Not happy about "Longy".

Longo?
Longers?
The Longster?

Neon Slag

I bet you wouldn't all him that to his face, though!

Am I the only one with the gut feeling that with Tofty taking the sideways move, the whole coaching setup feels fresher and more balanced?

Don’t agree on Easter at all.

Always assume he was a major part of the problem - coaching his best mates with all the allegiances and history that brings and part of a coaching team who had all been there a decade

No sane business would do it.

Don’t agree on Easter at all.

Always assume he was a major part of the problem - coaching his best mates with all the allegiances and history that brings and part of a coaching team who had all been there a decade

No sane business would do it.

Find myself both agreeing and disagreeing with this. All comes down to character of the individual involved so I feel it's by degrees.

You could say that NEv came through in just the same way. The question is whether they can command a different kind of respect from the senior players in the squad when they retire compared to the respect they had as part of that cohort as a player. What we may never know is how much Nick Easter's short stint as defence coach was primarily down to his failure to shift that relationship between himself and the likes of Joe, Mike, Danny, Chris - or other factors. Probably a mixture of both, ratio unknown.

The business analogy actually contradicts your argument - people get promoted into management from the main working pool in companies across the country every day. The success of that promotion often comes down (in part at least) to how that individual is able to transition their relationships with those who used to be their peers - and how much support they get from the suits above in order to make that transition successful. Of course, there are always multiple factors at play.

In exactly the same way. I find it a rather bizarre argument seeing as it happens in most clubs, if not all.

...which doesn't in itself make it the right thing to do of course. The point is that some have arguably made successes of it, while others haven't. It's mostly impossible to tell exactly why a coach/DOR wasn't successful in a role when there are so many other stakeholders and relationships involved in the day-to-day coaching of a team. Or indeed how much of a part each coach/assistant coach has played in the success of, say, Saracens or Exeter in recent years. What percentage of that success is McCall/Baxter and what percentage does each of their staff claim? No one can really take a stab at those claims other than those on the inside.

I'm not suggesting anyone here actually thinks they know anything about the detail surrounding any of the relationships in the Quins squad/staff - Blucher did use the word "assume" after all. It's all guesswork.

Anyway, I like the cut of Neon Slag's jib!