Stuart Lancaster joining Leinster

[simonokeeffe]

Really enjoyed this podcast with Lancaster, lots of deep insight into his approach:
http://www.newstalk.com/reader/47.302/96703/0/

Love the 'comfortable in chaos' approach. It sounds like they've been doing lots of unstructured training at high intensity. Should help is against a side like Clermont.

listened to first 40 so far

he showed squad second half of Northampton HC win in 2011 and said this is the way I want to play
80% of his sessions are unstructured rugby and then he video reviews them

SH coaching is an ambition at some point (Fanning probably fishing off that)

really worth a listen

[johng]

Really enjoyed this podcast with Lancaster, lots of deep insight into his approach:
http://www.newstalk.com/reader/47.302/96703/0/

Love the 'comfortable in chaos' approach. It sounds like they've been doing lots of unstructured training at high intensity. Should help is against a side like Clermont.

Listened to it in a park in Bristol yesterday. Very encouraging.

[Oldschool]

Really enjoyed this podcast with Lancaster, lots of deep insight into his approach:
http://www.newstalk.com/reader/47.302/96703/0/

Love the 'comfortable in chaos' approach. It sounds like they've been doing lots of unstructured training at high intensity. Should help is against a side like Clermont.

listened to first 40 so far

he showed squad second half of Northampton HC win in 2011 and said this is the way I want to play
80% of his sessions are unstructured rugby and then he video reviews them

SH coaching is an ambition at some point (Fanning probably fishing off that)

really worth a listen

I dub thee - Bomberball

[EarthGorilla]

Great interview that. Have heard some of the soundbites before but he does genuinely seem happy here and we are very lucky to have him.

[riocard911]

Thanks for the link. Just had a listen. The guy has "hundreds of books" at his little teach in Donnybrook, which he has bought "since" he arrived? SL is a serious thinker on all aspects of the game. I second EarthGorilla's sentiment: we are very lucky to have him. I was suitable impressed how he made a point of name checking the various opponents we have ahead of us, thereby paying them the necessary respect. Getting ahead of ourselves would be the biggest mistake we could make at this stage. Lancaster is aware of that, I'm glad to report!

[Ruckedtobits]

Absolutely agree. A great interviewee but fair dos to Ger Gilroy for a string of questions which were searching but never rude or aggressive. SL is truly a fan (atic) of rugby and having heard from him of the nuts and bolts of his role and how that interacts with Leo, Girv and Fogs I believe we should be very grateful that this opportunity will be with us for a couple more seasons.

[wixfjord]

He sounds a little bit like Schmidt in terms of his fanaticism about learning about rugby and coaching, but completely opposite to Schmidt in terms of his willingness to be unstructured and relatively laissez faire with players after they cross the white line.

[simonokeeffe]

I concur with Bomberball

[ronk]

He sounds a little bit like Schmidt in terms of his fanaticism about learning about rugby and coaching, but completely opposite to Schmidt in terms of his willingness to be unstructured and relatively laissez faire with players after they cross the white line.

He rolled back on being completely unstructured. Partly I think because of 1st phase ball, but also because of the defensive influence of Farrell.

Defensively Farrell (and Leinster) work to break attacking structures. It's the key that Scotland used to beat us.

We're fairly adaptive in terms of switching between schemes such as ruck numbers (as are many teams). Very few teams can hold shape against a defence that alters pace like that.

Ospreys did it well against us. If we setup to go wide around a blitz they would accept and drift while we did our moves safely in front of them. Being able to continue moving the ball while Carbery or JGP were tied up meant that they couldn't reset as well.

We're trying to get into position at pace because we have to to stretch defences. Error count is naturally high and would be higher if everyone needed to be precisely ready.

Kirchner getting held up showed that we still have a way to go.

[neiliog93]

Really good insight. Radio can really be superior to tv for in-depth interviews.

[blockhead]

Rob Andrew has always come across to me as the archetypal shyster.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/ ... otion-car/
I still think that.

[curates_egg]

Rob Andrew has always come across to me as the archetypal shyster.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/ ... otion-car/
I still think that.

What a nasty and vindictive hatchet job. Imagine if a top level IRFU employee had come out public with something like that on Kidney, EOS or Schmidt? Following on from last week's snide jibe from Eddie Jones, who is a truly nasty individual.
To put it in our context, I can't think of any member of the setup openly criticising MOC, who was clearly making a mess of the job. It's alright for moany old holes like me on a forum to do so but it would be unseemly for someone like Leo or Easterby to have done so.
To put it in another context: England froze at the world cup after Bomber had done a good job of rebuilding them after the damage of Johnson...but their limp performance at least couldn't be blamed on the type of nonsense Johnson allowed.

Makes me want to give poor Bomber a hug. I think - after a very good bounce last season - it is not yet clear if our coaching ticket is good enough to get the best out of this group: there is still a frustrating mix of positives and negatives.

It also makes me hope that Jones screws up in monumental fashion at the next World Cup.

[wixfjord]

I hope this doesn't become a distraction this week.
Am sure Lancaster will be asked about it if he's put in front of the press.

Andrew comes across like a complete bell end in that.

[enby]

He has a point about Burgess though. That scheme always looked like pure folly. Presumably SL has learned from that

[johng]

The gossip at time was that burgess was foisted on Lancaster by the suits in the English RFU

[johng]

Andrew comes across like a complete bell end in that.

As opposed to...... The rest of his life?

[curates_egg]

The gossip at time was that burgess was foisted on Lancaster by the suits in the English RFU

That's certainly what it looked like...which makes the attack from Andrew all the more odd. Projectionism maybe.

[Dave Cahill]

He has a point about Burgess though. That scheme always looked like pure folly. Presumably SL has learned from that

No he doesn't!!! This is truthiness at its worst!

The mistake that was made wrt to Burgess was taking him off against Wales with England leading and Burgess playing really well.

[riocard911]

The gossip at time was that burgess was foisted on Lancaster by the suits in the English RFU

That's my reading of it too. IMO the Blazers got greedy: they didn't just want to win the WC at home, but also to do it with a League Superstar in the team in order to help Union make inroads in the traditional League heartlands up North. Whatever about the decision to take off Burgess in a match where he was playing well, the incessant media hype about "Slammin' Sam", the unresolved question about his best position etc negatively affected the England campaign, and for that I think the RFU bods on high are largely responsible not Lancaster or Farrell.

[simonokeeffe]

The gossip at time was that burgess was foisted on Lancaster by the suits in the English RFU

That's my reading of it too. IMO the Blazers got greedy: they didn't just want to win the WC at home, but also to do it with a League Superstar in the team in order to help Union make inroads in the traditional League heartlands up North. Whatever about the decision to take off Burgess in a match where he was playing well, the incessant media hype about "Slammin' Sam", the unresolved question about his best position etc negatively affected the England campaign, and for that I think the RFU bods on high are largely responsible not Lancaster or Farrell.

The stuff about the players being hassled from on high about what headphones they wore is a good example of first part