Cockers on the move!!

[mightymouse]

As I recall prior to Cockers the players were lazy in training and “weak” mentally and physically... he changed that mindset in his very first training session
Disappointed if that’s the stuff John Barclay has written because he is someone who I generally admire an£ I think Cockers contribution should be recognised even if one feels it has limitations

[sam16111986]

When with us Cocker was an integral part of the success under Pat Howard, he took over as the main man when our team was at a low ebb and just not performing, he with the help of Matt O'Connor improved our results we moved up the table and won the Premiership also getting to the Heineken Cup Final that year losing in my opinion only due to injuries. Subsequent years saw annual trips to Twickenham with a fair share of victories, many young players were given opportunities in the first team and some held onto the position others were unable to displace the incumbent few of those that moved on became established internationals or even Premiership players.
Cocker is a shouty man but he is more than that, he has a great belief in a work ethic and I believe is intolerant of those that he feels are not giving 100%. When he arrived at Toulon there was an immediate improvement in performance, the same was evident when he arrived in Edinburgh, the last season was badly affected by the pandemic, and by Scottish international players being isolated away from their clubs, hardly helping results. Budget cuts and restrictions would also have had a detrimental affect on the war forward for Edinburgh. The article by John Barclay to me seems to be by a bitter man who spent much of his brief time at Edinburgh on the sick list and then was disappointed when he was not offered the new contract he desired.
I believe Cocker will soon find another club and they, whoever it is will climb the table and if he has a Board of Directors that back him they will achieve success.

Agree with much of what you said other than the bolded section. Cockers never showed much interest in developing the next generation if they weren't forcing themselves forward and always likely to be world beaters. The lack of development of the long term club players is something we missed before Murphy and now Borthwick are bringing it back. A poor academy set up didn't help him either.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Cockers is an exceptional coach, he won't take anything less than maximum effort and he's as honest as the day is long. His focus is always the next game though and that's why I think you need a DOR above him, someone that can look at the bigger picture and the long term plan. Tigers eventually stagnated under Cockers and the interference of the board didn't help matters. At Edinburgh it seems to be similar where he was expected to drive more creative rugby, whilst still winning but without his key players for significant parts of the season and no budget to work with.

He could go to somewhere like Rouen in ProD2 where Richard Hill has just left and no doubt be roaring success as the top dog. Otherwise an ambitious club with an ideas man as DOR who Cockers could work under as head coach would be ideal. Don't like saying it but Northampton would be a good fit adding some steel to Boyd's finesse. There's not that many jobs going at the moment though, well unless he's open to heading down to Australia where someone like the Western Force could really do with him.

[JP14]

Don’t think Cockers would be interested or suited to coaching in the Southern Hemisphere.

[jgriffin]

Think it was MOC aka 'Black Door' who had no interest in other than the first XV, hence the nickname at Leinster, over 25s only admitted.

[Dokie]

Think it was MOC aka 'Black Door' who had no interest in other than the first XV, hence the nickname at Leinster, over 25s only admitted.

I think there’s a lot of misguided nostalgia for Cockers on here. He clearly failed to bring through the next generation of players from our academy, who went to pastures new because older journeymen were preferred. The preference for those journeymen resulted in our decline that we’ve all witnessed.
Off the top of my head, Clare, Twelvetrees, Wells, Thacker, Tizquali, Purdy, Humphries, Odogwu, Williams, Maksymiw, Umaga all went elsewhere. Some have since returned. Please feel free to add to the list. I’m sure there are others.

[RagingBull]

Out of all those players listed how many are really misses?
Clare and Wells IMO clearly benefitted from their time in the Champ.
Twelvetrees had nearly 50 games for us by the age of 22, and was behind a player many would put in the top 3 12's to play for Tigers in Allen.
Thacker had 70 caps and left during MOC reign not Cockers.
Tiz was alright at the time but he was behind in Prime Cole and Mulipola anyway.
Purdy potentially one we missed IMO.
Humphries been a squad player for Worcester
Odogwu didn't work at Sale either
Williams seems to be mainly considered a championship player currently
Maksymiw has done what extactly?
Umaga I believe wanted more money than was considered the baseline for new academy signings and was a contract issue. (Unless you are saying that Cockers should have played

Reality is IMO at the time the academy wasn't that great regardless, we had major issue with the way grassroots was run and it was changed up for a reason.
Cockers was hired to win games not produce players, and his sacking showed it. So he was pressured to look more at squads for now rather than later.

His biggest downfall was not getting in a proper coaching staff. Think we went from Burke to Mauger without a backs coach.
I think the call by whoever to replace the likes of Parling for Fitzgerald cause us more issue.

But anyway we had eventually ripped the band aid and look like we invested in proper stiches now.

[Dokie]

Out of all those players listed how many are really misses?
Clare and Wells IMO clearly benefitted from their time in the Champ.
Twelvetrees had nearly 50 games for us by the age of 22, and was behind a player many would put in the top 3 12's to play for Tigers in Allen.
Thacker had 70 caps and left during MOC reign not Cockers.
Tiz was alright at the time but he was behind in Prime Cole and Mulipola anyway.
Purdy potentially one we missed IMO.
Humphries been a squad player for Worcester
Odogwu didn't work at Sale either
Williams seems to be mainly considered a championship player currently
Maksymiw has done what extactly?
Umaga I believe wanted more money than was considered the baseline for new academy signings and was a contract issue. (Unless you are saying that Cockers should have played

Reality is IMO at the time the academy wasn't that great regardless, we had major issue with the way grassroots was run and it was changed up for a reason.
Cockers was hired to win games not produce players, and his sacking showed it. So he was pressured to look more at squads for now rather than later.

His biggest downfall was not getting in a proper coaching staff. Think we went from Burke to Mauger without a backs coach.
I think the call by whoever to replace the likes of Parling for Fitzgerald cause us more issue.

But anyway we had eventually ripped the band aid and look like we invested in proper stiches now.

What you’re missing is that these players came through our academy, with Tigers DNA, and were denied opportunities to develop as core first team players by Cockers’ consistent selection of 25+ aged journeymen.
Which type of player would you want on a filthy Friday night in Sale or Newcastle in Jan/Feb? One with their heart and soul in the club or one of Cockers’ boys?

[RagingBull]

I'm sorry but it should if they are good enough not just because they are academy.

So who were Cockers boys exactly?

[kpj tiger]

I'm sorry but it should if they are good enough not just because they are academy.

Agreed I think its fair to say Cockers isn't the best coach for bringing youth through but the academy was hardly producing many top talents at the time

[kpj tiger]

Lets not forget the players he did bring through the likes of Manu, Ford, YBY, Slater, Balmain and Thacker as well as bringing in young talents from other clubs like Genge, Miles Benjamin, Owen Williams, Dom Barrow and McGuigan

[jgriffin]

I'm sorry but it should if they are good enough not just because they are academy.

So who were Cockers boys exactly?

From my contacts of that time, flavour of the month was a MOC thing, as was neglecting anything under the first XV. There were players who were always used (YBY) and players who were not flavour - 12T was one. Cockers was renowned for not having favourites but did have projects (e.g. Genge), but his restricted gameplan (adopted heartily by Chiefs) meant some figured more than others. Some of the star players did not like Cockers work ethic and gameplan (hence Mauger).
Tigers were behind the times in 2012 already, in terms of defence and attack patterns. They needed fresh coaches and players, but had to do so on a restricted budget - hence my attribution of failure to the BoD, something they have acknowledged themselves.
Cockers is an agent for change, and as such will usually have a limited timespan; BoD types never want to pay up for the future when success is happening, and think they can get someone cheap to keep the machine ticking over. It's the same in education: hire someone with experience and drive to innovate and grow some new areas, then push them out and get a cheap (usually an relatively new teacher, female and under 30, because they can be bullied) to run the show (that's the advice given on the QT at the Leadership college BTW).

[markharbtiger]

Jgriffin makes some good points. I think certain types of head coach/DOR perhaps have a more limited shelf life than others - any initial advantages gained are ameliorated over time as everyone (players, opponents) adjusts accordingly.
On reflection, I think that is what makes our recruitment of Sinfield so interesting, as he offers the potential of generating change from within.

[DeadlyDunc]

I'm sorry but it should if they are good enough not just because they are academy.

So who were Cockers boys exactly?

I lost a fair bit of faith the year we signed 3-4 players from Trevino who were all distinctly average at best.

Recruitment at the time was awful and as I’ve said before, cockers did well at the start of his time but effectively we got gradually worse under his watch.

IMO he inherited a great squad largely built by Paddy Howard and year by year ran it into the ground. Whether some decisions were his or MOC or AN Other (Glynn, Cohen etc) the responsibility for performance and results was his and he must have had a big day in recruitment.

[sam16111986]

Lets not forget the players he did bring through the likes of Manu, Ford, YBY, Slater, Balmain and Thacker as well as bringing in young talents from other clubs like Genge, Miles Benjamin, Owen Williams, Dom Barrow and McGuigan

Manu and Ford were prodigies at a young age and were blindly obviously going to be internationals from the age of 16. Less development more not messing it up in regards to them.

Barrow, McGuigan and Benjamin had all played for the first teams at the clubs they came from. We did not bring them through we just acquired them early in their career.

Owen Williams tore us a new 'un in the LV and we signed him on the back of that. Some rare good recruitment but yes we brought him through well.

YBY made his debut two years before Cockers became head coach. He and his brother Tom have both credited Meyer with helping develop them previously. Tom would have benefited from Cockers once he came back from Notts.

Balmain left because he wasn't trusted to do the job by Cockers and is endemic of the problem. Cockers was not good at using the club generated club level players. Rather than invest time into developing Balmain into am alternative to Cole he'd leave Cole on for 80 minutes and use Balmain only in the case of injury. Balmain has been a rock solid but unspectacular option for Gloucester for years now. He could have done that here for us. That's where Borthwick is doing a great job, he's developing a squad not a team.

Slater and Thacker yep they came through on his watch.

[johnthegriff]

Ben Youngs had made his debut as a teenager under Pat Howard but only due to injury, it was Cocker that picked him regularly for the first team, as he did with brother Tom when he became good enough. Dan Cole established himself as first choice over Castro under Cocker, Ed Slater selected and developed under Cocker, I too rated Balmain but it was Aaron Mauger who didn't. Many of the youngsters who left at age 21 ish would have just blocked the way for younger players behind them had they stayed, they would not have got regular game time and would not have developed as some have. It is fair to say that a 28 year old who has been playing regularly will be a better player than he was at 21 and may well be worth a first team place with us or another Premiership club. Young players get their chance and if they are good enough will stay in the team if they are not they leave to gain experience and to mature.
Dokie lists players who were selected at A League level and some who did get Premiership chances but were not retained or who chose to leave. Umaga for instance opted to leave Tigers at age 18 for reasons best known to himself it has taken several years for him to come through at Wasps. Odogwu failed to establish himself at Sale and it is only now, using a phrase posted by someone else, when he has become a 25+ journeyman that he is getting regular Premiership game time.