Blues 2018
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@tim "My personal view is the board needs more rugby expertise on it"
Good fucking grief. That this even needs to be said...I guess good on Carter, but five years these idiots have been grinding the franchise into the mud. The damage that he and fucking Redman and the procession of rubbish celebrity coaches have done is massive. I mean seriously? "We are close to unlocking the playing potential of this club". Dude, you are the fucking franchise of the biggest city in NZ, that used to be the powerhouse and is now an embarrassment.
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I'm still a bit mystified as to why Leon has taken up the Asst. coach gig.
He's surely not going to have free rein to make sweeping changes, he's going to be plugged into a stumbling regime, with a high probability of failing.
So then he's tarnished in terms of getting appointed as Head Coach and - even if he is - he's no longer a bright new saviour from the players' perspective.
I just don't see where there's a big win for him - unless he manages to turn the Blues around and even then Tana gets the public credit and presumably an extension.
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@chris-b mkes you wonder what they have negotiated that we are not privy to, musta been some carrot?
If the Blues carry on next year the way they are, his rep will take a huge hit, right or wrong, but I guess if they make improvements, these will be attributed to him.
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@taniwharugby Yeah - will be interesting to see how it pans out - you'd think there must be some hidden carrot in the mix.
Leon seems to be pretty patient in terms of his progression, so maybe he sees helping rebuild a broken Super team from the Ass. Coach position as an important learning step.
Maybe he can see some obvious fixes - you'd hope so.
Building an effective lineout drive is an obvious one, but that's possibly not part of his job description. You'd wonder how it is that the guys who've been in the AB environment haven't been able to fix this even if the forwards coach is hopeless.
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@chris-b you'd of thought he'd have been patiently on the path to the Crusaders head role, so it makes it and even stranger decision, even if promised a head gig at the Blues, to go to the Blues...assuming that was the carrot, to be head coach in 2020, which would be a huge call for the Blues to make (although not surprising with this board) given the potential international candidates that could be available post 2019.
Maybe Leon just wants a challenge, a big challenge!
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@taniwharugby If he was impatient for a Head Coach role, you'd have thought he could have almost picked up the Highlanders job when they had to twist Tony Brown's arm or perhaps ahead of Aaron Mauger.
Not sure that the Crusaders' Head Coach job is coming free any time soon - but, you'd think if Leon wanted a Super head coach job that biding his time at Ta$man would be better than this shift.
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The other way of looking at it from Leon MacDonald's point of view is right now it is rock bottom - Leon can make some pretty big improvements in one season as attack coach. The attacking structure of the Blues is legitimately awful - I'd suggest the worst in the comp - there's no guile, there's no deception - there's very little evidence of a plan.
Blues are going to win at max 4 games this season and the target for Tana to be retained beyond next season is a semi final berth in 2019. The most likely outcome is the Blues finish somewhere between those markers in 2019 - meaning both Leon has improved the joint and Tana gets canned.
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@kiwimurph I guess a wildcard in the mix is that it is RWC year, so not everyone's eyes will be focused on Super rugby. That might help (or hinder) the Blues.
Still, the most likely result is the Blues do a little bit better than this year, but still don't make the play-offs. I don't really see that strengthening Leon's hand.
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@chris-b said in Blues 2018:
@kiwimurph I guess a wildcard in the mix is that it is RWC year, so not everyone's eyes will be focused on Super rugby. That might help (or hinder) the Blues.
Still, the most likely result is the Blues do a little bit better than this year, but still don't make the play-offs. I don't really see that strengthening Leon's hand.
How not? In this situation he'd either be head coach himself in 2020 or someone better than him (e.g. Gatland) comes in as coach and MacDonald has a chance to really make a difference.
What else was there left to achieve/prove at the Crusaders? He already won a title as assistant coach there?
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@kiwimurph I reckon even with Tana stil at the helm, they cant help but improve next season!
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@taniwharugby said in Blues 2018:
@kiwimurph I reckon even with Tana stil at the helm, they cant help but improve next season!
[End of 2017]It can't get any worse than that Sunwolves thrashing![/End of 2017]
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@duluth Blues 40 Sharks 63
Blues 10 Rebels 20IMO those 2 home losses are infinitely worse than that loss to the SW, playing on EP used to mean something...they cold start there.
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I agree
I'm making the point that Tana's Blues have managed to keep lowering their own shitty standards
Improvement next year is not a given
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@kiwimurph He might be Head Coach, but he'd be a bit tarnished - both with the fans and the players - at least in terms of coming in with a brand new broom. That new Warriors CEO made a good point that you only get one chance to get things right and this path seems like a good one towards being compromised.
Leon's already left the Crusaders and I can't see him going back as an assistant. I reckon he'd be in a strong position this time next year just by staying as Head Coach at Ta$man (except AB call ups are likely to hurt the Mako pretty badly).
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The Blues have been staggeringly consistent-at developing players who play far better at the other franchises and at making obviously talented players that they do keep practise imitating headless chickens.
**hmm or maybe they don't know to fully develop them?
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@chris-b fair point.
I guess the flip side is you could argue that being in the 2019 coaching set up would give him an advantage than if he was to come in 2020. 2019 gives him a good look at the current players, the current culture of the team, potentially a headstart on recruiting for 2020 etc.
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All jokes aside though - how the hell does Redman, a dude with a string of expensive failures to his name, still have a job with the Blues?
This bunch of numpties and the Pied Piper of Fucking Awful are basically the case study for how not to run a rugby franchise.
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Interesting to see that plenty of people are convinced a new coach will achieve instant, significant improvement yet bringing in a new assistant (a very good one) won't yield any improvements.
Surely Tana isn't going to bring in Mcdonald just to ignore his input.
I would imagine as a condition of him taking the job it would have been made clear that he would have a large amount of input across selection and tactics etc.
