Revenge of the Happy Clapper

[jgriffin]

But I sure as hell do not have the type of personality to trawl up others quotes as in this thread.

Cheap comments once again, AND still you keep denying the facts to suit your opinions

A previous troll under a new name, methinks. If you want to make personal insults go on one of the sites where that's OK.

[jgriffin]

Have we got where we are now despite Richard Cockerill and not because of him? Some may think so, but regardless of whether or not that is true I actually admire him for admitting that he got a lot of things wrong in selection and strategy in the earlier part of the season not withstanding absence of World Cup players. It's never a bad idea to do a U turn when you're going the wrong way down a one way street and he did it!

I agree 100% with this post! Well written, Sir.

[Crivvens]

The HC qualification to Qtr Final is not as easy as everyone seems to think .

You only have to consider who we were up against Ulster (finalists ) and Clermont (very nearly finalists) and we only just had all our guys back from WC and still carrying mental scars from that and still pleanty of injuries.

I think if we were playing those guys at this stage of the season we would make a better fist of it.

This season is a once every 4 year aberration and where we are now is just amazing - even if we do not win the next final- i do not think the club could have done much better under the circiumstances.

As Meat Loaf once sang, I couldn't have said it better myself.

[APJones]

The only thing I have regaring Cockers decisions during the season is that concerning Horacio. Cockers decision was made several months ago - salary cap reasons maybe not just the new southern hemisphere competition keeping him out of playing for us ?
I can't see why we can't hire Horacio for half a season - lets face it - the main part of our senior squad were missing for about half the season this year and we will still lose our 6N players next season .
I just hope we don't lose anyone through injury in the SA tour this summer .

[thebearisstilldeano]

Just for the record I may be a Happy Clapper but not THE Happy Clapper, and I'm too happy to be hurt by digs anyway (pre-emptive denial of personal comments before I get accused and flamed by Jgriffin )

However it did come to me this afternoon, pondering the passions and deep seated views expressed on the forum, that there is a poem which some of us should perhaps bear in mind when we post - after all it is just a game.

Verse two is particularly good I think.

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!



And that ladies and gentermem endeth the sermon for tonight.

[Bill W (2)]

I am told that Mr. Kipling makes exceedingly good cakes!

[Big Dai]

So often in British society the man who gets you out of a mess is regarded as a hero..............The real trick is not to get into the mess in the first place!

[exiledandy]

I was very doubtful about RC and MOC coaching abilities and I have not forgotten the dismissal exit from the HC this season. However just as I held them responsible for that, and the poor start of the season as they are in charge, then, by the same logic I willingly give them credit for the turn around as well.

Win or lose on 26 May they have earned the right to take us through another season.

There is still a nagging doubt that our success has been due to some senior players exerting much more authority rather than the work of RC / MOC but that is irrelevant for now. You don't change a winning team and RC /MOC are part of that team an deserve all our suuport.

For me come Jan 2013 I expect us to be in HC Q-Final (and in top 4 in AP). If we are not I reserve the right to return to the topic.

It is worth remembering as well that our HC pool turned out to have been much more impressive than we gave it credit at the time. In retrospect losing as we did to Ulster and Clermont, with the squad in relative disaray post WC doesn't look like quite such a poor porformance in the cold light of the rest of the season. Don't get me wrong, the loss at Ravenhill was particularly galling, but perhaps it was misleading as well!

[Hull Fan]

I doubted RC & MOC but fair play they and the players have turned the season round, i agree that the coaching team may have earned the right to take the team forward next season. I personally would like to see Oz in the coaching set up but am happy to carry on with things as they stand.

Well done RC & MOC.

Well done the players as well, you really have shown over the last couple of months a real pride in the shirt that many (including myself) thought was missing earlier in the season.

Bring on the Quins!

[Kinoulton]

I am 99% happy clapper, and only had one post of doubt this year.

However, it is essential to have healthy debate, so I'm glad that the doom merchants arrive in great numbers to cross swords with the likes of me.

I have two gripes though:

1) There is no need to get personal about people like Cockers. He has a hard job to do, on a finite budget, and he has a Tigers following who demand exceptional results.

2) The downplaying of positive results is nonsense. There is no point pontificating about what we should be doing on paper, when the actual battle is played out there in the muck and bullets. You and I might think Tigers are playing against the worst team in the world, but we're not out there, are we? It's 15 versus 15 and if our mob run out winning by 1 point and have not been able to do so playing expansive rugby, they still earned their cash by grabbing the points. We're watching rugby, not Showaddywaddy.

[hugh78]

This piece from Brian Moore is interesting (although he is as likely to spout sense as nonsense, just like the next person/forum user!)

"..Cockerill was aked whether Ford or Flood would start in the Final. Cockerill said it would be Flood and added that at Leicester you had to earn the right to start not over a few games but over a few seasons. That forthright comment showed what Leicester as a club are all about and is one of the reasons they have sustained success where others have fallen short.
What some pundits appear not to understand is how selection, particularly the dropping of teammates, affects morale. Bowing to the siren calls to select the last player to have a few good games creates resentment and not just in the player overlooked.....Furthermore, the constant desire to look for something new demonstrates lack of perception and an unrealistic expectation that present problems are easily overcome by substituting the latest, shiniest fix."

Picking up on the Kipling poem from earlier - susbstitute the word 'man' with 'Tiger' on the very last line and that's something like the point that is being made. Long may it continue!

[Kinoulton]

That's the point. Any old git like me can sit in a pub and write on a beer mat what my starting XV would be, but that's fantasy that will never be tested in real life.

RC has to tell players they've been left out, and do so in a way that will have them come out fighting for a place on Monday's training. He has to construct sections of people who will work together to obtain a result, has to tell selected players that they have several specific jobs to do and some of it won't be to their liking.

[GS]

It's a tough world out there. If you're not good at your job you lose it, whatever your job is. My gripe, pre-Exeter, was that the best squad in the Prem weren't performing to their potential, the first half of the Aironi home game being the lowest point. Something happened after the Exeter away game. There was the team only meeting on the pitch after the game and another meeting behind closed doors on the following Monday at Oval Park.

We don't know what was said, and neither should we, but the result of that week at Oval Park was an away win at Sarries when we were expecting another thrashing. In his post match interview Cockers said that they would be looking at the positives of the game and not the negatives, something that had been raised previously on the forum. Since then the team has played some sublime rugby, setting the record for successive try bonus points - showing their full potential. The use of the replacements has changed too. Believe it or not I just want the team (and I include everyone involved in getting 15 players onto the pitch) to play to their potential.

I'm a happy Tigers fan, and I think Big Dai talks a lot of sense too.

[jgriffin]

It's a tough world out there. If you're not good at your job you lose it, whatever your job is. My gripe, pre-Exeter, was that the best squad in the Prem weren't performing to their potential, the first half of the Aironi home game being the lowest point. Something happened after the Exeter away game. There was the team only meeting on the pitch after the game and another meeting behind closed doors on the following Monday at Oval Park.

We don't know what was said, and neither should we, but the result of that week at Oval Park was an away win at Sarries when we were expecting another thrashing. In his post match interview Cockers said that they would be looking at the positives of the game and not the negatives, something that had been raised previously on the forum. Since then the team has played some sublime rugby, setting the record for successive try bonus points - showing their full potential. The use of the replacements has changed too. Believe it or not I just want the team (and I include everyone involved in getting 15 players onto the pitch) to play to their potential.

I'm a happy Tigers fan, and I think Big Dai talks a lot of sense too.

That's exactly my view, and I'm happy with the change that definitely occurred between Exeter and the next couple of games (I was there, Exeter hurt!).
Sorry BTW for people who think that disagreement is 'flamed'.

[Zdzislaw]

I doubt whether Cockerill's `learning' had anything to do with the drivel his critics were posting to this forum. Like any great coach / DoR he took responsibility for fielding what he thought were the best equipped and available players. He and Matt O'Connor have done a brilliant job for a third consecutive season.