IRELAND FORWARDS COACH Simon Easterby will fill a temporary vacancy in Ulster’s back-room team, the province and IRFU announced this morning.
As things stand incoming head coach Dan McFarland is still constrained by a nine-month notice period stipulated by the Scottish Rugby Union, who have signalled their intent to play hardball with Ulster’s hopes of releasing their forwards coach before January.
It’s understood that this contingency measure was mooted even before McFarland’s appointment. After director of rugby Les Kiss was sacked midway through last season and Jono Gibbes departed for the Top14, Ulster have a youthful look to their coaching booth with Jared Payne, Aaron Dundon and Dwayne Peel in situ.
Ulster returned to pre-season training last week and the arrival of Easterby’s “coaching support” will boost their ability to prepare and plan for the season ahead.
The hope remains that McFarland’s will take charge at the Kingspan before 2019, but if the issue cannot be resolved then Easterby will work with Ulster until the arrival of the ex-Connacht forwards coach.
Easterby, who capped off a successful international season for his pack 10 days ago with a series win in Australia, begins work with the northern province this week.
Stupid idea to move minors to u17. Far too much of a gap between 17and 21 year olds. Would end up losing more players to other sports at the critical 18-20 age bracket. Minor championship is fantastic the way it is please don’t touch it.
RE plan for minor to be u17 whats happens to u16. Does this also mean that u21 is only open to those above 19.
I agree with nearly all their ideas.
Why not have the League Finals on St. Patrick’s Day?
Their reasoning for moving the Minor grade is sound. I would imagine they’ll move to an under 20 grade too, this would probably mean less clashes with senior games.
Why not play the Inter-Provincials around the time of the All-Ireland quarter finals or semi finals? With only a few counties still in the All-Ireland and club championships notoriously slow to get going there will be many inter county standard footballers willing to play top class competition.
Players just missing the cut in their home county should definitely be placed in a draft from which the weaker counties can pick. 4 players for Division 4 counties, 3 for Division 3 counties. After two seasons the players should be allowed reapply for their native county or else extend their draft period by another year.
A draft system similar to that in American sports is the obvious way to bolster the weaker counties. Keep the draft players within their native province to cut down travel times, I can’t see an issue with a couple of Dubs playing with Carlow for two years, Mayomen with Leitrim or Corkmen with Waterford. The players involved get to play in high quality competition and bring that experience back to their native counties, everybody’s a winner.
I’ll outline how the FRC could fix the Football Championships below. Eugene McGee could drop me a line and we’ll hammer out the finer details together!
The optimum system for the All-Ireland Football Championship should be:
A) Get rid of the January/February tournaments, move the League forward with the top 2 playing a League final in March.
B) The All-Ireland C’ship should be played like the World Cup. 33 teams in 7 groups of 4 and 1 group of 5. Seed the teams according to their finishing positions in the League, thereby linking the League and C’ship. Play the 3(4) round robin stage matches of the All-Ireland at neutral venues (except for New York and London who should play their matches at home) in April and May.
C) The 4 Provincial C’ships should be straight knock-out. They should be played in May/June, it may be necessary for the preliminary rounds of the Ulster and Leinster C’ships to overlap with the round robin stage of the All-Ireland. These titles remain a valid chance for meaningful silverware for all counties.
D) With the Provincial titles decided the All-Ireland C’ship Round of 16 takes place in late June, group winners getting the choice of home venue. Two weeks later the 1/4 Finals are held at neutral venues. Two weeks later the Semi Finals are held at Croke Park.
E) In mid August play the All-Ireland Football Final in glorious sunshine in Croke Park. All counties would have had at least 4 c’ship matches spread throughout the country. All counties would have had two shots at meaningful silverware. London and New York have a few home matches each year to spread the gospel of GAA. There are no dead rubbers.