“ACTUALLY, CAN YOU leave that bit out?”
“Which bit?”
“The bit where it’s kinda comparing Matt with Joe.”
“Oh really?”
“Yeah, Matt absolutely hates being compared with Joe.”
********************
As Leinster’s efforts to find a successor to Matt O’Connor as head coach continue, the spectre of Joe Schmidt looms over every potential candidate.
It’s why it makes sense for Leinster to go big this time, to appoint a man who has a well-established head coaching record of his own, a personality with the strength to instantly command a degree of respect from the province’s players.
That, or let Schmidt pick the next man in the door at UCD.
The Kiwi’s reputation still fills the corridors of Leinster’s training base and sits comfortably in the Anglesea Stand at the RDS. His history of success with the province and now as national team boss has altered how coaches are assessed in Ireland.
Schmidt has lifted the bar for everyone who occupies or will occupy a head coaching job in this country. His record and popularity are difficult to live up to.
O’Connor clearly didn’t match up, even if he did enjoy trophy success in his first season in charge with the Pro12 title. Thereafter, results, style of play and his dealings with the media painted the Australian in an ever-worsening light and his recent departure was the best option for all parties.
It’s not just at Leinster that coaches are assessed against the Schmidt standard. Anthony Foley, Neil Doak and Pat Lam are also up against it in their own ways, perhaps even with their own players.
It would be interesting to truly learn whether Munster, Ulster and Connacht’s international players question their provincial coaches that little bit more after extensive involvement in Schmidt’s Ireland squad.
That is not to suggest that Foley, Doak and Lam might not ultimately prove to be better and more successful coaches than Schmidt, but it would be intriguing to get honest opinions from players in this regard.
No wonder O’Connor hated any comparisons with Schmidt by his players, particularly as he was often going to come out of them on the negative side.
In one way, it’s unfair to make the comparison but it’s totally natural to do so and in reality it’s a good thing that Schmidt has raised the standard to such a high level. More quality than ever is expected from coaches in Leinster and Ireland now; we will only accept the best.
So where do Leinster find another Schmidt? Are there other coaches out there with his quality?
The success of any head coach is very much dependent on the circumstances around him, as well as being related to his or her own qualities. We love big turning points in sport, but it’s quite clear that Schmidt’s achievements with Leinster were reliant on a group of players at their peak, the good work of Michael Cheika and others before him, and even some luck.
That’s not to belittle anything he did, but the point is that the coming together of a whole series of factors, with Schmidt at the helm, brought glory to Leinster.
Matt O’Connor certainly isn’t the worst coach in the world, but he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, the wrong man for the job.
At the bottom of yesterday’s Leinster press release on scrum coach Marco Caputo’s decision to leave the province, CEO Mick Dawson provided an update on the search for a new head coach.
Leo Cullen will “oversee the pre-season regime” in his role as interim head coach, with head of fitness Dan Tobin naturally enough central to that programme too. Leinster are in “no immediate rush,” to appoint O’Connor’s successor, according to Dawson.
It’s sensible for Leinster to take their time over this one, having made the wrong move in bringing O’Connor in to attempt to replace Schmidt. Cullen may be the man in charge of pre-season but we can be sure that Girvan Dempsey will have a part to play too.
Schmidt says he will have no involvement in Leinster’s efforts to find a new coach, but he’s clearly a fan of Dempsey.
Unprompted, the Ireland coach mentioned the “superb” Dempsey twice during the April press briefing he and David Nucifora held to put O’Connor straight after his complaints about the player management system.
Schmidt again mentioned Dempsey last week in Limerick ahead of the Barbarians clash, stating that the Leinster man had come into camp alongside Allan Clarke before that pair take the Emerging Ireland squad to the Tbilisi Cup later this month.
Dempsey has done impressive work in his former role as Leinster’s elite player development officer and now as academy manager and head coach of the province’s A team.
And yet for all of his undoubted coaching promise, installing Dempsey as Leinster head coach alongside Cullen would be another risk for Dawson and co. to take. Cullen and Dempsey know the province and understand the stylistic issues of coaching Leinster, but they have no experience of leading a coaching team at senior level.
They are well liked by the players of course, but then so too was O’Connor. Popularity is no measure of potential success.
Whether the lack of an “immediate rush” on Leinster’s part extends beyond the World Cup or even further remains to be seen, but there is one certainty for whoever eventually gets the gig.
More than two years on, the shadow of Schmidt will loom over their every move.
I think people are reading too much into the expectations of Leinster. Nobody expected another Schmidt, it wasn’t a case that fans expected a trophy every season and to continue to dominate the European Cup, people just wanted a team they could bare to watch and a sign of progress, not regression, under a head coach.
The same mistakes over and over and over again, the same crap game plan of kicking the ball away, also choosing a kicking tennis match and rarely getting the better of the exchanges, they nonexistent structure in both attack and defence, shoveling the ball from left to right with no gain, then kick – the chaos in defence with a constant scramble and no cohesive structure…
People didn’t get sick of MOC because he wasn’t Schmidt, people got sick of MOC because the team was playing absolutely appalling, and I don’t care about the constant defence of almost making a European final, the route to the semi was about as soft as you could ever hope for, you couldn’t have handpicked a better group, yet we absolutely scraped to a semi final and with the players we have, you should expect to be able to push the big teams and in fairness, the players gave it all in the semi, but to use that as the barometer for his time in charge, certainly over the last season, is to do a massive disservice to the quality of display, through all of the European Cup and the Pro12.
The Leinster job should be the most attractive in Europe. Nobody is going to keep comparing to Schmidt, it will be MOC from where comparisons will be drawn, and any sort of positive rugby will be a breath of fresh air…. he’s not a hard act to follow.
Gibbes for me.
Leo Cullen needs to be sent away from the first team squad as quickly as possible. He’s not a coach yet ( hopefully he will be one day) and cannot be allowed to make an already bad situation worse.
Ask Isa or girv to take preseason but get Leo away from the squad.
Isa has spent a season as a mental skills coach at a team falling apart, the blues.
Girv has no senior team experience.
I wouldnt have a problem with either working with the senior team, Cullen did a okay job this season in his first as a coach, he will likely improve. He could be spent to work with the A team or he could be kept in place with a lessened role but he probably can’t do a much worse job than he did this season.
has to be Connor O’Shea or at a punt Jonno Gibbs
It will be neither.
I know but theres always hope
It’s gonna be Deans, if something can be worked out, or Gibbs.
Won’t be Deans either.
Apparently John Fogarty is to come in as scrum coach, assuming that to be true then you’re looking for a head coach with a strong background of coaching backs which is where we were really let down last year. Also someone who has the balls to dip into the academy and accept the player welfare policy for what it is. That should narrow it down a bit……
Get over it. He’s gone. The sooner Leinster stop living in the past the sooner they can make the most of the talent at their disposal.
I know that Leinster are keen on not rushing the process of appointing a head coach coach and that’s understandable considering the season just gone. However, the current situation with Dan Tobin and Leo Cullen coaching the squad through pre-season isn’t ideal.
Cullen in particular would benefit from going to New Zealand for a couple of weeks to freshen his coaching up. Many coaches, such as Gregor Townsend, have spoken of the benefits of seeing another approach to coaching rugby and experiencing a different environment. As things stand, Leo is going from a season of comparative failure straight into doing four jobs of coaching backs, forwards, the scrum, and head coaching simultaneously. Nobody can possibly do that, not even Joe Schmidt.
Whilst there is a few weeks to go before Leinster start training again; this issue needs to be resolved soon. Otherwise Leinster, already missing large numbers due to the World Cup, will be further hampered going into the new season.
You are assuming there won’t be any hires before preseason starts and the start of preseason is generally gym work anyway.
Worst case scenario is Dempsey will take the backs, Cullen the forwards and Fogarty the scrum during preseason if the head coach hasn’t been hired yet.
As fans we didn’t expect joe part 2 but Matt set about the change the way things were done rather than use what was there and add to it he wanted to do everything his own way.
When joe took over he recognised he had a superb set of backs. Sexton, Isa, shaggy, Darcy, Kearney and of course Bod. So he set about ‘making the beast passing team in Europe’ He also improved the pack into a almost perfect unit.
Matt lost a lot of those players over his two years but instead of building on what he had he wanted to dismantle the house of Joe and do it the Moc way.
The same players went into Ireland camps and still played under Joe ( and his top class team of coaches) so they had Joe in one ear and anti Joe in the other it we never going to work as Matt was to stubborn to accept the Joe had created a very good set up and didn’t build on it.
His greatest mistake was to disregard the academy, if after year one if he had a batch of youngsters ready to step in and do it his way in year two they would have come through but instead we got fanning, gooperth and the two old men at 9
Anyone that thinks a coach is just going to slot in and do what Joe has done don’t know Jack Schmidt.
If it was Dempsey it would probably be a good idea to have an experienced defence coach for him to lean on – someone like McQuilkin or Ruddock.
It might be worth keeping an eye on how NZ get on in the U-20 World Championships. Scott Robertson could potentially be a good option for Leinster