No EOS...so who else?

Poco Loco

Every second person in here (me excluded, sorry!) seems to think EOS should go. Fair enough - so who do you think would/could/should take his place?

LuckyLloyd

I don't think he should go either.

I guess you would start by assessing the suitabillity of the likes of Bradley and Kidney.

prospect

I think he should stay also, maybe this fiasco will straighten him out on his player rotation (or lack of) policy.

But if he does go, a manager appointment structure similar to the FAI's would be ideal.

dub_skav

He has to go. His lack of player rotation/development has been shocking. Also, his tactics seem stale.

People have mentioned Jones and Ruddock as possible replacements. I think Eddie Jones would be excellent for Ireland.

I'd rather Mick McCarthy than Kidney.

Punchbowl

Yes, because the FAI are shining lights when it comes to managment selection!!

Can we all lay off Eddie? The guy has a job to do, and that is what he's doing. If his terms say he's required to reach the Semi's, can we wait and see if he does it before we release the hounds??

Oh, and if another person refers to a win in the Argy match as being a miracle, I will go postal

Poco Loco

LuckyLloyd wrote:

I don't think he should go either.

I guess you would start by assessing the suitabillity of the likes of Bradley and Kidney.

Cheika wouldn't be in with a shot would he? The coach wouldn't haven't to be Irish would they? It would be very bad if he got it - I reckon we would be begging EOS to come back!

Anyway, never mind - he's not going.
Amazing how quickly people forget games like Ireland v England in Croker. I very much doubt anyone said anything very negative about Eddie back then...

palance

Eddie Jones or Nick Mallett. Bradley's not ready yet.

Ghost Train

Even if we're out before the 2nd round, would prefer to see him stay for one or two (assuming things don't get much worse) more 6 nations.

jmayo

prospect wrote:

I think he should stay also, maybe this fiasco will straighten him out on his player rotation (or lack of) policy.

But if he does go, a manager appointment structure similar to the FAI's would be ideal.

Oh for God's sake tell me you are kidding :eek:
If you go the FAI approach you will get the cheapest "yes" man they can find pushed together with a part-time former great who is sadly very unwell.
You can't change teach an old dog new tricks as they say.
EOS willalways be conservative, becuase he is always looking at keeping hiw win/loss ratio down. Thus he will always try and pick his best team. He will not experiment. Also he will not try and bring in experience or up and coming individuals since he probably doesn't want any competition from within the management ranks.

nedward

Bring back Gatty! I actually would like to see him back, but obviously he won't. I think a top international coach like Jones or Mallett wouldn't take over a team which are at the top of their cycle of development, and which will have to be rebuilt after this World Cup and in the two years after.

I reckon we're in for a fall guy like Staunton, whether it's Eddie or a new man.

MikeHoncho

+ 1 for Eddie Jones. It won't happen though. Even if we don't get through Eddie will not step down. We will have at least one more year of him. He will want to prove himself by having one more crack at the 6 nations.

prospect

jmayo wrote:

Oh for God's sake tell me you are kidding :eek:

Of course I am. I didn't think my completely ridiculous comment even needed a smiley to indicate the high level of sarcasm.

hallelujajordan

the special one . .

. . it has to be !

If Clive can switch from Rugby to Soccer (very successfully:)) then why not the other way around !

jmayo

prospect wrote:

Of course I am. I didn't think my completely ridiculous comment even needed a smiley to indicate the high level of sarcasm.

Wasn't sure my sarcasm radar not working well at the moment.
I thought the FAI did have a "commiteeee" to look at appointment of new manager, but of course Delaney's criteria was price at end of day so waste of time.

What is EOS's salary like?
If they want to get rid of him it will cost.

subfreq

I think he should stay but the IRFU should tell him that he has to work with a Team Manager. Bring in a top ex player like Keith Wood to be the bridge with the players, media and also advise on team selection.

If EOS wont have that then he should be moved on. There is a yes men culture around him and he is effectively unchallenged or questioned in his role. I don't think it's the best set up for the Irish Team.

buck65

Daft Dave.

peckerhead

jmayo wrote:

What is EOS's salary like?
If they want to get rid of him it will cost.

Sure maybe if the old music career takes off, he won't be too bothered about the money?

Killme00

Alan Gaffney or Robbie Deans

JSK 252

George Hook!:D

nacho libre

someone from the board.ie Rugby forum:D

Marshy

Sir Clive anyone?

aidan24326

That's the problem, there isn't an obvious replacement. Like the way we're stuck with Stan due to a complete lack of options.

And is EOS any better than the hapless Stan though? I'm not so sure now. He's made a dog's dinner out of this WC to the point where we need a miracle to qualify, on the lines of Stan's 'heroes' needing to beat the Germans 3-0 to qualify. In short, a bit unlikley.

Not much within our own Island, Declan Kidney maybe? Otherwise we go abroad.

Trojan

Marshy wrote:

Sir Clive anyone?

I'd love to see SCW (seriously).

pucan

dub_skav wrote:

I'd rather Mick McCarthy than Kidney.

Yeah you wouldn't want the only Irish coach who has actually won a top competition would you? No that would be stupid. Instead we will get somebody like Eddie Jones who has done absolutely nothing worthwhile in 4 years.

il gatto

I'm happy enough with EOS for the time being. I can find fault with his lack of rotation and poor use of the bench, but is it really his fault if our best players don't show enough endeavor, savvy and aggression to put away the likes of Georgia and Namibia convincingly? They're good enough and expirienced enough and should've been able to make decisions on the field to change things when it wasn't working. Not Eddie's fault IMO.
I honestly can't think of anyone realistically that's available to replace him. He won't like what's happened in the WC and I think we will see changes for the 6N. He knows his reputation is f@cked otherwise.

dub_skav

Yeah you wouldn't want the only Irish coach who has actually won a top competition would you? No that would be stupid. Instead we will get somebody like Eddie Jones who has done absolutely nothing worthwhile in 4 years.

As I said, no I wouldn't. But that's just personal prejudice due to his being a snake in the grass.

Punchbowl

Punchbowl wrote:

Can we all lay off Eddie? The guy has a job to do, and that is what he's doing.

Is he really? his job was to have us physically and mentally prepared for the WC, the guys dont look like being prepared in either sense. They look physically weak and there has been no invention at all. He has to take responsibility foor this.


Furthermore, a team he picks plays sh*te against the worst team in the tournament so he then picks the same team again?? Fair enough. Then he goes and makes some drastic changes when that backfires except he makes them in the wrong areas (bar Reddan) and that backfires too. Now for the Argies match where we will need a strong platform, he has ignored the fact that our lineout has been appalling thus far ane decided NOT to play either O'Kelly or Quinlan, either of whom offer us decent possession (as proven by malcolm when he came on against France and all of a sudden by some miracle we started winning our lineouts) in the biggest match of our tournament and the most important match we'll probably play this year.



That and the fact that he has had more talent to work with than any other manager in Irish rugby history and yet he still has won exactly nothing

LuckyLloyd

dub_skav wrote:

As I said, no I wouldn't. But that's just personal prejudice due to his being a snake in the grass.

Thank you for that post. In one fell swoop you have summarised much of what is wrong with Irish sport.

marco_polo

Some Munsterfans.com love for EOS :

http://www.munsterfans.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=7089&PN=1

dub_skav

LuckyLloyd wrote:

Thank you for that post. In one fell swoop you have summarised much of what is wrong with Irish sport.

I'm glad you agree that having a man whose word cannot be trusted and who puts himself first at the top is what is wrong with Irish sport.

GreenHell

I'm coming around to the idea of letting Kidney finish this current season with Munster then let him take over the Ireland job. Maybe Bradley to Munster or Jim Williams bumped up the ladder with Galliamh as assistant.

GreenHell

GreenHell wrote:

I'm coming around to the idea of letting Kidney finish this current season with Munster then let him take over the Ireland job. Maybe Bradley to Munster or Jim Williams bumped up the ladder with Galliamh as assistant.

Im not, what he did at Leinster doesnt inspire confidence, and BOD said in his book that the players werent fond of him.


Also he made the call to drop the in form Jennings for Ciaran Potts and Gleeson (who'd played 2 games) for the HC QF against Leicester.

GreenHell

Deleted User wrote:

Im not, what he did at Leinster doesnt inspire confidence, and BOD said in his book that the players werent fond of him.


Also he made the call to drop the in form Jennings for Ciaran Potts and Gleeson (who'd played 2 games) for the HC QF against Leicester.

He is also the only Irish coach to win anything of value, but sure what does that prove..

dub_skav

I'm probably sticking the boot in a bit much to Kidney, but I just wouldn't trust him.
However, I also think a change of philosophy is required and I believe Kidney and O'Sullivan to be of the same breed (I am open to correction).

Also, while Kidney was the coach when Munster won the Heineken cup a huge amount of the ground work was done by Gaffney who made Munster a European force to be reckoned with.

GreenHell

I would have agreed with that until I started reading about the Gaffers lack of feed back to players and unhappy players. He took munster so far, I think Jim Williams had a bigger impact in making munster into a more professional team.

Whether you like Kidney or not, I would be very confident he would take on developing players for the big competitions and inject some spark into our team.

Then there is always Niallo..

LuckyLloyd

Anyone strongly involved on the coaching staff in Munster over the past seven years deserves consideration at the very least. They have won. They have achieved. If they don't stand up through an interview, review and assessment process then fair enough.

But they have surely earned "first dibs" if Eddie was to go so to speak. That's all I'm saying.

dub_skav

LuckyLloyd wrote:

Anyone strongly involved on the coaching staff in Munster over the past seven years deserves consideration at the very least. They have won. They have achieved. If they don't stand up through an interview, review and assessment process then fair enough.

But they have surely earned "first dibs" if Eddie was to go so to speak. That's all I'm saying.

I don't believe that should necessarily be the case. It could be a bad idea installing another coach who will bring baggage to the job - be it positive or negative.
Kidney is very well known by both Munster and Leinster players and may just keep doing the same things. I think the International team should be run very differently to a provincial one and open the players up to new ideas and ways of playing than they get at the provinces.

That way they get the best of both worlds with two very different coaching visions being given to them.

il gatto

Kidney didn't win the HC himself though. The pack, O'Gara and Stringer were instrumental because they performed, something they're not doing now. In fact they haven't done it since the 6N. If Kidney couldn't get them to fire this year, maybe it's not Eddie's fault.

padser

il gatto wrote:

If Kidney couldn't get them to fire this year, maybe it's not Eddie's fault.

Yeah it's definitely the case that it's not EOS's fault when top professional players can't perform to a standard to comfortably see off Namibia and Georgia.

It's also important to realise that when we look back at the selection decisions he made, and judge them now that we try and ignore some of the hindsight that we have now. For example he dropped Hickie for Trimble after two very sub par performances from Hickie. Trimble did no better (as we know now), but at the time I was happy enough to see Hickie gone.

However there is one decision he made which I think was deeply flawed, and obviously so even without hindsight.

When we didn't perform against Namibia he picked the same (bar 1 injury) team to play Georgia. That meant that in a best case scenario (assuming we played really well and were comfortably ahead at half time) he could rest 3 or 4 players from about 50 minutes.

He therefore ensured from that point that we were going to go into the crunch games with France and Argintina with 10/11/12 players who had played 2 full games in the previous 2 weeks. Considering that resting players during France and Argintina was highly unlikely he ensured then that if we made a quarter final the vast bulk of our front line team would have played 4 full matches in 4 weeks previously.

As far as I'm concerned EOS ensured with that selection that IReland's chances of making a semi final were close to nil - even if the players had started to perform to their potential.

gosplan

Preparing for the world cup is clearly a really long, complicated and exact process.

It was obviously mismanaged in every area as Ireland are neither physically, mentally, or tactically on their game.

We don't need a new manager right now but i think that beating Scotland, Wales and poor English teams is about as far as EOS will ever be able to bring Ireland.

il gatto

4 matches in a month is hardly beyond our top professionals, especially when two of them are against the likes of Namibia and Georgia. These players play that often for their clubs and nobody seems to make an issue of it. We can all complain about the lack of rotation (as I've done elsewhere) but when it comes down to it, no amount of bad coaching should result in a team like Ireland coming within a whisker of losing to Georgia.
EOS may have his shortcomings but players of that quality should be able to beat minnows with minimal effort reardless of bad coaching for a few weeks in the lead up to the WC. Wales have a sh1te manager and they at least showed up at the WC. The Irish team hadn't the stomach for it and a manager should never have to go through the motions of getting a team fired up for a WC. The players need to take a look at themselves.

siochain

Marshy wrote:

Sir Clive anyone?

No way .............

siochain

nedward wrote:

Bring back Gatty! .

Now you’re talking, I firmly believe EOS reaped what was started by Gatland snd lived of the momentum the players brought with them from the provinces.

padser

il gatto wrote:

4 matches in a month is hardly beyond our top professionals

To reach the semi finals (which given our players quality had to have been our goal) it would involve winning 5 matches in 5 weeks. I think thats too much to ask of players.

il gatto wrote:

especially when two of them are against the likes of Namibia and Georgia.

Matches against for example Georgia our not necessarily any less physically demanding (at least for the first 60 mins) then playing the likes of Scotland, Wales or England

zAbbo

The game plan was probably to rotate players for the Georgia game, but due to the woeful performance against Namibia that didn't happen.

We've now faced the reality of basically playing our first XV for every game.

il gatto

EOS has already stated that he, as he put it,, intended to give a few of the other lads a run out against Georgia, but that after Namibia he felt the team needed to gel. Fair enough.
4 matches in 4 weeks, or 5 in five, with two of them considered foregone conclusions by practically everyone, is not too much to ask. I mean, what would mitigate for their performance against Namibia? 16 days after Italy game. It wasn't physical fatigue. It was their attitude and lack of concentration and effort.

pucan

dub_skav wrote:

As I said, no I wouldn't. But that's just personal prejudice due to his being a snake in the grass.

How is that now?