Connacht Team Talk Thread VI - Some like it TOH

Jerry Cahir looks like a proper signing for next season

Love to see him at the world cup. Cracking player.

I'm sorry to say below. I think that Ioane has been inferior to Frawley at almost FH's works especially defending and place-kicking since Maori AB v Ireland match a few years ago. And maybe Naughton will overtake him soon. At last, Connacht seem to not reinforce senior any LO players. So I expect N. physical growing up of N. Murray and some players in their Academy.

Have heard the expectation is that they take in Leo Anic and Dara Walsh, and then likely a third lock based on whoever loses out on the Leinster Academy (so potentially Sean Walsh from Barnhall or Donncha McGuire IMO), as I'm assuming Dylan McNeice and Artur Smiykovskiy are going into the Leinster Academy.

Yeah, could definitely see the logic of that approach. I'm excited by both of them, and have seen a fair bit of Smiykovskiy in AIL and schools rugby. They're both huge men who look to be legit tight head lock options.

According to RTE news, Lancaster is expected one of the candidate for the successor of Leo Cullen at the end of next season. I don't know whether it's good for Connacht?

There are effectively two jobs coming up for grabs in Leinster (not confirmed, but very likely).

Leo Cullen's role, which up to now was a hybrid Director of Rugby / Head Coach role. He wasn't an on-pitch coach all of the time with Leinster, and had a lot of classic DoR style responsibilities mostly, but he also was the guy responsible for picking the team (obviously with input from other coaches), something that would typically be a Head Coach responsibility.

Jacques Nienaber (and Stu Lancaster before him) were effectively the Head Coach (with the title of Senior Coach). They had all of the traditional responsibilities of a head coach in terms of coaching the team week to week, coordinating the other coaches, setting out the gameplan and strategies, but crucially, as above, didn't have ultimate sign off on picking the team.

A lot of the big names being linked as Cullen replacements (including Lancaster) are guys much better suited to the Head Coach role than the Director of Rugby role.

Stu Lancaster is a prime example of this - he's been very vocal about the fact that he doesn't enjoy the DoR responsibilities (he had these with Racing in Paris), and just wants to be on the pitch coaching.

It's possible he would be interested in an expanded version of his old role - i.e. a Head Coach job with responsibility for picking the team, but IMO, not likely. He seems happy and settled and building something. It's probably also fair to say he's operating under materially less pressure to produce results than he would be in Leinster, and can get on with the thing he's best at - coaching and improving players in an environment where he calls all the shots.

Yeah, it’s great to have him back in Irish rugby. I would have been happy to see him get the Munster job too for the same reasons. He just fundamentally makes players better season over season, which is great for the national team (and the quality of rugby we all watch every week too).

Unlucky to have a 4th disallowed for Daniel

Although O'Connell seemed a little plain, but I think he has great potential ability who is worth noting player.