Opinions and coaching crisis

Everyone has them, that's part of the reason why there's so many sites like this one about, blogging and the voicing of opinions is the driving force behind a large percentage of the internet's content. However these are often ill-informed and inaccurate opinions that devolve into ranting (no names mentioned) This phenomena however is not restricted to the internet nor to people without 'power', just ask Phil Davies.

Having not been involved with Welsh rugby for the last decade, instead plying his trade relatively well in Leeds, he has chosen this time, when considered the number one candidate for the Welsh coaching job should Scott Johnson leave, to wax lyrical about the problems within Welsh rugby. Now forgive me if I've missed something, but how in the blue hell does he know? Much like when he was a player, Phil has had his head down and his arse up in Leeds for ten years. I credit him immensely for his loyalty to Leeds, for his ability to help gain the club promotion into the English Premiership. However at the highest club level in England his Leeds team have been found wanting. They have struggled at the wrong end of the table for two years, narrowly missing relegation last year through some fortunate results and great rugby. They did beat Bath in the Powergen cup final in the last year it remained a solely English competition, but one cup final does not a good coach make.

So how did Phil, pretty much known as a donkey throught his playing career, become number one choice for the Wales job if Scott Johnson declares 'no mas'? The answer is, he's the only half decent Welsh coach. Why this surprises people I don't know. My thoughts on Gareth Jenkins are pretty clear. Lyn Jones couldn't organise an explosion in a fireworks factory with the best on-paper region in Wales. Paul Turner, who has been put in a bad situation with all of Newport's problems and who isn't doing a lot to turn them around, isn't even worth considering as a candidate. Which leaves us with my greatest fear for Welsh rugby, the abomination which is Dai Young. Like Phil Davies he was never a clever player, putting it politely, and as a coach nothing has changed. Cardiff, for all Stan Thomas's investment in non-Welsh players, have been mediocre when it matters. Battered by Leeds (see my point) and Perpignan, they had an easy Heineken cup group and couldn't even qualify from that. Yet somehow the papers, radio and some pundits (they couldn't be called experts before this, now they're on the verge of cretinhood) seem to think that carthorse 1 and carthorse 2 somehow makes a stallion. Apparently this is the dream team that will be leading Wales forward. I've never seen a greater backward step in the history of Welsh rugby and that's saying something.

Obviously any advice I offer will invariably go unheeded, but for god's sake anyone with influence in the WRU and not on Cardiff's payroll reading this DON'T LET IT HAPPEN! There is time and time again, for the taking of toast and tea as T.S Eliot so correctly pointed out. Even if we have to set a temporary coach for the summer tour, get it right, do not rush and in the name of all that is holy don't feel you have to pick a Welsh coach for the job. They are over-rated, over-paid and over-the-hill. What's more they all have loose tongues and we can't be having that now can we.