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#Post#: 62286--------------------------------------------------
Re: Director of Rugby, do we actually need one?
DIR By: honkytonk
Date: March 24, 2021, 1:40 pm
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To be fair to JK, I dont blame him. He should never have been
offered the job. I blame those that gave it to him.
#Post#: 62288--------------------------------------------------
Re: Director of Rugby, do we actually need one?
DIR By: dinsdale
Date: March 24, 2021, 1:57 pm
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--- Quote from: Domestos link ---
>
> A number of posters have questioned my assessment of Conor
O'Shea. OK. Fair enough. Although i notice that i have a number
of supporters.
>
> Well, what about the performance of John Kingston and Paul
Gustard?
>
--- End Quote ---
Kingston had already had a stint as DoR after Richards left and
it wasn't great first time. I'd be happy to have the guy as a
forwards coach but as head coach he didn't seem up to it for
whatever reason.
Gustard - who knows what went on. His recruitment has worked
out well but somehow the team was less than the sum of its parts
when he was in charge - similar to the end of Kingston's stint.
Most players are pretty diplomatic but only with Kingston and
Gustard have I seen a team where it looked like half the players
would rather be somewhere else.
Also, if Deano ever returns my season ticket will be in the post
back to the club and I'll find another team - or sport - to
support
#Post#: 62289--------------------------------------------------
Re: Director of Rugby, do we actually need one?
DIR By: JammyGit
Date: March 24, 2021, 1:58 pm
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--- Quote from: Domestos link ---
>
> A number of posters have questioned my assessment of Conor
O'Shea. OK. Fair enough. Although i notice that i have a number
of supporters.
>
> Well, what about the performance of John Kingston and Paul
Gustard?
>
--- End Quote ---
JK was an excellent forwards coach who shouldn't have been a
head coach/DoR. Gustard was an excellent defence coach who'd
never been a head coach/DoR (and ended up not being very good at
it). The lesson there is... we're not good with newbies.
Oh, and that CoS was at the very least a decent DoR :)
#Post#: 62299--------------------------------------------------
Re: Director of Rugby, do we actually need one?
DIR By: Muzza
Date: March 25, 2021, 4:51 am
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The concept of having a DoR and Head Coach involved in team
affairs is foreign to me. I don’t understand how it works, who
makes decisions and who is in actual charge of the team. There
must be conflicts between the two roles?
Some of you have referred to Scott Robertson of the Crusaders –
so take his role. Robertson is a tracksuit Head Coach, and by
default top dog at the Crusaders not only for the Crusaders
Super team but also the Crusaders Knights development & U/20
teams, and the academy players. Anybody who has anything to do
with the rugby reports to him not someone else. I can’t see him
reporting to a DOR or letting this person make recruitment
decisions.
Or is there something I am missing.
#Post#: 62308--------------------------------------------------
Re: Director of Rugby, do we actually need one?
DIR By: poorfour
Date: March 25, 2021, 6:21 am
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I think part of the problem is that there are several
overlapping roles and different clubs, and different eras within
the same club, have cut them up in different ways.
Off the top of my head, the rugby division in a club will worry
about a number of things, some of them in conjunction with the
commercial division:
1. Facilities and logistics - training facilities, rehab
facilities, how to get the players to away games in the best
shape
2. Equipment and analysis - video, GPS trackers, analytics
around play and training
3. Recruitment and management of coaching staff
4. Recruitment and management of non-coaching support staff -
physios, doctors, trainers, analysts etc
5. Recruitment and long term management of players and their
contracts
6. Management of the academy player pipeline
7. Scouting of potential recruits
8. Overall talent management and succession planning
9. Coach education
10. Development of the overall playing strategy
11. Development and planning of coaching approach and strategies
12. Day to day interaction with star players
13. Season "block" planning (what's in the Roadmap)
14. Selection
15. Matchday tactics and planning
16. Day to day management of training
17. Team-level match preparation
18. Tactics coaching / playbook
19. Unit-level match preparation (scrum, lineout, maul, ruck,
attack, defence, back three)
20. Open play skills and decision-making coaching
21. Setpiece skills and training
22. In game-fitness / pace of play / tactical periodisation
23. Individual player preparation / fitness
24. Rehab and return to play for injured players
From what I can tell, under Deano and COS, the DoR was
definitely responsible for 1-13 (COS said that he was the only
person who spoke to NEv about his development, for instance) and
involved in 14 and 15 with JK. Deano was also a bit more
involved in day to day coaching - but both made it clear that
Kingston (as Head Coach) was primarily responsible for the day
to day coaching and match preparation (and said that his
technical analysis and attention to detail about how to play
against different teams was exceptionally good).
The Head Coach has mostly dealt with 16-18, and then the
specialist coaches deal with everything down to 22 (usually with
parallel coaching teams between the senior squad, the academy
and possibly the A team when it is playing). A number of the
senior players and junior coaches also double up with coaching
duties at local semi-pro clubs.
23 and 24 are dealt by the fitness coaches, physios and doctors.
JK said that when he became DoR, he learned a lot about things
like player contracts and succession planning that had not been
shared with him even as Head Coach, and also that there were a
huge number of things that distracted a DoR from the business of
coaching and preparing the team. I think it had been OK under
Deano and COS because the former had grown up in the DoR role at
Tigers as it developed, and the latter has a background in
sports administration - but it was challenging for JK as a
tracksuit coach.
So Quins decided to split the role into a more hands-on DoR and
a GM role, especially with Women's rugby being added to the
portfolio. From what I can see, Millard looks after something
like 1-7, did 8 jointly with PG, and then PG did 10-17 with 18
being shared with the specialist coaches (and probably with a
bit too much input and conservatism from PG).
My best guess at what's now happened is that Millard is looking
after 1-10, the triumvirate after 11-22 with some oversight on
the lower numbers. The reason I think a senior mentor-coach
model could work is that the critical point where we're likely
to need additional input and challenge is in the 9-11 space, but
that is only a relatively small part of a traditional DoR's
time.
#Post#: 62425--------------------------------------------------
Re: Director of Rugby, do we actually need one?
DIR By: TeddingtonQuin
Date: March 26, 2021, 4:13 pm
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That's an excellent presentation poorfour, very informative and
nothing as far as I can see to argue with. Reading it though
along with other posts on the subject leads me to believe again
that Ben Ryan would be perfect for the job. We need a light hand
on the tiller and his man management and outside the box way of
thinking about things fits in with our requirements
#Post#: 62433--------------------------------------------------
Re: Director of Rugby, do we actually need one?
DIR By: Quinofthestoneage
Date: March 26, 2021, 6:27 pm
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JB of the Eggchasers has recently done a lovely interview with
Mark Evans. Lots of stuff about his time with Quins, but perhaps
even more interestingly his views on the CVC deal and the way
rugby has changed since professionalism . Listening to it you
get the sense that he realised that his ambitions to coach were
overtaken by the growth of professionalism, so he adapted his
skillset accordingly
HTML https://play.acast.com/s/31e22642-d21c-493d-8629-2a8e521c1903/604d0073-512a-415c-8df8-c43fdec86867
#Post#: 62435--------------------------------------------------
Re: Director of Rugby, do we actually need one?
DIR By: Quinofthestoneage
Date: March 26, 2021, 6:38 pm
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--- Quote from: Domestos link ---
>
> A number of posters have questioned my assessment of Conor
O'Shea. OK. Fair enough. Although i notice that i have a number
of supporters.
>
> Well, what about the performance of John Kingston and Paul
Gustard?
>
--- End Quote ---
COS was a classy operator, a true gent who in some people's
eyes will never have been tough enough, regardless of his
success. Deano, Cockers and Dimes - the opposite to COS - are
emblematic of a certain kind of coach that some English rugby
fans love; plenty of Bosh, plain speaking and coaching sides who
are made in their image as players. For these sorts of fans,
guys like COS (or Stuart Lancaster or Gustard for that matter)
can't ever win because they don't have that edge or aggression.
For me, this argument just sums up the tension at the heart of
English rugby- and the fact that it would never be an argument
in somewhere like New Zealand is why they have won more World
Cups than England!
#Post#: 62436--------------------------------------------------
Re: Director of Rugby, do we actually need one?
DIR By: Bolly-Quin
Date: March 26, 2021, 7:11 pm
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Since 1997, how many foreign (i.e. excluding UK and Ireland)
coaches have won the premiership?
#Post#: 62439--------------------------------------------------
Re: Director of Rugby, do we actually need one?
DIR By: poorfour
Date: March 27, 2021, 2:26 am
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--- Quote from: Bolly-Quin link ---
>
> Since 1997, how many foreign (i.e. excluding UK and Ireland)
coaches have won the premiership?
>
--- End Quote ---
I think it’s just Gatland, isn’t it?
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