England future management?

[j'nuh]

I'm going to try very hard to not be bitter with England as a rugby union for the next four years.


And fail miserably. Would have been great to have a decent coach for once...

There's a chap called Stuart Lancaster who I think is available...

tbh, I'm surprised that Stormers agreed to release Jones for only £100,000. I was expecting that the RFU would pay a hell of a lot more for him.

 

[LeinsterMan (NotTigsMan)]

Bet Mitchell will get the Stormers job.

Wonder if Deans might be interested/offered a coaching job.

 

[SomeOke]

Bet Mitchell will get the Stormers job.

Wonder if Deans might be interested/offered a coaching job.

I guess my level of grumpiness will depend on who we get haha. Deans I'd be happy with, Mitchell I'm not so sure, it's not that I wouldn't relish a New Zealander, but he had some issues when he coached the Lions, it was pretty ambiguous who was to blame but it has made me weary of him as a coach.

I'd also be happy if our current director (Gert Smal) took over straight, but I'm not sure if he'd be happy to downgrade himself. Otherwise I'll hold out out hope that maybe Nick Mallet will take the job, the reports suggest he is loving his job as a pundit on SA television (which he's amazing at) which is why he did not want to consider England but he might change his mind if it's coaching his old province, in an amazing city without having to uproot to a new country.

Anyway the silver lining is that R15mil is quite a lot of money here in SA, and we really didn't have to do that much to get it, hopefully we can use it to secure a decent coach and maybe even some marquee signings (although our squad looks pretty good we could use a new fly-half). Anyway I don't want to high jack this thread with Stormers talk so I'll say no more about it.
Congrats to England I guess , probably the best coach you could have snagged considering availability, Jack White would have been a step sideways in my opinion.

 

[LeinsterMan (NotTigsMan)]

Meant deans for England not Stormers.

Maybe attack.

 

[TheOvalBall]

Would've loved to see what Robbie Deans would've done with England.

 

[Vieux Talonneur]

Personally I'm happy with Jones. More than anything I like the fact that he does not have a great depth of knowledge around English rugby.

Strange I know, but it means he will be going to watch games with an open mind and not with a predisposition to certain players.

He desperately needs a conduit between him, PRL and RFU.

Only one Nate for me... Enter Sir Clive. I'm sure he would be interested.

As for those underneath him, I'd hope he would look to develop some English coaches in the long term. How he gets them involved I don't know.

I don't think our clubs should play any rugby during the 6N window. That would allow coaches such as Baxter, King, Ford to be involved for instance.

I'm not necessarily saying those names just using them to make the point.

Completely escapes me why don't we develop a meaningful fixture list for the Saxons involving those blokes so we'd get a pretty good advance idea if someone will be able to cut it with the senior team? At least a germ of a succession plan would be a good idea.

Even if we had to part fund visits by Japan, Georgia etc, why on earth not? We can afford it. Would develop players and coaches and help spread the word. Win win in my book.

 

[Mrs. Peter Quinn]

From his time as an international coach during 2001 - 2005 Jones had a 45% win rate against New Zealand.
It's good that he's coming to us, because I really do believe we can help him bring that win ratio down.
Something here for everyone.

 

[Mattybuck]

Completely escapes me why don't we develop a meaningful fixture list for the Saxons involving those blokes so we'd get a pretty good advance idea if someone will be able to cut it with the senior team? At least a germ of a succession plan would be a good idea.

Even if we had to part fund visits by Japan, Georgia etc, why on earth not? We can afford it. Would develop players and coaches and help spread the word. Win win in my book.

Agreed, could be played alongside 6N with clubs consulted re player rest and so on.

Not just good for bringing on players but also English coaches.

I would have thought if played at the right venues it would draw a decent crowd. Cheaper alternative to the 6N.

 

[Raggs]

More fixtures for the Saxons would be nice, but they won't happen during the season, leaving the summer tour, when there's often 40+ guys (so basically 23 seniors and near enough 23 saxons) travelling, so kinda there already.

Throw in the fact that their the clubs players, who probably wouldn't love the fact of not having their players resting, and I can see why it wouldn't happen.

Especially going a step further and realising that if 45 guys are abroad, then it's not even Saxons playing anymore, it's England XV, which isn't at a level that should really be worth Georgia/Romanias time, nor is it really useful for player development given they're in theory 4th choice and lower players (assuming we can even reliably ascertain who's fourth choice).

EDIT - It can't be done during the 6N, clubs are still playing meaningful AP games.

 

[Mrs. Peter Quinn]

Can anybody remind me when the next squad announcement would be around the EPS?

 

[Raggs]

I think it's normally in January. Plenty of time for Eddie to do his research.

Personally I'd ask each Head Coach/DoR to draw me up a match day 23 of players not from his club. Any player with 10/11 votes comes into consideration for captaincy.

 

[Peat]

What Raggs said. Can't have them during the season, big touring parties and mid-week games means there's not a lot of point to them in the summer... I'd love a worthwhile Saxons program but, well, there's a big problemo here...

 

[j'nuh]

I think there's a good chance we'll see Robshaw captaining from 6.

 

[Geordie]

Personally I'm happy with Jones. More than anything I like the fact that he does not have a great depth of knowledge around English rugby.

Strange I know, but it means he will be going to watch games with an open mind and not with a predisposition to certain players.

He desperately needs a conduit between him, PRL and RFU.

Only one Nate for me... Enter Sir Clive. I'm sure he would be interested.

As for those underneath him, I'd hope he would look to develop some English coaches in the long term. How he gets them involved I don't know.

I don't think our clubs should play any rugby during the 6N window. That would allow coaches such as Baxter, King, Ford to be involved for instance.

I'm not necessarily saying those names just using them to make the point.

So the two coaches in the WC final 2003 working together....

 

[psychic duck]

Lol at Woodward still being mentioned at getting involved, he is out of touch and behind the times of the modern game by approximately 12 years.

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

Lol at Woodward still being mentioned at getting involved, he is out of touch and behind the times of the modern game by approximately 12 years.

However he does realise what a pain in the arse the RFU can be and how a coach would value creative freedom. I think SCW would (woodward would haha) be very willing to protect Jones from the politics of rugby and let him get on with his job and give him access to any resources he could.

Now we have Jones, I hope he is given plenty of freedom and very early gets a system sorted with the clubs. Free reign to choose his support staff, someone like SCW above him to fight Jones' corner in the politics, Lancaster in the RFU reminding us how we are building towards the world cup *insert year here* and hopefully an agreement with the clubs to give Jones more say in things like how much they play.

Get all that set up and I would feel much happier. Simply plonking Jones in to replace Lancaster without any other changes will be a huge waste.

 

[TommiG88]

I hope we get jones, not getting my hopes up though.

 

[Mumbles119]

However he does realise what a pain in the arse the RFU can be and how a coach would value creative freedom. I think SCW would (woodward would haha) be very willing to protect Jones from the politics of rugby and let him get on with his job and give him access to any resources he could.

Now we have Jones, I hope he is given plenty of freedom and very early gets a system sorted with the clubs. Free reign to choose his support staff, someone like SCW above him to fight Jones' corner in the politics, Lancaster in the RFU reminding us how we are building towards the world cup *insert year here* and hopefully an agreement with the clubs to give Jones more say in things like how much they play.

Get all that set up and I would feel much happier. Simply plonking Jones in to replace Lancaster without any other changes will be a huge waste.

This. Definitely this. Even if it is not SCW, but some one to allow Jones to do his job and not let him be restricted or put under conditions.

 

[Mrs. Peter Quinn]

I think it's normally in January. Plenty of time for Eddie to do his research.

Personally I'd ask each Head Coach/DoR to draw me up a match day 23 of players not from his club. Any player with 10/11 votes comes into consideration for captaincy.

Nice idea that.
Robshaw would probably emerge as a favourite - think most coaches rate him as a blinside.

- RObshaw
- Launchbury
- Mike Brown

Only guys who I think all would pick.
I'm still a big fan of Robshaw. Only problem is I think Lancaster chose him for symbolic reasons around hard work rather than necessarily his quality on paper

 

[Aristodemus]

I'm glad you all seem happy to be getting Jones, maybe I'm just grumpy that the guy I wanted isn't getting the job. I remain dubious but he will have my full support, at least to start with anyway

Edit: I highly doubt Robshaw would get picked in an England XV by 10 AP coaches, just my opinion.