He could take Leo's role.
Defence coach is sorted. Apparently.
And the successor to Nucifora would also be sorted.
edit:
Post Nucifora who would be a good fit as Performance Director? Someone from within or an outsider?
Nucifora contract is up after the WC but I read before the Australia game that he is planning to stay until summer '24 (Olympics).
That timeline would be suitable for Cullen. It would also give Leinster another season post Lancaster (and prob Sexton) and Cullen would have had 9 seasons as the head coach. He's currently year to year....
Finding the right person to fill the role as head of 'Rugby Performance & Development' position will be one of Kevin Potts (CEO) first big decisions.
Last I read he was coaching NPC for free.
He is definitely an amazing forwards coach.
Leinster would need to let McBryde go and recruit a scrum coach and still replace Lancaster with a defence coach.
What's John Plumtree doing these days? Last i read was he was coaching NPC.
Forget Pivac, Jones, Leo.....Plumtree to Leinster please!
It's a term used to describe the noise from the crowd at the end of the third test in Wellington last summer.
whats "the cricket" ?
Yeah, right.
It didn't matter to us. No one in NZ cared. No one even knew it was on. No you shut up. We beat you in the cricket!
Ah lads, the all black coach very nearly lost his job and had to change up his coaching team after the tour. Intimating that it doesn't matter is barely different to the blow ins who call tests friendlies as a wind up.
I don't know why people engage.
Who do you think they would fear then?
I never said this
How else are we supposed to read this?
And in the one game it really mattered, they absolutely demolished us.
I never said it didn't matter to them. I said they won't fear us in a world cup game and I stand by that.
The "only games that matter are in a tournament started in 1987" crowd are having their shpake again.
Ah good. The "only games that matter are in a tournament started in 1987" crowd are having their shpake again. This is always helpful, relevant, informative, respectful of the sport's broader history and meticulously contextualized.
<draws up chair and opens notepad>
Please continue.
…They'll have concerns when we're competitive against them at a world cup, where they always up their game.
…since 2011.
Yeah, losing a series at home totally didn’t matter to NZ at all. Noooooo.
That's absurd logic. We could easily go 12 years without even playing them in a world cup. If you don't think the fact we have beaten them in 3 of the last 4 matches (3 of them in NZ!) would give them cause for concern then you are basically saying nothing will.
Also please go away with this "only game that really mattered" nonsense.
Yes that sums up pretty much how I feel about them. I think we've evolved past a team struggling to break down a team who are digging in. I'm by no means saying they can't beat us but I think it will take an awful lot to go wrong on the day for that to happen.
A game under a different coach, after a horrible year, 4 years ago. Since then we've beaten 3 out of the 4 times we've played, and frankly largely dominated them. Not saying I wouldn't be leery of facing them in the 1/4s, but to think we wouldn't be a major concern for them is ridiculous.
And in the one game it really mattered, they absolutely demolished us. They'll have concerns when we're competitive against them at a world cup, where they always up their game.
We've beaten them comprehensively multiple times over the last 5 or so years, they'd absolutely have concerns playing us.
Every half decent team in the world has beaten NZ over the last 12 months. And England (who are about to sack their coach) managed to draw with them. Japan and Aus nearly beat them too. Winning that series was amazing but it was a gash NZ team and it by no means makes us world beaters. Let's see how we fare against them in a game with consequences. I don't think NZ will be particularly worried about facing us in a quarter final.
No point of worrying about the game, I'd back us to beat any team at the moment. We're the team others worry about playing, which is a fantastic place to be. How many teams would you say NZ worry about having to face? Pretty cool to be one of them.
Worth noting that not only will Gatland be missing the squad of players he had before, but he’ll also be missing Edwards and Howley too. People talk about Wales defending well against us, but that was Edwards more than it was Gatland. So without Edwards and the quality of players they had before this isn’t the same thing at all. Sure there will likely be a bit of a bounce from Gatland coming back, but as long as we play to anything close to our potential then we should have too much for them.
They have some talented players but the standard of coaching in Wales is poor and Pivac seems to have had issues with the overall fitness of the available squad. Whether that's more excuses or a genuine issue is up for debate.
What they will have in February is a more organised and determined defence and that can count for a lot in terms of a one off fixture. What they will face in February however is a team much closer to the All Blacks than Argentina or Georgia.
They absolutely won't roll over and a loss at home in the opening round more than likely scuppers their six nations so they'll leave nothing in the dressing room (stop it Reggie). In years gone by I would be concerned about extended periods in their 22 not really getting anywhere because they'd defend like their lives depended on it but I think we've far more tools to break them down these days and there defence won't be enough.
Would any of their 15 get into ours?
I hope this isn’t ominous, but in a weird parallel, I remember Drico asking the same thing prior to that game against England in our opener in the 2019 6 Nations, and we know how that went…
Surely that England team were significantly better than this Welsh team tho.
Well, also our performance against Australia with our third choice 10 who was dropped into the starting role with about 10 mins notice was enough to win the game. So room for improvement, but hardly exceptionally worrying.
I can't fathom how anyone can look at our Autumn games and have any other view that we showed absolutely nothing. The players were nowhere near their physical peak, and I don't think we ran even one set piece play from memory. Can't even remember a wrap around to get to the edge bar the SA game.
The New Zealand games are the barometer for me and I'd expect we will be a lot closer to that level come 6 nations than what we were a couple of weeks ago. I certainly wouldn't be looking at Oz and Fiji games as a measure of how we will perform against Wales. I expect us to beat them and I think the gap between our players and theirs is fairly stark at present. Would any of their 15 get into ours?
Definitely not our toughest fixture, maybe a coach bounce makes it tougher than when Pivac was head coach but Gatland now has to go get assistants that suit his play and find them mid season. Not an easy ask, especially when the coaches know they may not be part of a winning ticket.
If we can't beat Wales we don't deserve the Grand Slam
I agree we should. I'm just not that confident that we will.
I don't think the chasm in quality between our players and theirs is as big as we like to make out. Our performances against Fiji and Australia also concern me greatly.
IMO losing to Wales this year would have an even worse effect on us than England in 2019. It would be really bad because they are rubbish and Gatland cannot possibly fix their problems that quickly.
Forget about atmosphere or Gatland or whatever, if we view ourselves as a serious team then we will put Wales away in the 6N, no matter who is coaching them.
Fair enough.
I remain very confident. We are a far better team, they are a shambles, they tend to start slowly in the 6N and Gatland simply doesn't have the players to play the game he wants. If we don't beat them then we are not the team I think we are and have far bigger problems.
Also our record in Cardiff is not terrible even when Wales are rubbish. We have lost the last 4 (after a period of almost always winning there) - in two of those seasons Wales won the 6N and in one of them they were joint top of the table and lost out on points difference. 2017 is the only year you could make the argument that we really should have beaten them. Its an overblown fear.
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