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#Post#: 153194--------------------------------------------------
Rugby does not have football’s sacking culture... yet
DIR By: deadlyfrom5yardsout
Date: April 22, 2026, 3:42 am
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As consortiums turn from round-ball game to Prem, coaches may
well feel the pressure mount from on high
Daniel Schofield
Daniel joined The Telegraph in 2014 after working as a sports
reporter at The Times. See more
Published 21 April 2026 3:05pm BST
Steve Diamond was sacked after Red Bull took over Newcastle
So far there have been nine managerial changes in the Premier
League this season while at least two more clubs will change
coaches at the end of the campaign. The average tenure for a
manager across the top four divisions of English football is one
year and nine months.
By contrast, Prem Rugby is a relatively safe space for coaches,
however much their teams underperform.
In the past three seasons, only two No 1s have been effectively
fired: Steve Diamond at the start of this campaign by Newcastle
Red Bulls and Dan McKellar, given the chop by Leicester in 2024.
Other coaches may have jumped to more attractive destinations
such as Michael Cheika and Danny Wilson, but very few have been
pushed.
A cursory look underneath the social media posts announcing
Gloucester, Harlequins and Sale’s recent results suggests a
ferocious appetite for change among the online fandom community,
but this impulse is not shared by club owners. There is no
indication that Alex Sanderson, for instance, is under immediate
pressure at Sale Sharks despite their already desperately
disappointing season hitting a new low with a 85-19 defeat by
Saracens on Sunday.
“I’m confident I can take them forward, one hundred per cent I
can,” Sanderson said. “If I felt like I was losing the group
then that’s a different question – I would just walk. But at the
moment internally we’re very tight and we feel like we’ve got
the answers moving forward.”
So why do rugby union owners lack the itchy trigger finger of
their football counterparts? To start with, the stakes in the
Prem are far lower than in the Premier League, both at the top
and bottom. Fear of relegation has caused Nottingham Forest and
Tottenham Hotspur to change their managers twice this season.
For better or worse, that trap door does not exist in the Prem.
Nor does the same race to qualify for Champions League, which is
hard-baked into many of the big football clubs’ financial
calculations, with the top eight clubs going straight into the
Champions Cup.
This reduces the need for a Sean Dyche-style firefighter to save
a season and enables clubs to take a longer-term view. Should
Sanderson, for example, be judged on this wretched season or the
previous three campaigns in which Sale made the top four?
This time last year, it was Exeter who were Prem Rugby’s crisis
club, finishing in ninth place, but Rob Baxter was rightly given
the time he needed to make changes in his set-up to create
Chiefs 2.0. George Skivington and Jason Gilmore have also been
supported to the hilt at Gloucester and Harlequins respectively,
revamping their own coaching staffs and bringing in Chris Boyd
and Robbie Deans as a couple of wise old greybeards.
Football managers rarely get the opportunity to see through a
project. It is a different world with a very different set of
expectations. Following a home defeat by Bournemouth, an Arsenal
supporter called BBC 5 Live’s 606 to say Mikel Arteta should be
sacked while they were still atop the Premier League.
And perhaps the biggest reason why there are not more changes in
rugby is that the pool of potential replacements is a lot
shallower. In the Premier League, there are 11 different
nationalities in charge of 20 clubs, reflecting the global reach
of the game. There are always alternatives should a club lose
patience with a manager. In rugby, there are far fewer
ready-made replacements waiting in the wings. Most clubs are
highly reluctant to pay release fees and so must ensure their
window for a coaching change overlaps with targets coming off
contract.
Yet with Red Bull taking over Newcastle and Bournemouth’s owners
on the cusp of buying out Exeter Chiefs, it will be fascinating
to see if this level of patience continues. After
unceremoniously firing Diamond at the start of the season, will
Red Bull want an instant return on their considerable
investment? Gary O’Neil lasted a single season under Black
Knight at Bournemouth so would Baxter be afforded another wobbly
season, no matter his historical standing with the club?
The safe space that directors of rugby have been enjoying may be
coming to an abrupt halt.
#Post#: 153209--------------------------------------------------
Re: Rugby does not have football’s sacking culture... yet
DIR By: T-Bone
Date: April 22, 2026, 7:26 am
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Rugby club owners are also probably less willing to pay the
severance packages
#Post#: 153210--------------------------------------------------
Re: Rugby does not have football’s sacking culture... yet
DIR By: Archquin
Date: April 22, 2026, 7:28 am
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We've got our own Sean Dyche - step forward James Chisholm :-)
#Post#: 153211--------------------------------------------------
Re: Rugby does not have football’s sacking culture... yet
DIR By: Rugbycat
Date: April 22, 2026, 7:44 am
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In football it has become an excuse for the owners, Leicester
city have had 8 managers since 2023, did not stop them being
relegated last night to league 1.
In rugby as T-Bone said, probably some of it is due to
compensation, and the fact that rugby is far more complex to
coach, and we are a prime example that a unplanned change of
coach, is not going to make you any better, even if the outgoing
coach is not great.
#Post#: 153213--------------------------------------------------
Re: Rugby does not have football’s sacking culture... yet
DIR By: Fearless Fred
Date: April 22, 2026, 7:46 am
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Plus there's a much smaller pool of Head Coach candidates who
are available at the required timescale as well.
#Post#: 153221--------------------------------------------------
Re: Rugby does not have football’s sacking culture... yet
DIR By: Mayor West
Date: April 22, 2026, 11:22 am
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As has been proved this season at Spurs, it’s not the manager
that needs changing, it’s the players. You can’t sack players so
to look like you’re doing something you get rid of the easiest
person to jettison.
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