Leinster Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread VI: End of the MOC [Revenge of the STH]

TommyOM

Whenever I hear MOC in the media he is never overly confident about Leinster's chances of coming away from these sort of games with a victory. He will trot out lines about execution and taking chances before talking up an excuse about preparation being far from ideal for a certain reason (injuries, Ireland camp...). He acts like he is almost in awe of the opposition and gives a sort of "shure we'll give it a lash" vibe. Even his comments about his players being hard workers or something of that ilk implied that he felt we didn't have the quality there to take on Toulon.

This simply has to be rubbing off on the players. Players play better when they truly believe they have the beating of a time.

TommyOM

Deleted User wrote: »

Pop Quiz hotshot


You are given the management duties.

What do you do that you expect is different from what MOC does?

Why do you do it?

I guess I would look at his training regime over the course of the last two seasons and suggest a radical overhaul. It seems our attacking play has imploded, our handling regressed significantly and players are playing below themselves.

Your question is not really answerable unless I am fully informed of the day to day runnings of the club. Unless you mean who would I start or something which is simplistic in the extreme.

TommyOM

TommyOM wrote: »

I guess I would look at his training regime over the course of the last two seasons and suggest a radical overhaul. It seems our attacking play has imploded, our handling regressed significantly and players are playing below themselves.

Your question is not really answerable unless I am fully informed of the day to day runnings of the club. Unless you mean who would I start or something which is simplistic in the extreme.

That's not an answer in the slightest.

I (should have) asked you what you would do differently from what you think MOC is doing.

You're just saying "What MOC does is wrong, lets do something different", without a single inkling of what he is doing.

thomond2006

TommyOM wrote: »

The camp is in tatters because MOC doesn't have a clue what he is doing.

Declan Kidney II

Can you not just knock this stuff on the head until Sunday evening? Time to get behind your team and have a post mortem after the match.

TommyOM

Deleted User wrote: »

That's not an answer in the slightest.

I (should have) asked you what you would do differently from what you think MOC is doing.

You're just saying "What MOC does is wrong, lets do something different", without a single inkling of what he is doing.

I don't know what to do different because I don't know the intricacies of MOC's training. I can only go on what I see on the pitch.

Heres a question for you. Have you been happy with Leinster's performances this season?

TommyOM

TommyOM wrote: »

I don't know what to do different because I don't know the intricacies of MOC's training.

So how do you figure he doesn't know what he's doing? Or is doing the wrong thing?

TommyOM wrote: »

I can only go on what I see on the pitch.

Which bits of the pitch issues do you directly and wholly ascribe to MOC?

TommyOM wrote: »

Heres a question for you. Have you been happy with Leinster's performances this season?

Nope.

total former

Deleted User wrote: »

So how do you figure he doesn't know what he's doing? Or is doing the wrong thing?

You're talking to the man who was calling for Kidney's head the night we won the Grand Slam Emmet. He just knows these things.

TommyOM

Deleted User wrote: »

So how do you figure he doesn't know what he's doing? Or is doing the wrong thing?

Which bits of the pitch issues do you directly and wholly ascribe to MOC?

Nope.

Because the team is playing woefully.

The team's handling, skill set, attacking, defensive disorganization, confidence.

Who is responsible for the performance of the team over the course of the season?

TommyOM

total former wrote: »

You're talking to the man who was calling for Kidney's head the night we won the Grand Slam Emmet. He just knows these things.

I knew that Declan Kidney would ultimately prove to be disastrous to Irish rugby in the long term, yes.

thomond2006

So MOC's assistants get a reprieve do they?

Tox56

thomond2006 wrote: »

So MOC's assistants get a reprieve do they?

I really don't think they do at all, Cullen is pretty much universally agreed to have been a mistake and Richie Murphy.. well, I don't know what exactly he does

TommyOM

thomond2006 wrote: »

So MOC's assistants get a reprieve do they?

Not at all. I am not happy with Cullen and I'm not happy with Murphy double jobbing. The buck ultimately stops at the head coach however.

TommyOM

TommyOM wrote: »

Because the team is playing woefully.

Correct, 23 players on the match day, up to 45 across the entire season. Seasoned professionals some, relative newbies elsewhere. Almost all are professional rugby players.
MOC isn't in the team though, so I'm impressed/amazed that you can spot exactly what his influences are.

TommyOM wrote: »

The team's handling, skill set, attacking, defensive disorganization, confidence.

Handling - MOC is working with professional rugby players. If you believe that it's acceptable for a pro rugby player to blame his handling on his coach, that's on you.

Skill Set - Again, MOC has worked with the team for 2 years now, surprise surprise, he hasn't turned Darragh Fanning into Savea (not just yet anyway!). Joe Schmidt never managed to teach Cronin to hit his man every time, nor JS not to miss pressure kicks. Not sure what you really want from MOC here?

Attacking - bit of a general issue here. How exactly do you feel that MOC has curbed this?

Defensive Disorganisation - A fair point imo. However I'm pretty impressed that you're
able to spot MOC's fingerprints in it, and separate his from player mistakes etc.

Confidence - Meh, winning breeds confidence. We've not won. I don't believe that's 100% MOC's fault (nor near it), you do. Agree to disagree on this one.

TommyOM wrote: »

Who is responsible for the performance of the team over the course of the season?

Every single person involved in creating those performances.

That's each and every player to a very large degree, the head coach to a large degree, each and every individual other coach to some degree, each and every physio and nutritionist (to even lesser degrees) etc etc etc

irishbucsfan

total former wrote: »

You're talking to the man who was calling for Kidney's head the night we won the Grand Slam Emmet. He just knows these things.

He also thought Cheika was an awful coach. He's clearly on a different level to all of us. If only we were lucky enough to possess his foresight.

TommyOM

Deleted User wrote: »

Correct, 23 players on the match day, up to 45 across the entire season. Seasoned professionals some, relative newbies elsewhere. Almost all are professional rugby players though.
MOC isn't in the team though, so I'm impressed/amazed that you can spot exactly what his influences are.

Which points to a wider coaching issue. It isn't as if a few players have been playing below par.

Handling - MOC is working with professional rugby players. If you believe that it's acceptable for a pro rugby player to blame his handling on his coach, that's on you.

Well I think Schmidt has shown that coaches can and do have an affect on handling and passing.

Skill Set - Again, MOC has worked with the team for 2 years now, surprise surprise, he hasn't turned Darragh Fanning into Savea (not just yet anyway!).

But what we have seen is a regression in the skill sets of many of the players.

Attacking - bit of a general issue here. How exactly do you feel that MOC has curbed this?

.....have you watched Leinster this season? Since MOC took over the attacking play has gotten worse and worse.

Defensive Disorganisation - A fair point imo. However I'm pretty impressed that you're able to spot MOC's fingerprints in it, and separate his from player mistakes etc.

ok.

TommyOM

irishbucsfan wrote: »

He also thought Cheika was an awful coach. He's clearly on a different level to all of us. If only we were lucky enough to possess his foresight.

Cheika at Leinster completely underperformed with the squad available in my opinion. Thankfully Gibbes and Knox (agreed with me on Declan Kidney) were fantastic coaches in their own right at the time.

Cheika today is a different coach.

TommyOM

TommyOM wrote: »

Which points to a wider coaching issue. It isn't as if a few players have been playing below par.

Who in your estimation have been playing below par?

TommyOM wrote: »

Well I think Schmidt has shown that coaches can and do have an affect on handling and passing.

No doubt, drills etc can improve individual handling. That's subtly different from the point I made. How can a coach have a demonstrably negative affect on a team's handling skills? What would a coach do that would cause this to happen?

TommyOM wrote: »

But what we have seen is a regression in the skill sets of many of the players.

Examples of a few of these many players?

TommyOM wrote: »

.....have you watched Leinster this season? Since MOC took over the attacking play has gotten worse and worse.

He's not on the pitch. How are you separating his 'fingerprints' in attack from individual players' choices and execution?

irishbucsfan

TommyOM wrote: »

Cheika at Leinster completely underperformed with the squad available in my opinion. Thankfully Gibbes and Knox (agreed with me on Declan Kidney) were fantastic coaches in their own right at the time.

Cheika today is a different coach.

You haven't yet actually mentioned a specific skill of MOC or Cheika that you think is the problem though. You're talking in vague nonsense which is a really good way of pretending to know about something, but not a good way to show you actually know anything about it. And you completely dodged the question when Emmet asked you what you would do differently.

If you can actually point to any specific techncial or intangible skillset that Cheika or MOC lack then I would have some interest in what you're saying, but at the moment you haven't even shown you know what they are. Until then I'll continue to believe the people with first hand experience of these coaches who know what they're talking about.

Podge_irl

Knox was a lunatic. You do realise he was gone by the time Leinster made anything of themselves in Europe?

SaveOurLyric

thomond2006 wrote: »

Can you not just knock this stuff on the head until Sunday evening? Time to get behind your team and have a post mortem after the match.

Unfortunately it may be very mortem......



Your point of running their pack around the paddock is good though. And we will sub our entire front row to run them further in the last 25. Can you let MOC know this idea. I am worried he may not have spotted it.

Noopti

- Bring in a specialist attack or defence coach (which one depends on the specialisation of the head coach, if any)

- Bring in a new forwards coach. Leo just hasn't the experience to be the forwards coach of a top level European team. Harsh on a true servant to Leinster Rugby, but he shouldn't have been appointed in the first place.

- Bring back very honest, and detailed video review sessions. Get feedback from Schmidt on what worked and what didn't when he was in charge.

Before all the above is put in place bring the team away for a couple of days to talk about why this needs to happen, empower the team to set very high standards themselves and ensure they know what needs to happen to achieve those standards. They may not "like" the coach as much, their job will be tougher, but they will certainly "respect" them more if it is achieving the desired outcome.

Of course, all this is based on tonnes of assumptions. I don't know what sort of video review sessions the team do, but I have never heard it mentioned in the same way the players talk about what Schmidt did. But I think in my mind, and I am only speculating, the standards have dropped due to a different way of motivation and/or mentality. The players have to take ownership of that mentality and standards, but it has to be driven down from the top via an overall and simple vision for Leinster.
Schmidt had a simple vision "Become the best passing team in Europe". He knew that if that simple vision was executed, there was a high chance of success. I have no idea what O'Connor's vision for Leinster is.

irishbucsfan

Podge_irl wrote: »

Knox was a lunatic. You do realise he was gone by the time Leinster made anything of themselves in Europe?

Indeed, he was replaced and Gaffney ripped out his attacking philosophy and entirely replaced it with the flatline by the time Leinster had success. Gaffney also was Ireland's attacking coach under Kidney when we won the Grand Slam before being replaced by Kiss after the WC, so I assume TommyOM wanted him sacked as well.

I wasn't the biggest fan of him actually, I think the ELVs were the end of that philosophy, which is for the best because it was thoroughly boring to watch, but that's beside the point I suppose.

.ak

Deleted User wrote: »

He's not on the pitch. How are you separating his 'fingerprints' in attack from individual players' choices and execution?

Oh, oh, I can answer this one!

Good play = player choice and execution.

Bad play = MOC's fingerprints.

:pac:

TommyOM

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Indeed, he was replaced and Gaffney ripped out his attacking philosophy and entirely replaced it with the flatline by the time Leinster had success. Gaffney also was Ireland's attacking coach under Kidney when we won the Grand Slam before being replaced by Kiss after the WC, so I assume TommyOM wanted him sacked as well.

I wasn't the biggest fan of him actually, I think the ELVs were the end of that philosophy, which is for the best because it was thoroughly boring to watch, but that's beside the point I suppose.

I thought Gaffney was an appalling attacks coach. The year Leinster won the HC we were an awful attacking team. Knox had Leinster playing beautiful rugby. Leinster's defence won the 2009 HC not their attack.

Ditto for Ireland's attack under Kidney.


Knox was not a lunatic, he was an incredible attacking coach.

Gaffney was very poor. The season he left Leinster improved ten fold. The season Knox left Leinster's attack regressed however their defense was so good in 2009 it still allowed them to win the HC.

irishbucsfan

TommyOM wrote: »

I thought Gaffney was an appalling attacks coach. The year Leinster won the HC we were an awful attacking team. Knox had Leinster playing beautiful rugby. Leinster's defence won the 2009 HC not their attack.

Ditto for Ireland's attack under Kidney.


Knox was not a lunatic, he was an incredible attacking coach.

Gaffney was very poor. The season he left Leinster improved ten fold. The season Knox left Leinster's attack regressed however their defense was so good in 2009 it still allowed them to win the HC.

Go on then.

What made Gaffney and "appalling" coach, and what made Knox an "incredible" coach?

As a self-proclaimed expert on coaching you must be able to seperate these guys based on their technical ability as coaches quite easily?

Isn't it also pretty interesting that "appalling" Gaffney went on to coach an international team at the World Cup and is still employed by the Waratahs, while Knox did nothing?

ionadnapokot

Knox = Wrap Around = Legend

molloyjh

TommyOM wrote: »

I thought Gaffney was an appalling attacks coach. The year Leinster won the HC we were an awful attacking team. Knox had Leinster playing beautiful rugby. Leinster's defence won the 2009 HC not their attack.

Ditto for Ireland's attack under Kidney.


Knox was not a lunatic, he was an incredible attacking coach.

Gaffney was very poor. The season he left Leinster improved ten fold. The season Knox left Leinster's attack regressed however their defense was so good in 2009 it still allowed them to win the HC.

It was so much more than just "defence" in fairness. Remember 2006 when we ran the leather off it against Toulouse and won only to be spanked by Munster in our own back yard?

Cheika was not there to develop an all singing and all dancing attacking game. We had that already and it was getting us nowhere. He came in to change our culture. And he did that very, very successfully. Without him Joe would not have been as successful as he was. I don't care how anyone else wants to spin it that's just the simple truth for me. I mentioned elsewhere the word mettle. We didn't have it pre-Cheika and it's something he instilled into us. And that proved to be pretty damn invaluable over the last few years.

You cannot judge a coach based on how good the rugby is to watch. You have to take context into it. The context with Cheika was as I described above. The context with Schmidt was to take a team that had become a tough team to beat (there's way more to that than just defence) and turn them into a winning side. We focused on the mettle under Cheika and the skills under Schmidt. Both were successes in what they were tasked with doing.

When looking at it like that the context with MOC seems to have been that awful word "transition". When he was brought in we knew that Sexton and Isa would be gone before he took charge. We knew Drico and Cullen were on their last legs. We knew Jenno and Darce hadn't long left in them. That was the guts of our leadership group right there, never mind some of our best players. MOCs remit, at least in my eyes but I'm sure in the eyes of Leinster Rugby, was to manage this period by identifying a new leadership group and empowering younger players to make the step up to the senior side. Now we can argue whether in his 2 years to date he's done enough on that front or whether he had/has enough to work with. But you can't just use attacking play to decide how good a coach is or isn't.

That said parts of what you are saying I do agree with. While MOC is mainly there to manage a transitional period in the side he also has to do the day to day stuff as well. An increased focus on the basics under Joe led to improved execution of the basics. It logically follows that a reduced focus on it can lead to poorer execution of the basics. How much this is a factor we simply don't know as we're not in the "environment". Our attacking play has seemed pretty clueless for the most part, and very one dimensional generally speaking. The wide-wide-inside ball, wide-wide-loopy pass, wide-wide-inside ball when we go to the backs has been all too predictable. It looks like it takes individuals to change it up a bit (Te'o and Fitzgerald stand out as guys straightening the line when playing at 13 while everyone else crabs). I can't help but feel there is surely something wrong with the system as a whole that it enables such a poor attacking game so often. Is it that the players aren't communicating properly? Maybe they don't have the right direction? Maybe (and here's one you won't see many utter) we simply don't have the players for anything more? Maybe it's a combination of all of the above? Either way it's up to a coach to get the best out of his side and MOC isn't doing that. And you're right. Ultimately the buck stops with him. He's the top boss. There's plenty of blame to go around though.

Clegg

At least we have confirmation that our pack is as good as any in Europe. But the options at half back and centre are just appalling. I suppose Te'o has the speed and strength, but right now all he offers is bosh. Gopperth is just average at everything and Boss and Reddan make too many mistakes. I'm not sure about Madigan either tbh. There have been times during MoC's tenure when I thought he could be our long term option at 12. He has the passing game and line breaking ability to do it. But then he games like today when everything goes wrong. I'd like to see how he does outside a world class 10 before making further judgements.

Fitzgerald is our best back by far but he's wasted on the wing in the Leinster set up. his best position is probably on the wing but there's so little going on in midfield that he needs to be there.

Oh, and Ulster are probably going to tank Leinster next week. No way any of the frontline players will be 100% for that game.

CatFromHue

There probably will be little to no physical training this week, it'll all be about recovery.

There's a week off after the Ulster game too.

Hagz

Jordi Murphy has raised himself to another level this season. Considering he doesn't make a fully fit back-row he's some player to have.