A Question To The Anti-Cockers Brigade

[ourla]

Kend By the same token, your definition of success is clearly much lower than mine.

If the summit of your ambition is that, fair enough, it's not mine.

What are your ambitions? What would you deem to be "success"?

[Smudge]

A third European Cup would be nice.

Then a world club championship win over the best in the SH.

I want WR to be the fortress it was.

Prem Champions four years on the trot.

Most of all, let us have great, entertaining, free flowing, leading edge rugby

Teams with more than one game plan. Heads up, champagne stuff.

That will do for a start.

[mol2]

The reason Deano won't get to be England coach is the bloodgate scandal for which he has been punished but the fall out will mean he is unlikely to get the England post.

The comparisons with Cockers are to an extent valid in that he took over and took forward a good side that was maturing. Like Deano his limited experience as a coach has left him struggling with moving the side forward as the tactics and methods he brought from his playing days become less current. This is where Deano struggled, and from what I gather wasn't flexible in terms of listening to those in the club who tried to help. Since then he's been elsewhere honed his skills at other sides and come back a better coach for it.

For me top flight players, don't always make good coaches. Those that go straight in at the top level do OK for a year or two then struggle until they have learned their trade. Can any coach gain those skills without working and gaining experience at other clubs? Cockers has some experience in France as player coach.

[h's dad]

Actually Chalkie was a friend of mine and he was the best coach England never had.
The reason he was never offered the appointment was simple. In those days you had to have been capped by England as the basic qualification.

He was a hell of a coach though even in those days.

Up to the time things went wrong for Deano at Tigers he would have been a shoe-in for England but the opportunity didn't arise.

I understand Chalkie lost out to Mike Davis who was followed by Dick Greenwood but could you just recap the international playing pedigrees of the immediate predecessors John Elders, John Burgess and Peter Colston and Dick's successor Martin Green?
I thought there were other reasons Chalkie lost out to Davis.

[h's dad]

A third European Cup would be nice.

Then a world club championship win over the best in the SH.

I want WR to be the fortress it was.

Prem Champions four years on the trot.

Most of all, let us have great, entertaining, free flowing, leading edge rugby

Teams with more than one game plan. Heads up, champagne stuff.

That will do for a start.

And apparently anything else is abject failure.

Too much free flowing rugby is also known as athletics.

[tigerburnie]

A third European Cup would be nice.

Then a world club championship win over the best in the SH.

I want WR to be the fortress it was.

Prem Champions four years on the trot.

Most of all, let us have great, entertaining, free flowing, leading edge rugby

Teams with more than one game plan. Heads up, champagne stuff.

That will do for a start.

You're forgetting the Harlem Globetrotters brought their own pet ref, Tigers don't have one of those.

[kend]

A third European Cup would be nice.

Then a world club championship win over the best in the SH.

I want WR to be the fortress it was.

Prem Champions four years on the trot.

Most of all, let us have great, entertaining, free flowing, leading edge rugby

Teams with more than one game plan. Heads up, champagne stuff.

That will do for a start.

And how, in an environment that is designed to level out the competition through financial capping, do you suggest these are to be achieved? The core constraint is money to pay players (both in terms of ability and depth of squad) How exactly does a 'General' overcome those constraints? Oratory? Sweets after training?

It's not a strategy, it's fantasy rugby.

You misunderstand my point about England coaching - I was pointing out that being on the England list isn't a necessary condition for being an effective coach. Incidentally I agree with you about Chalkie White, but my occluded memory tells me he was a contender for the England role in the mid (or perhaps late) 70's? I thought the perceived wisdom was he had offended too many at the RFU at the time. Sadly my father is no longer around to ask!

[ourla]

A third European Cup would be nice.

Then a world club championship win over the best in the SH.

I want WR to be the fortress it was.

Prem Champions four years on the trot.

Most of all, let us have great, entertaining, free flowing, leading edge rugby

Teams with more than one game plan. Heads up, champagne stuff.

That will do for a start.

Yeah and I want a penthouse in Mayfair, a Ferrari and a long legged blonde 25 year old on my arm. But let's be realistic shall we. Try again.

For me a getting further in Europe would be the sort of success I would like to see. I think we've performed well in recent years but I think we could have done better with the team we had at the time. That does not mean I see Prem success as a given. For me given our injuries this year I would be happy to make the play offs with most of the first XV on the field. Then we could see how could or bad we are.

[beech]

Without taking anything away from the good days we had when Deano was in charge I cannot believe that some have forgotten the last season he was here. At the end of January 2004 our record for the season was:

Played: 21 Won: 8 Drawn: 1 Lost: 12

Looking at the number of appearances it is clear that we didn't have anything like the injury problems we have today. I would also suggest that the competition is much greater today than it was.


Having been at Bath for our 45:0 thrashing I was reminded of being at Ulster for the 33:0 defeat when Deano was DOR.

[Smudge]

Yeah and I want a penthouse in Mayfair, a Ferrari and a long legged blonde 25 year old on my arm. But let's be realistic shall we. Try again.

As I told my Sons and my parents told me, if you don't aim for the top from the
start, you will never get there. If you want all that stuff you have to go for it.
many people do achieve it so why not you?

Ambition is a great thing which feeds upon it'self.People driven by ambition spread it around them and it is infectious.

If the DOR is not ambitious at Tigers, where can he be?

[h's dad]

As I told my Sons and my parents told me, if you don't aim for the top from the
start, you will never get there. If you want all that stuff you have to go for it.
many people do achieve it so why not you?

Ambition is a great thing which feeds upon it'self.People driven by ambition spread it around them and it is infectious.

If the DOR is not ambitious at Tigers, where can he be?

So Smudge, do you regard yourself as a failure in sport and life or are you the ruler of the galaxy along with a record number of England caps?

[Tigerswin]

I have read the forum frequently as a guest and although driven to distraction at times by the amount of drivel posted, there are on occasions enough sense spoken by others to continue reading. But the constant criticism of Richard Cockerill has forced me to register with the forum.
There is no doubt that everyone is entitled to their opinion but the repeated lambasting of an individual by particular posters is becoming a vendetta, which is not only becoming boring but also an unhealthy obsession by those who continue with the calls for Mr Cockerill to be sacked.
Firstly let's address the plan a plan b rubbish. Surely plan a is to win the win the game and plan b is to win the game. There are surprisingly 2 teams in a game of rugby and one team can only play as well as the other team lets it...to simplify it to plan a and plan b is unrealistic...yes there are some aspects of the game which can always be improved. But plan a/b ...what utter rubbish. Secondly the injury crisis....As a head coach of an amateur club, I tend to work on a few aspects from the previous weeks game which can be improved, alongside the default practise of skills more specific to forwards and backs, I doubt that the coaches do basically much different, apart from their conditioning , facilities, analysis of past performance, study of future performance, coaching experience, playing experience, managing experience is infinitely better than anything that happens at the club at which I coach...I very much doubt that the training that Tigers do has any affect on injuries whatsoever , there is no evidence/information that any of the current injuries have happened at training. Do you think that the players are taking part in heavy contact at training following games tough games, intentionally risking injury! Thirdly players who have left being blamed on cockers...let's take Thomas Waldrom for example...he had plenty of game time over his time at Leicester, however he often was lacking in defence and work rate , plus was seemingly worked out by opposition coaches. There was no freezing out, Jordan Cranes stats on the majority of the aspects of the game were consistently better than Waldrom when crane was fit... But some people only look at one aspect! To continue to blame cockers for players leaving is not only naive but also suggesting that he is unprofessional.
If you support Tigers you support every aspect, every coach, every player at Leicester Tigers ... Unconditionally! If not it was suggested by another of my ' favourite' posters that people will go to support Northampton...may I suggest that I personally wish that a few of the posters please go to support another rugby team or another sport if all you can do is abuse, criticise and insult highly qualified and skilled professionals! Enough is enough...

[Ian Cant]

Great reply. Poor Cockerill has hardly ever had a full strength team to choose from. Last season to get so close to the Prem Final, only losing to Saints through players being exhausted at the end of the game and due to injuries no real cover in major positions. It will be a while before Tigers hit their straps this season but you can guarantee RC will remain determined to get results until some of the injured return. My only criticism is, why sign injured players!!!

[Tiger_in_Birmingham]

Then a world club championship win over the best in the SH.

At lease one of your ambitions doesn't exist and never will. Explains a lot really...

[Smudge]

At lease one of your ambitions doesn't exist and never will.

There have been several moves to bring this about. After the world club sevens
this is the obvious progression. Again , Ambition!.
We would have to win it to be the best club side in the world.
Who wouldn't want to see it? Who would bet against it?

Perhaps this shows more about your lack of ambition?