy we could easily have one. We pushed Toulon very hard twice also, and could and probably should have won in the Aviva. We beat Bath, who I'll admit were terrible last year, at home with an extremely inexperienced team.
In the Pro 12, we actually began to run the ball again. People look back at the season based on the Pro 12 final where we simply didn't show up but people forget we were missing our captain and our main line-out caller, and a few times we messed decent attacking positions in that first half. With another year of experience, a full pre-season for the WHOLE squad, a few weeks working under Father Ted and a decent European draw I think we'll do a lot better.
The experiences gained from last year will only help players like Tracy, Molony, JVDF, McGrath and Ringrose. The only criticism I have is that of the the recruitment of NIQ players but thats for a different forum and a different time of year!