Where's Geordie?

[wellstiger]

But back to the topic - Where's Geordie???
Where's Walley???
Where's a winning Tigers team ???

[trendylfj]

I have rarely called for some one to lose their job, except Simon Cohen who will still be in post at the end of the century, but sorry Geordie, you have to move on to another job. When I listened to him on RL on the way home from the game, his comment regarding the performance of the team were a nonsense. As one of the few 100 fans who saw both of the first 2 games live I cannot see how he thinks there was any improvement at all, If we are trying to play the game at pace then the most important position is SH and the selection of Ben White ahead of Shazam or Simmons beggars belief. He first looked one way and then the other so many times any championship defence would have been able to cope quite easily. It was as though he had been told to pass only to particular players and he didn't know which side they were and he did that in both games. I wont comment about his kicking as he wasn't alone in being very poor in that department. He is only 21 and will improve with more game time but is he really the best available? How we are going to cope when Shazam has gone at Xmas and we enter the 6 nations period I dread to think.

So I am sorry to join the "Geordie has go brigade" but it is how I now feel - role on Borthwick taking charge.

[wellstiger]

Pre match chat with Bayfield -
We are fitter than last season. We are missing key players - we have players injured.
Re Borthwick
I cannot comment but we are always looking for options to add to the squad.

( all para Phrased)

Conclusion - for me -
Worked hard on fitness closed season "cause we lost games in the last 20"
Borthwick may or may not be joining after his break from WC duty
We are still looking to add to the caching staff.

[wellstiger]

Just as an aside - If we are always looking - Mr Austin Healey has all the answers

[kend]

If he gets moved to DoR with Borthwick as Head Coach then I expect he'll be out of the firing line.

I would be delighted with Borthwick as HC, as long as he is given the freedom to instil the right culture, systems and environment.

I’m slightly puzzled by the enthusiasm for Borthwick. Undoubtedly a good (maybe great) forwards coach, but has not held a head coach position in his coaching career. He might well be great, but, once again, Tigers are buying potential rather than experience.

Murphy has quite a lot of coaching experience around him with Ford (who does have head coach experience) and Howard. If it were as simple as the right motivational words to the players or changes to the ‘environment’, I can’t help thinking those two would have sorted it.

I think Tigers released around 20 players? You have a bunch of new recruits and academy promotees fitting in to a side missing it’s most influential players. I would have thought that was a recipe for a pretty bumpy start to the season? Particularly against settled sides?

The advantage Tigers have is they will only get better with the return of their world cup players, particularly George Ford (Hansen’s comments must have added £150k to Tigers salary bill at the next contract negotiation!).

Truth is It will take time. The sort of intuitive understanding Sarries have took years to develop. Potentially even longer if you change head coach; presumably Borthwick, or whoever, would bring their own vision, coaching staff, more changes to players etc.

[sapajo]

Well its been some 3 season since Cockers was hung out to dry. Tigers have had ample time to improve but that time has been squandered by attrocious coaching and player recruitment.

At this juncture, some folks think we need more time for us to improve, yet the fact is Saints finished 7th in the 2016/17 season and 4th last season whereas we finished 4th and 11th respectively.

How come? Saints jettisioned Mallinder and West then appointed a world class coach in Chris Boyd whereas we jettisoned O'Connor and appointed Murphy.

If we had appointed a world class coach as Tigers said they would post sacking Cockers then Mauger, we would not be still in the mess we are in.

[Tiglon]

Completely agree that time is required to build to Saracens position, but as pointed out the likes of Ackerman and Boyd have provided short term gains.

The thing with time is that it has to be with the right people in charge. Murphy's been in the coaching setup for a long time, and we all know that the culture isn't what it needs to be, let alone the playing systems or coaching. I love Murphy, but he isn't Venter and he isn't going to create what's needed.

Borthwick is someone who has recent and consistent experience of being within and maintaining winning cultures at england and saracens. If he can bring even ten percent of that to Tigers we'll be in a better place.

Look at the differences in performances at Quins since Gustard moved there. Borthwick might be able to bring something similar.

With Howard we're back to the old "he had success with tigers years ago so he must be able to fix this". A load of rubbish. That's in the past and we need to look to the future.

[kend]

Well its been some 3 season since Cockers was hung out to dry. Tigers have had ample time to improve but that time has been squandered by attrocious coaching and player recruitment.

At this juncture, some folks think we need more time for us to improve, yet the fact is Saints finished 7th in the 2016/17 season and 4th last season whereas we finished 4th and 11th respectively.

How come? Saints jettisioned Mallinder and West then appointed a world class coach in Chris Boyd whereas we jettisoned O'Connor and appointed Murphy.

If we had appointed a world class coach as Tigers said they would post sacking Cockers then Mauger, we would not be still in the mess we are in.

I'm not sure it is a question of needing more time. It is that no matter what course of action you take, given where we are, it will take time to resolve. It is a bit like the old joke about asking for directions and getting the response 'Well I wouldn't start from here if I were you'!

Even if you bring in the best coach in the world they are not magicians. There were questions whether Boyd's attacking rugby would transfer from the Hurricanes to the East Midlands and Ackermann had a few setbacks at Gloucester before it came together. O'Connor's appointment was a disaster and the ramifications of his sacking cast a long shadow. But hindsight is always easy.

I think there does need to be some additional patience this season because of the world cup. Once those players return and are integrated we will know where we are.

If I were on the board, I would have a pretty clear idea of the improvement I wanted to see in the structures and processes by Christmas/New Year. Perhaps more pertinently, if I were a potential buyer, I would want to see a road-map and timeline of how Tigers get back into contention. That might include a new, and proven, head coach. That is unlikely to be a decision driven by sentiment.

[wellstiger]

The above appointments only took a season before progress was made.
Small increments and where did they finish in the table.
We are at present 6-7 seasons in a downward spiral and its continuing.
Cannot see us digging out in the future season.
I am a Tiger to the core and this spiral hurts. If posters are happy turning up to games to see us loose / play in the manner we have been doing - then your a better person than me Gungha Din

[sapajo]

Well its been some 3 season since Cockers was hung out to dry. Tigers have had ample time to improve but that time has been squandered by attrocious coaching and player recruitment.

At this juncture, some folks think we need more time for us to improve, yet the fact is Saints finished 7th in the 2016/17 season and 4th last season whereas we finished 4th and 11th respectively.

How come? Saints jettisioned Mallinder and West then appointed a world class coach in Chris Boyd whereas we jettisoned O'Connor and appointed Murphy.

If we had appointed a world class coach as Tigers said they would post sacking Cockers then Mauger, we would not be still in the mess we are in.

I'm not sure it is a question of needing more time. It is that no matter what course of action you take, given where we are, it will take time to resolve. It is a bit like the old joke about asking for directions and getting the response 'Well I wouldn't start from here if I were you'!

Even if you bring in the best coach in the world they are not magicians. There were questions whether Boyd's attacking rugby would transfer from the Hurricanes to the East Midlands and Ackermann had a few setbacks at Gloucester before it came together. O'Connor's appointment was a disaster and the ramifications of his sacking cast a long shadow. But hindsight is always easy.

I think there does need to be some additional patience this season because of the world cup. Once those players return and are integrated we will know where we are.

If I were on the board, I would have a pretty clear idea of the improvement I wanted to see in the structures and processes by Christmas/New Year. Perhaps more pertinently, if I were a potential buyer, I would want to see a road-map and timeline of how Tigers get back into contention. That might include a new, and proven, head coach. That is unlikely to be a decision driven by sentiment.

Fair does, you have made some excellent points, none the less I have yet to see any semblance of a game plan or style of rugby that will bother the majority of the opposition who have all upped their game.

[ay2oh]

I don’t get this perception of 6-7 seasons of decline. Yes we have not won the league in that time but in 5 of those seasons we were in the play-offs. Last season we were terrible and the season before we finished 5th on games won. People are championing Saints but they have won nothing and have had one decent season last year when they got beat in the play-off semi which is what we did for 5 of the 7 previous seasons. I agree that the last two performances have been poor but let’s wait until we get our England boys back and judge the team around xmas time.
In saying all this I do not think that Murphy is the answer and based on his post match comments think he is watching a different game to me.

[CitizenSmiff]

Even with our internationals back (for all 7 games they'll actually play in) our squad isn't much better than anybody else's except maybe Worcester and we all saw how that went. There are no easy points any more and if something doesn't change soon we might find ourselves without many at all. On the topic of why I'm excited about Borthwick he's got potential and is apparently available, that's good enough for me in the circumstances.

[Tigerbeat]

The 6-7 games are Premiership matches with European games in addition.....?

[ABClub]

The 6-7 games are Premiership matches with European games in addition.....?

Correct. 6-7 Premiership games presuming that the England players will play in all 6 European games if fit. The 6-7 figure has been thrown around following the Alex Sanderson interview at the weekend. Sarries will be planning to be full strength for their European Cup campaign though.

An interesting side note for Sarries is that if they're about to be handed a massive point deduction in the league then their only chance to qualify for next seasons Champions Cup might be as reigning champions!

Given Tigers could realistically rest their stars for Challenge Cup games to concentrate on the league we could actually have them available for more Prem games, even taking into account the 6 Nations period and mandatory rest protocols now in place.

Personally I hope we rotate the squad for Challenge Cup games using it as a chance to get the development players game time in strong partnerships. For instance I'd be delighted to see 9.Youngs 10.Hardwick one week, followed by 9.Simmons 10.Ford the next.

[Ilsontiger1725]

We have changed coaches, we have changed players. There is however one constant during our 6-7 year decline, the chairman and chief exec. Sometimes a correlation does reveal the cause.

There is absolutely no point in calling for the sacking of Geordie because his replacement will be chosen the same old team who appointed Cockerill/Mauger, Mauger, O'Connor and Geordie himself - ie Peter Tom and the cabal he surrounds himself with.