Ulster Team Talk/Gossip/Rumour Thread II

awec wrote: »

What past success? He has never been a head coach before, he was a defence coach. How much input on the game plan do you really think he had at Ireland?

Our defending is brutal. Players who used to be able to tackle now miss tackles on a semi regular basis. Players who successfully defended under previous regimes now look lost in defence. Players who defended well for other clubs now cannot defend.

Yea, people can go on and say that it's a players fault that they miss tackles, but I'd love to know what has changed in Ulster that has caused us to have an epidemic of missed tackles.

Our defence is rubbish, there is no way to butter it up. Kiss is apparently a defensive guru. It doesn't show.

Well given that the comments Cave made were specifically about defence I was only talking about that element of Kiss’s remit. He has assistants there for the other stuff.

Kiss’s ability as a defence coach showed at the highest levels of the game. That just doesn’t disappear. Maybe players are struggling to get used to a new system. Maybe confidence in the system isn’t there because guys like Cave are having a pop at it and undermining it. Maybe player power is being challenged and that’s creating a tough environment that they need to work through. Maybe Kiss is finding it difficult to adapt to the relative strengths and weaknesses within the squad that didn’t exist at national level. Maybe Kiss is struggling with the other elements of the role and it’s having knock on effects.

There’s probably a load more possible reasons for these issues. And maybe a combination of different ones. I just find it hard to believe that Cave is being frozen out for speaking up when you can be pretty sure Irish players spoke up in Ireland camp plenty. There has to be a lot more to it than that. And whatever issues are there (be it Kiss’s fault, Caves or both) are probably a good reflection on where the squad as a whole are.

awec wrote: »

Hope that loads for people, but that was actually the Ulster defensive line at that point in the game. BOD even called it out in the commentary. I am pretty sure that is coming straight off a scrum or lineout.

Look at the absolute state of that defence.

Defensive guru indeed.

Ah you can’t blame a defence coach for players not doing their job on the pitch. Or at least you can’t definitively blame him. Yeah that looks all over the shop but I don’t know a defensive system that would ask players to do that. That looks a lot more like guys in the pitch not doing their jobs or not having the leadership to control it.

There may be a case for saying that the team aren’t buying into the system or are unable to implement the system and that Kiss has responsibility there but that’s as close to blaming Kiss as you can get, and you can’t know if that’s true or not.

awec wrote: »

molloyjh wrote: »

Ah you can’t blame a defence coach for players not doing their job on the pitch. Or at least you can’t definitively blame him. Yeah that looks all over the shop but I don’t know a defensive system that would ask players to do that. That looks a lot more like guys in the pitch not doing their jobs or not having the leadership to control it.

There may be a case for saying that the team aren’t buying into the system or are unable to implement the system and that Kiss has responsibility there but that’s as close to blaming Kiss as you can get, and you can’t know if that’s true or not.

Then what can you blame him for?

It's like people think the defence coach is absolved of all responsibility for anything that happens on the field.

Did you even read the rest of my post or did you stop at the first sentence?

Seriously, if our Director of Rugby is actually doing defensive coaching, I think we've fúcked that hierarchy completely, and it needs to be redone.

So one of Barrett, Sopoaga, Mo’unga, Cruden or, um, Stephen Donald then?

Dog Botherer wrote: »

So one of Barrett, Sopoaga, Mo’unga, Cruden or, um, Stephen Donald then?

I've heard Donalds name in a few areas now

Dog Botherer wrote: »

Scythica wrote: »

I've heard Donalds name in a few areas now

I mean, I can't see any of those other lads moving to Ulster. Cruden is with Montpelier for the forseeable future and the other 3 are either in the All Black squad or pushing for it. It has to be Donald, and, legend that he is, he's just about Pro14 standard these days. Mostly played at 12 last season too. Fairly underwhelming if that's the case.

Underwhelming maybe...but beggars can't be choosers...and we are very much beggars in this instance.

Paul Smeenus wrote: »

Fairly sure that MOC was to blame when Leinster didn't qualify for playoffs. Don't recall a whole lot of "the players simply aren't doing their job"then.

I think your well-documented (and understandable) frustration with Ulster fans looking for scapegoats has pushed you into silly, unfeasible postures, Molloy.

I really don’t see how. I’ve never said Kiss doesn’t have some responsibility here. What I have said is that looking at the history of the coach and the team it seems somewhat odd to me that the coach is taking all of the heat. There are logical reasons why there may be other issues. And I’ve explained reasonably what they might be while also saying I’m coming from a point of relative ignorance on the whole thing. At no point have I said awec or anyone else is definitively wrong in their opinions, just suggested that maybe looking beyond the coach makes sense too.

The Leinster situation is very different. For starters we didn’t have a history of underachieving prior to MOC arriving which is a very key component to what I’ve been saying about Ulster. We also had a boat load of internationals in our set-up so the quality of player was still there. Maybe not quite to the same degree, but we had a bloody good pack. Another thing that differentiates the 2 scenarios.

Secondly I was very deliberate in saying we needed to give MOC time to settle and while many others were boarding the MOCOut train early, I wasn’t. It wasn’t until he was there for a year and a half before I made a call on him really, and even then I tried to be as balanced as I could be about it, saying numerous times that he just wasn’t the coach for us as opposed to him being a bad coach. I think if you’re getting abusive about someone in this situation you’ve just lost objectivity. Which I can understand from an emotive perspective.

Third, I made some attempt to analyse the issues and explain my rationale for thinking MOC wasn’t the man for us. I was able to point to our attacking game and identify why it wasn’t working. MOCs complaints about not having access to the internationals was another issue as we needed to be building our depth at that point given the age profile of the squad. Relying on the mainstays almost entirely the way he did wasn’t helping us in the longer term. If awec spoke about the defensive system itself and why it wasn’t working my reply would be entirely different. Also, it seems that Ulster are doing some decent work on building their squad at the moment which is a big positive that isn’t getting enough attention.

TL;DR: It’s one thing being pissed off about a team underperforming under 1 coach and pointing the finger at the coach. It’s another thing entirely being pissed off with a team underperforming under successive coaches and still only pointing the finger at the coach. There’s a common denominator in the latter that’s being ignored, which doesn’t make much sense to me.

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Now that there are a few good wins under the teams belt all of a sudden it's the defence now...

I wouldn't say there are a few good wins. Harlequins aren't great. A snatched draw against a poor Scarlets team. A last minute try to beat Treviso and the Southern Kings. We've been falling over the line and I reckon we'll be shown up big time when we start meeting a few of the better teams out there.