EOS to Rugby League Kinda....

[Flakey 16]

http://www.thescore.ie/eddie-osullivan- ... 7-Feb2014/

EDDIE O’SULLIVAN IS slated to coach a US-based National Rugby Football League [NRFL] team against a European side in the two-legged ‘The Independence Cup’ this July.

expected to attract large numbers of former – and possibly current – American football players, hopeful of forging professional sports careers for themselves.

You can't unring a bell.....

[Donny B.]

Hey, his family gotta eat, right?

[[Jackass]]

The decline of Eddie O'Sullivan's career post RWC 2007 is an absolute travesty in my opinion.

I know some wont share my opinion, but I think he's a fine coach and yes he wasn't perfect with his steady Eddie approach and how stale the Irish team become under his guidance, but looking at his performance as national coach as a whole, he was actually a very decent coach who had Ireland playing some of our best rugby in the pro age. I think 5, 6 or 7 years is way too long for a rugby coach at one side, except in exceptional circumstances (Gatland at Wales, although that might be turning stale at this point, or Noves at Toulouse, but even they are nowhere near their former glory), but who's to say a team wouldn't go stale under even Schmidt after that amount of time. The feel good factor around the Ireland team now hasn't been around since Eddie's days. Even the grand slam we won under Kidney didn't instill dancing in the street given the performances and amount of luck we rode to achieve it.

If he was involved at Leinster I'd be delighted, be it as a backs coach or had he even been given the head coach role, I would have been cautiously optimistic (is that going a step too far?)

Lam has been a disastrous appointment at Connacht thus far, which I think highlights the absurdity of O'Sullivan not even getting an interview for the job, given he's based in Galway and his coaching credentials, his role with USA a good example at RWC 2011, he made a very average team competitive, beating Russia and maybe not running Ireland and Italy close, but his side putting in a very reasonable performance none the less, keeping within a score or two.

It's sad to see him bouncing around these mickey mouse roles. I would love to see him land a decent job somewhere in the club game in Europe, even in the English Championship or ProD2, they could do a lot worse than have Eddie on board and the poor fella would take anything at this point I reckon...

[StrangeButBlue]

He's been spotted on the sidelines of a few garryowen ail matches the last few weeks

[[Jackass]]

Yeah I think he's involved in their back-room team at some capacity, which is kind of the sadness of the roles he's involved in at present, he's not even landing amateur head coaching roles.

[ormond lad]

EOS is involved as a "consultant"/adviser to Garryowen as they try avoid relegation.

Have to agree with Jackass, with benefit of hindsight, of the madness in Connacht not even interviewing Eddie for head coach job.

[AwayTheWell]

In fairness to Eddie, while since he got asked in as an advisory capacity for Garryowen, they have won two of their three games with a losing bonus point for the other away to a strong Lansdowne side. One a must win against fellow relegation rivals Ballynahinch and a comprehensive success against Young Munster. Have gone from being absolutely cut adrift and relegated to being in with a strong chance of survival since his introduction into the set-up. Certainly a few levels below what should be his capability but at least seems to demonstrate he has some sort of Midas touch that you would expect at this grade.
In addition, there would be some prior affiliations with Garryowen that made this more likely - though I am sure a few bob is being thrown his way as well.

[Oldschool]

The decline of Eddie O'Sullivan's career post RWC 2007 is an absolute travesty in my opinion.

I know some wont share my opinion, but I think he's a fine coach and yes he wasn't perfect with his steady Eddie approach and how stale the Irish team become under his guidance, but looking at his performance as national coach as a whole, he was actually a very decent coach who had Ireland playing some of our best rugby in the pro age. I think 5, 6 or 7 years is way too long for a rugby coach at one side, except in exceptional circumstances (Gatland at Wales, although that might be turning stale at this point, or Noves at Toulouse, but even they are nowhere near their former glory), but who's to say a team wouldn't go stale under even Schmidt after that amount of time. The feel good factor around the Ireland team now hasn't been around since Eddie's days. Even the grand slam we won under Kidney didn't instill dancing in the street given the performances and amount of luck we rode to achieve it.

If he was involved at Leinster I'd be delighted, be it as a backs coach or had he even been given the head coach role, I would have been cautiously optimistic (is that going a step too far?)

Lam has been a disastrous appointment at Connacht thus far, which I think highlights the absurdity of O'Sullivan not even getting an interview for the job, given he's based in Galway and his coaching credentials, his role with USA a good example at RWC 2011, he made a very average team competitive, beating Russia and maybe not running Ireland and Italy close, but his side putting in a very reasonable performance none the less, keeping within a score or two.

It's sad to see him bouncing around these mickey mouse roles. I would love to see him land a decent job somewhere in the club game in Europe, even in the English Championship or ProD2, they could do a lot worse than have Eddie on board and the poor fella would take anything at this point I reckon...

EOS was/is a very good coach technically IMHO however he let himself down as Irish coach by being so biased in his selections.
And he notably failed to build a squad or even use his bench fully. He was in the job long enough to do both and in fact diminished his squad in some instances by marginalising the likes of Miller, Brennan and even David Wallace to a lesser extent.
So from an Irish POV I'm glad this has been recognised and I hope it serves as a warning to other potential Irish coaches in the future.
For me tho, the surprising thing is that he has not found gainful employment as a coach somewhere else.
To put things in perspective Dekko is nowhere near as good a coach as EOS. People will point to the GS but that's all he won and no near misses.
EOS built the platform for that to happen and Drico was the match winner in three of the games.
EOS won a few TCs and had a couple of near misses for the GS (France in Croker being the heart breaker)

[Fireworks]

The decline of Eddie O'Sullivan's career post RWC 2007 is an absolute travesty in my opinion.

I know some wont share my opinion, but I think he's a fine coach and yes he wasn't perfect with his steady Eddie approach and how stale the Irish team become under his guidance, but looking at his performance as national coach as a whole, he was actually a very decent coach who had Ireland playing some of our best rugby in the pro age. I think 5, 6 or 7 years is way too long for a rugby coach at one side, except in exceptional circumstances (Gatland at Wales, although that might be turning stale at this point, or Noves at Toulouse, but even they are nowhere near their former glory), but who's to say a team wouldn't go stale under even Schmidt after that amount of time. The feel good factor around the Ireland team now hasn't been around since Eddie's days. Even the grand slam we won under Kidney didn't instill dancing in the street given the performances and amount of luck we rode to achieve it.

If he was involved at Leinster I'd be delighted, be it as a backs coach or had he even been given the head coach role, I would have been cautiously optimistic (is that going a step too far?)

Lam has been a disastrous appointment at Connacht thus far, which I think highlights the absurdity of O'Sullivan not even getting an interview for the job, given he's based in Galway and his coaching credentials, his role with USA a good example at RWC 2011, he made a very average team competitive, beating Russia and maybe not running Ireland and Italy close, but his side putting in a very reasonable performance none the less, keeping within a score or two.

It's sad to see him bouncing around these mickey mouse roles. I would love to see him land a decent job somewhere in the club game in Europe, even in the English Championship or ProD2, they could do a lot worse than have Eddie on board and the poor fella would take anything at this point I reckon...

EOS was/is a very good coach technically IMHO however he let himself down as Irish coach by being so biased in his selections.
And he notably failed to build a squad or even use his bench fully. He was in the job long enough to do both and in fact diminished his squad in some instances by marginalising the likes of Miller, Brennan and even David Wallace to a lesser extent.
So from an Irish POV I'm glad this has been recognised and I hope it serves as a warning to other potential Irish coaches in the future.
For me tho, the surprising thing is that he has not found gainful employment as a coach somewhere else.
To put things in perspective Dekko is nowhere near as good a coach as EOS. People will point to the GS but that's all he won and no near misses.
EOS built the platform for that to happen and Drico was the match winner in three of the games.
EOS won a few TCs and had a couple of near misses for the GS (France in Croker being the heart breaker)

Big +1

The end of his time went badly but he does deserve some luck in finding a job. DK was muck and was lucky to pick up the GS with a Eddie trained team that needed a fresh voice and a bit of team building. Outside of the people management soft skills he brought little else. I believe we won that GS playing muck against below par teams while we came second and nearly won with Eddie playing good rugby against good teams.