Is it time to thank Cockers for his efforts? - Part 2

[Cogload]

A fair post is that. The salary cap is a total red herring, as other sides have managed to produce teams which are effectively competing in Europe, and strangely enough the salary cap does not stop players managing to protect the ball at the breakdown, push in a scrummage, use an overlap or pass the ball to a bloke at pace, and in front of them.

Loffreda was cut from underneath. His "sacking" still rankles.

[Icarus]

What role does Peter Wheeler have these days? I always thought he was de facto Director of Rugby with Cockerill Head coach. But I may be wrong perhaps Wheeler just sits on premiership committees these days.

My view is you need:

A team motivator (Woodward in the past, but not now) - who makes sure all the bits are coming together.

A "think out of the box" tactician - planning how to defeat sides with novel moves.

Specialist coaches for the scrum, breakdown the backs and kicking (some may have more than one job)

And a goal kicker you can rely on.

Easy really.

[Crumblies]

I cannot believe those who still give unequivocal support to Richard Cocckerill as our DOR on what basis? yes under is stewardship with we have won the premiership twice. But once again I ask the question was this because of him or in spite of him.

For me over the last 3 years Richard Cockerill has repeatedly shown errors of judgement. Now everybody makes mistakes but it is so important to acknowledge those mistakes, learn from them and change. Not just in word but in deed.

I can go back and quote numerous examples over the last 3 years but just two recent ones spring to mind:

When I read in a paper that Richrd Cockerill is advocating Matt Smith be chosen at outside centre for England I question his judgement.

When he switches back to selecting Scott Hamilton ahead of Nial Morris I question his judgement.

[TigerAlex]

The salary cap is a total red herring, as other sides have managed to produce teams which are effectively competing in Europe, and strangely enough the salary cap does not stop players managing to protect the ball at the breakdown, push in a scrummage, use an overlap or pass the ball to a bloke at pace, and in front of them.

And which English teams would these be? Saracens and Quins are the only two English teams who are realistically still in the HC this season and they have had nowhere near the same level of disruption due to international call ups and injury. As others have pointed out, since the internationals returned from the RWC, every game has been a 'must win' game. This gets tiring. A lot of the players who played against Ulster have not had a proper break since the start of the season because of it (unlike Ulster's players who have had the luxury of being rested for a few games). If you think that this has no bearing on anything, you're delusional.

The thing that made me angry is that the players seemed to give up in the second half. That is not a coaching problem (and for what it's worth, two soft tries aside, I thought they looked ok in most of the first half, all things considered).

[Bowden Tiger]

I am not surprised at the attacks on our coaches. It happened with Tony Russ, Bob Dwyer, Dean Richards, Pat Howard and now Richard Cockerill.
As soon as we hit a bad patch the clamour comes for the removal of the coaches. Give it a rest!
At this time we need to go back to basics, do the simple things right and develop our strengths. We should ignore the press, and who takes any notice of them anyway, and play the 'old way'. Give the opposition nothing- no room, no ball, and more importantly no points.
We can still get something out of this season. So let's have less moaning, constructive criticism only, and get behind the club that means so much to us all.

[Zdzislaw]

Well said Bowden Tiger! Your's is the most reasoned observation here. Most of the others belong on a soccer ground terrace.

[WiggoTiger]

The salary cap is a total red herring, as other sides have managed to produce teams which are effectively competing in Europe, and strangely enough the salary cap does not stop players managing to protect the ball at the breakdown, push in a scrummage, use an overlap or pass the ball to a bloke at pace, and in front of them.

And which English teams would these be? Saracens and Quins are the only two English teams who are realistically still in the HC this season and they have had nowhere near the same level of disruption due to international call ups and injury. As others have pointed out, since the internationals returned from the RWC, every game has been a 'must win' game. This gets tiring. A lot of the players who played against Ulster have not had a proper break since the start of the season because of it (unlike Ulster's players who have had the luxury of being rested for a few games). If you think that this has no bearing on anything, you're delusional.

The thing that made me angry is that the players seemed to give up in the second half. That is not a coaching problem (and for what it's worth, two soft tries aside, I thought they looked ok in most of the first half, all things considered).

But unfortunately we haven't won them!! Struggled against poor sides Sale and Wasps to scrape wins when the TBP should have been a dead cert! Whats tiring 'must win games' or honest thoughts about how poor we are?

[TigerAlex]

But unfortunately we haven't won them!! Struggled against poor sides Sale and Wasps to scrape wins when the TBP should have been a dead cert! Whats tiring 'must win games' or honest thoughts about how poor we are?

....

We haven't lost a Premiership game since the internationals came back from the World Cup....

And as for Sale being poor, am I missing something or were they above us in the table before we played them? And I would hardly call 29-11 'scraping a win'. It wasn't 4 tries, but it was still a dominant display and, frankly, do you expect cohesion in the backs when your 10 is really a 12 and your 12 is playing his first game in three months? (I have given my reasons previously of why Staunton didn't start at 10 with Billy at 12). Had Flood been available, I would have expected a bonus point win.

[Bristol Tiger]

The salary cap is a total red herring, as other sides have managed to produce teams which are effectively competing in Europe, and strangely enough the salary cap does not stop players managing to protect the ball at the breakdown, push in a scrummage, use an overlap or pass the ball to a bloke at pace, and in front of them.

And which English teams would these be? Saracens and Quins are the only two English teams who are realistically still in the HC this season and they have had nowhere near the same level of disruption due to international call ups and injury. As others have pointed out, since the internationals returned from the RWC, every game has been a 'must win' game. This gets tiring. A lot of the players who played against Ulster have not had a proper break since the start of the season because of it (unlike Ulster's players who have had the luxury of being rested for a few games). If you think that this has no bearing on anything, you're delusional.

The thing that made me angry is that the players seemed to give up in the second half. That is not a coaching problem (and for what it's worth, two soft tries aside, I thought they looked ok in most of the first half, all things considered).

But unfortunately we haven't won them!! Struggled against poor sides Sale and Wasps to scrape wins when the TBP should have been a dead cert! Whats tiring 'must win games' or honest thoughts about how poor we are?

On salary cap - as has already been posted - Ulster survive on about the same budget (if not slightly less) than Tigers. We can use the salary cap as a general explanation of why Irish and French sides are doing better in Europe ... but we can't use it to explain away a mauling at Ulster (a head to head record this season that puts them well ahead).

Ulster played better, had a winning game plan, had more passion and desire to win and always looked like winners. This wasn't because they had spent more money on players.

[TigerAlex]

On salary cap - as has already been posted - Ulster survive on about the same budget (if not slightly less) than Tigers. We can use the salary cap as a general explanation of why Irish and French sides are doing better in Europe ... but we can't use it to explain away a mauling at Ulster (a head to head record this season that puts them well ahead).

Ulster played better, had a winning game plan, had more passion and desire to win and always looked like winners. This wasn't because they had spent more money on players.

This is where the run of 'must-win' games come in. For example, if Tigers had had the luxury of being able to rest Toby Flood against Sale, he wouldn't have injured his knee in that match and would in all likelihood have been available to play against Ulster. Not saying it would have changed the result, but it would have meant having a specialist fly-half and a centre pairing that had a fair bit of game time together (and fly-half cover on the bench too). It's just an example to illustrate that it can make a difference (I know he could have been injured in training- it's just an example).

It's moot anyway. Ulster played well, but Tigers could have won if they'd played well for 80 minutes. They didn't. As I said, they didn't play too badly in the first half and the half time score could easily have been 10-10. The most worrying thing for me (aside from the whole giving up bit) is the wide defence, or lack thereof. It was far too easy for Trimble to score. This is worrying because it has been an issue with whichever team has been playing and even when they've been playing well. I would definitely echo calls for a specialist defence coach.

[brook]

I do not advocate the sacking of RC because it seems ridiculous to judge a man's efforts this season when he has been hampered by the World Cup and unforseen injuries to key players.
However the biggest failing on Friday night was his inability to change things at half time. Was it Clough that said something along the lines of "a great manager earns his salary in the ten minutes at halftime"?
The first half was disappointing but Ulster were not out of sight. After 10/15 minutes with the coaches Tigers just got worse in a game they had to win.
That to me is less than impressive work by the coaches(rather like the ref's performance!)

[sapajo]

Some understandable antagonism between us Tigers supporters on this thread. However, one thing we all have in common and can all agree upon is our love and passion for Tigers.

Naturally, we all want to get behind our team now more than ever, but we disagree on how best to do this but whilst we may not agree we must at least respect each others point of view as all our opinions are equally valid.

We appear to be fundamentally split down distinct lines of thinking ie

Its an understandable blip and all will be well in the end
We urgently need player and/or coaching changes
We have no problems other than blasphemous disloyal desenting supporters

Change is constant and inevitable in rugby as in all things in life. Tigers as has been demonstrated are not somehow magically immune from it. Indeed we have and continue to be at the very receiving end of not doing it.

The big question is why some of us still reject the need for Tigers to change and deny the benefits that embracing change will bring us?

I believe the truth is that some of us are still in denial. Fact is that if we do not change we will continue to suffer the inevitable consequences and get left behind in the distant wake of our competitors

[bc]

I am not surprised at the attacks on our coaches. It happened with Tony Russ, Bob Dwyer, Dean Richards, Pat Howard and now Richard Cockerill.
As soon as we hit a bad patch the clamour comes for the removal of the coaches. Give it a rest!
At this time we need to go back to basics, do the simple things right and develop our strengths. We should ignore the press, and who takes any notice of them anyway, and play the 'old way'. Give the opposition nothing- no room, no ball, and more importantly no points.
We can still get something out of this season. So let's have less moaning, constructive criticism only, and get behind the club that means so much to us all.

Simple, Tigers have not advanced under his tenure. Under all the others they did and I am not aware of anybody suggesting the coaches you mentioned stifled Tigers like RC has. His success has been down to players not him and he has no vision on how we should play rugby today other than bash and go. We have wasted the talent of some very good backs over the last 2 years!

[jgriffin]

A wise post, Sapajo

I did not think that RC should go. I still think - as I have done for nearly two seasons - that MOC just isn't good enough. RC needs people who are competent. In my cups last night I even shuddered at the thought of RC resigning and MOC remaining.
But this is the beginning of the end for RC unless some miracle occurs.
I reached the end of my tether against Wasps when our backs were running slow circle ball and the Wasps defence just stood off and waited for the lateral messing about to finish, then picked the ball carrier off without the gain line being breached.
I watched Leinster/Glasgow today and saw more moves in five minutes than I have seen from Tigers all season. Both sides ran from depth onto the ball at angles and created gaps.
We have a lot of talented players, some great players, and some real talent coming through. I don't think the players lack passion, I think some may have lost faith in the coaching and tactics, and that the cracks are showing on the field in loss of confidence.

This is NOT moaning, but despairing.

[Pete]

As soon as we hit a bad patch the clamour comes for the removal of the coaches.

It's not 'bad' and it's certainly not a 'patch'. Tigers have been in very slow decline for several years because the type of rugby needed for success has moved on, whereas Tigers (and England) have stayed where they traditionally always were. This is a coaching problem.

I have every faith in the players' ability to be even more successful with more imaginative coaching.