Kidney backs O'Driscoll to bounce back

Deccie reckons that there's more than one more 6Ns left in BOD. Maybe there is. But even if there is, then the time remaining to replace him before 2015 is short. Most of us know that BOD's body is now fragile and can't be trusted to last any (even brief) campaign.

Everyone - even icons of his stature - must at some stage come to the end of the road.

Is it time for Kidney to get real and kindly show BOD the door?
Or do you think that Deccie will gamble on and on and on maybe even until the RWC?

Sure as hell, you don't quite see BOD quitting when there's any chance of a last hurrah. He's so driven.
But I'd hate to see a sad end caused either by injury or worse, ability.

http://www.espnscrum.com/ireland/rugby/story/175833.html

BoD might have more than one 6N left in him but Deccie won't.

That's true asore.

Only problem is that if Ireland win the 6Ns, the IRFU will sign him up for life.

It is a similar situation to Wales with Shane, While he was playing we thought no-one could replace him, and while we have still missed his moment of magic, we have now got the likes of Halfpenny, North, Cuthbert around with the likes of Eli Walker (who has benefitted from shane leaving the O's) waiting in the wings.
What Ireland and the next coach need to remember is that another BOD wont appear out of thin air, the player who will replace will need to be allowed to grow into his role and not be cast aside as soon as he does something wrong, give him the confidence to try things and realise he may posses a different skill set to BOD and be better in certain areas, and therefore adapt the game plan around this

Yeah, I think the best thing for the man himself to do would be to step aside and take the gun out of Kidneys or his successors hands.

So long as he isn't picked but is still at Leinster, his absence will be a shovel for Kidney to be beaten with if things go badly in the next 6N. His successor will be overshadowed. Besides that, the IRFU is famously reactionary and political and there is also likely to be pressure from above to pick a marketing icon like BOD for reasons outside rugby.

If he decides to leave the game he will take the pressure of his successor and coach. It would be a selfless, classy move but for a competitor like O'Driscoll it would also be an exceptionally difficult call to make. However, if you want an example of a player who is hanging on too long to the detriment of his teammates and coaches he need look no further than O'Gara. Sometimes a dignified exit is the way to go.

All of this is very easy for us to say, but its not exactly easy to decide to leave a well-paid job you love to walk into what can only be described as a clusterf*ck of an economy unless you have a really good Plan B. I guess the lump sum he'll get from the Irish taxman when he retires will sweeten the deal and give him time but it's never easy to start a new career in the middle of your working life never mind in the situation which Ireland and Europe is in right now.

Notch wrote:Yeah, I think the best thing for the man himself to do would be to step aside and take the gun out of Kidneys or his successors hands.

So long as he isn't picked but is still at Leinster, his absence will be a shovel for Kidney to be beaten with if things go badly in the next 6N. His successor will be overshadowed. Besides that, the IRFU is famously reactionary and political and there is also likely to be pressure from above to pick a marketing icon like BOD for reasons outside rugby.

If he decides to leave the game he will take the pressure of his successor and coach. It would be a selfless, classy move but for a competitor like O'Driscoll it would also be an exceptionally difficult call to make. However, if you want an example of a player who is hanging on too long to the detriment of his teammates and coaches he need look no further than O'Gara. Sometimes a dignified exit is the way to go.

All of this is very easy for us to say, but its not exactly easy to decide to leave a well-paid job you love to walk into what can only be described as a clusterf*ck of an economy unless you have a really good Plan B. I guess the lump sum he'll get from the Irish taxman when he retires will sweeten the deal and give him time but it's never easy to start a new career in the middle of your working life never mind in the situation which Ireland and Europe is in right now.

Fair summary. Why would anyone leave a well paid job you love by choice? Not like Rog will make as much coaching or Drico as much schmoosing.

There's all sorts of possible futures in store for Bod - media (although he might be a tad arrogant to my taste), rugby administration, corporate smooching plus Il Presidente one day maybe.

I'd love if more of our top players went into coaching. Some of these guys have so much experience they could pass on and may find they have a talent for coaching as well as playing if they went into it.

I'm all for the likes of Scmidt, Anscombe Penny etc. bringing their Kiwi expertise. But wouldn't it be great if we could produce coaches of the same technical quality.

BOD has a well paid job he loves - interviewing for all and sundry wearing his HSBC lions Aus 2013 top! Mind you he tends to get injured less doing so

Feckless Rogue wrote:I'd love if more of our top players went into coaching.

^^^
The exact opposite from me! IMHO most players who go into coaching just don't realise what it takes to coach. They generally fit in straight away because they know current techniques, players around them, the coaching staff who employed them, but generally weeks and months pass by, the game differs and they don't, then the coaching and playing staff change and they just don't stay in touch!

I would much prefer the type of people who want to coach spend their time grafting and volunteering at the bottom, work their way into better positions and when they get to high level tables they have the work ethic and the thirst for knowledge that others don't!

IMHO ex players in general make good short term coaches, self made coaches make great long term coaches and dictate where the game goes globally!!!

thebluesmancometh wrote:

Feckless Rogue wrote:I'd love if more of our top players went into coaching.

^^^
The exact opposite from me! IMHO most players who go into coaching just don't realise what it takes to coach. They generally fit in straight away because they know current techniques, players around them, the coaching staff who employed them, but generally weeks and months pass by, the game differs and they don't, then the coaching and playing staff change and they just don't stay in touch!

I would much prefer the type of people who want to coach spend their time grafting and volunteering at the bottom, work their way into better positions and when they get to high level tables they have the work ethic and the thirst for knowledge that others don't!

IMHO ex players in general make good short term coaches, self made coaches make great long term coaches and dictate where the game goes globally!!!

Good point actually. If you think of the best coaches in rugby (and in soccer too), they weren't necessarily the top players in their day. In fact they nearly never are. Maybe BOD should just be President then.

HAHAHA maybe, who is it these days still Mary Mac?

My point is coaches who have coaching as a goal, and work toward it generally make better coaches than top players who take it up by default.

No offence to Martin Johnstone but he is a huge example, great player and the idea was what he lacked in coaching experience he would make up in influence, yet after a few months it was obvious the players were 2nd guessing his decisions (if he made any) and it was clear the younger player who never played with or against him regularly didn't respect his coaching ability.

I have no doubt he could turn out to be a great coach, in 5 years if he has the teeth for it he could bounce back, but I would guess he doesn't really care too much, it was just a job and he'll try another one just as easily.

As a player you don't learn that much, you do what your told, eat this then, drink that now, do this do that. Very rarely does a player ask why, and even more rarely does a coach have the time to explain.

So as inspirational as MJ was as a player has he got the free thought, the research based knowledge or the confidence to make changes to something not working, and would he be able to communicate why he's making changes, what the changes are and why they have been chosen?

Another example is a pro coach in Wales, I and a pro player had a 20 minute argument with him about the difference between Aerobic and Anearobic (yes he was a recent former pro player) now not only did he not know the difference he couldn't give a breif explenation of what they were! Now I know Conditioning isn't a coach's job exactly, but knowing what a player needs to be able to perform and the difference in systems used to do so is very basic. Now I'm not talking differing energy systems in depth, just the difference between the use and non use of Oxygen.

And no I will not name him

Michael D. Higgins is President. I like him- BOD will have to wait his turn! He's got something like five more years, though he's so old he probably won't run again.

Not that I get to vote anyway.

So Mary Mac is out? What she up to these days?

BOD will get the freedom of the whole island I would imagine, the politics route should wait for a while, although Bod may able to save us from the mess we are in, he has gotten Ireland out of worse holes........


Mary Mac is probably milking in the pension she gets which is rather handsome and if she is like our other politicians, she probably gets two of them. You wonder why we're short a few bob..... (Going off the point but I thought it was a disgrace Martin McGuiness was allowed run for President given his past transgressions.)

Democracy is democracy. You can't pick and choose who runs, you can only exercise your right not to vote for them. Which people in the South did in great numbers. Actually Martin McGuinness, while I personally doubt his crocodile tears and repentance, I feel in recent years he has been a relatively moderating influence on extremists in the Sinn Fein/Republican base and any attempt to force him out of mainstream politics would definitely weaken his position and strengthen the hardliners and dissidents in republican politics. Currently the cause of peace is best served with him being allowed to hold office in the North and contest elections in the South if he wishes. We all must make compromises.

Besides, if you didn't let criminals run for office what would be left of Irish politics? According to wikipedia, since Mary McAleese returned to private life she has returned 500000 euros of unused Presidential allowances and raised publicity the issue of the suicide rate in young men in Ireland, particularly young gay men who have been left alienated by the Church.

She's not the worst by a long shot. She's was the first Irish President to reach out to Northern Unionists in a meaningful way and a significant proponent of good cross-border relations in Ireland. She achieved a lot towards normalising relations between the two jurisdictions in Ireland during her Presidency.

OMG Notch are you her...?

We are honoured!