It's worth remembering, he's DoR, not a head coach. He used to do some hands-on coaching, as an assistant, under Hatley's guidance (which was weird, especially in simultaneously failing to see (publicly, at least) that Hatley was overstretched and floundering outside his comfort zone.
He has had nothing to do with the day-to-day, match-to-match training and planning since (at the latest) the Griffiths Report was in.
His job is to assign the coaching crew, give them an overview, and make changes year-on-year to that coaching crew.
He's failed, but only gets the chance to change things year on year, not week on week - that's Hatley's job.
I've always felt that anyone is allowed to make mistakes, and should be given the chance to correct them, but I will castigate harshly anyone who keeps making those mistakes.
Players get the chance to make ammends within the next few minutes, coaches within the next few weeks, DoRs within the next few years. Once Hooper had made his mistakes with getting the coaching crew and general guidance wrong, he was stuck with them. With Griffith's help, he's made changes for next year.
Above him, Tarquin McDonald has repeatedly made mistakes with assigning the DoR role, below him, Hatley has repeatedly made mistakes with the match-to-match coaching and preparation. They deserve more criticism.
That said, this season has been so bad, I'd favour a complete replacement of the non-playing staff, from chairman down to assistant coaches, and at least the head of the S&C and probably the head of the medical team. But for me, 1 more match that's outside of Hooper's control doesn't make a difference to that, and it's obviously not the route chosen by the man with the chequebook.
On top of that, I'm personally struggling to give too many f***s as premiership rugby is doing it's best to lose me as a fan anyway this last couple of years.
Maybe I'm being naive, but wouldn't "tapping up" regulations prevent this from happening?
Oh, you sweet, summer child.
IIRC, that only ever applied in the last year of someone's contract, was largely ignored anyway (most egregiously/obviously by Saracens negotiation with Borthwick), and has been ditched anyway.
