Re: Bringing former players though into coaching : Tue Apr 14, 2009 8:22 pm  

McClennan wrote:

It's no good saying we should have more British coaches in our sport without giving them adequate training for the roles.

Well the RFL should set up coaching for the players who are retiring in the near future or ex players who wish to go down that route. Far too many players who have a wealth of experience have been lost due to eithier not been given adequate training or just basically forgotton about. We cannot afford to lose the experience of Sculthorpe, Joynt and Farrell plus many others. As you rightly said Noble is the best British coach so why on earth did the RFL not let him continue as the National boss??? I for one believe despite what many people think on this board Noble would got England playing alot better in the WC than Tony Smith. I said it when it happenend that Smith wasnt the right man for the job and he never will be.

Re: Bringing former players though into coaching : Tue Apr 14, 2009 9:17 pm  

Joynty11 wrote:

We cannot afford to lose the experience of Sculthorpe, Joynt and Farrell plus many others.

Why not? If they are good coaches they should apply for jobs at clubs with coaching vacancies or approach their former clubs about possible roles.

There isn't some block on British coaches, the fact is that they just don't perform, so end up getting sacked and drifting down the leagues until they pack it in and turn bitter like Schofield.

: Tue Apr 14, 2009 9:30 pm  

Still not enough emphasis is being placed on developing new coaches who are British. I hope Bobbie does well for France and eventually gets a chance to coach at SL level. By all accounts he was doing well at Rochdale, a club who was at the time desperately short of cash.

Tommy Martyn is another who i would think would excel at being a coach given the right opportunity and right environment.

Maybe where clubs have a player development pathway there needs to be a more in depth approach to developing a coaching pathway.

After all do we want another Aussie coach to coach England after Tony Smith? Surely in the long term we would want a Brit. Can you ever imagine the Aussies appointing a Brit as a national coach......never.

: Tue Apr 14, 2009 9:39 pm  

Tommy was very badly done to at leigh and the club politics that went with that situation probably put him off senior management for a while. The last i heard he was helping saints juniors. I hope he can come back to proper management soon, he has the best rugby brain i have ever known

: Tue Apr 14, 2009 9:47 pm  

Saint Simon wrote:

Tommy was very badly done to at leigh and the club politics that went with that situation probably put him off senior management for a while. The last i heard he was helping saints juniors. I hope he can come back to proper management soon, he has the best rugby brain i have ever known

Did he ever. A real master at understanding the game and tactics. Yes he was bitten badly by politics at Leigh when the club should have stuck by him. He only left Saints because of the player coaching opportunity that became available only later to be shown the door. Disgraceful really.

As a matter of interest I was thinking how many English coaches in the last 25 years have been successful in coaching a team to the League title/SL. I can only think of three, Noble, Hanley, Doug Laughton. Have I missed anyone else out? If not, it pretty much says it all about the reliance on overseas coaches.

: Tue Apr 14, 2009 9:50 pm  

Murphys Magic wrote:

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Did he ever. A real master at understanding the game and tactics. Yes he was bitten badly by politics at Leigh when the club should have stuck by him. He only left Saints because of the player coaching opportunity that became available only later to be shown the door. Disgraceful really.

As a matter of interest I was thinking how many English coaches in the last 25 years have been successful in coaching a team to the League title/SL. I can only think of three, Noble, Hanley, Doug Laughton. Have I missed anyone else out? If not, it pretty much says it all about the reliance on overseas coaches.

Those two at least got their success on the back of an Ozzies team.

: Tue Apr 14, 2009 9:54 pm  

Saint Simon wrote:

Those two at least got their success on the back of an Ozzies team.

Not really disputing that, they certainly didn't have to build a team to win the title/Championship/SL as the players were already there. Still doesn't change the fact that only three British coaches have been successful in the league after so many years.

: Tue Apr 14, 2009 10:01 pm  

I just dont think there is the coaching talent in this country, john kear is about the best and was given a shot at a bigger club and blew it (he should've been given more time). I think that good Oz coaches are much further ahead of their british counterparts than is true of the players

: Tue Apr 14, 2009 10:16 pm  

Saint Simon wrote:

I just dont think there is the coaching talent in this country, john kear is about the best and was given a shot at a bigger club and blew it (he should've been given more time). I think that good Oz coaches are much further ahead of their british counterparts than is true of the players

I think its down to people being given the opportunity. Perhaps Hull didn't show enough faith in Kear. After all he did win the Challenge Cup with them. English coaches in recent yearsincluding Kear, Sharpe, Cullen, Harrison have all had chances and have blown it really.

Maybe more of our young coaches need to go to Australia and learn the skills their. I would accept that on balance the overseas coaches have done better but there have also been some rubbish coaches from overseas. Far too many overseas coaches are creeping into the gave in the Co-operative Leagues also.

: Tue Apr 14, 2009 10:20 pm  

I basically agree with what Mcllennan has said.

One of the things that came out of the RL world cup review done by the RFL with the assistance of the players, was that the game was lacking in the appreciation of the scientific aspects of the sport.

For me this is part of the culture of the game in the UK, which belittles itself.

The Aussies have an appreciation of tactics of the game, their commentators give intelligent analysis, they even have a tv programme called NRL Tactics that explains all about the way the game is played.
In the UK we have comedy double acts, who chat about someone having pink boots, who make double-entendres, but who offer only the most simplistic tactical insight into the game.

Your average soccer fan knows about 4-4-2, 4-5-1, 4-3-3. Many RL fans come across as thinking the game is just about smacking him, or getting it out wide.

As a result from top to bottom, from fans to administrators its unlikely that the game will place enough emphasis on the reality that RL is chess with muscles, not pantomine.