Quote ="DaveO"No one is suggesting they should but Larder isn't Edwards. Edwards isn't coming for obvious reasons but to suggest he would not make a go of it if he did is not a rational position to adopt.
Not all ex-players make good coaches but Edwards has shown he has the man-management side of it sorted and its clear the RU players have his respect and want to play for him.
The only area he could be lacking is tactics but then you must assume he ignores the game completely and would not assimilate back into the game quickly. Why you would assume this I have no idea.'"
Because there is not much evidence to suggest the transition is an easy one to make. Alan Jones was an excellent RU coach who even managed to turn the All Blacks over when they were at their height. Three years after jumping to league his record stood at lamentable: 12th, 10th and 12th.
Of course, there is the counter argument that Edwards is an experienced league player whereas Jones entered the ARL as a novice to the game. But Edwards has been gone a long time. Things have moved on tremendously. I recall a conversation I had with Daniel Anderson soon after his arrival at Saints in which he said the game has become so technical these days it should qualify as academic study. You don't need to be out of the picture for long before you've been left out of the gallery itself. If Edwards were to return it's very doubtful he could do so without being forced to learn on the job – which that CAN'T be a good thing. And there's the issue of shelf life. Even top coaches (unless your name is Wayne Bennett) find it difficult to remain consistently good for long. Hanley, Millward and Peter Sharp are just some of the more recent high profile elite level coaches whose stock collapsed almost overnight. It’s not difficult to identify at least some of the reasons behind their precipitate demise. Coaching is an incredibly stressful job for a variety of reasons: maintaining good relations with the fans, keeping the board happy, dealing with the press, ministering the interminable and often trivial needs of the players ... and we haven’t even started on winning games. Under such high levels of pressure there is an understandable urge to remain conservative (it’s a biologically hardwired trait). If tactics A, B & C have proved successful in the past, the temptation will be to stick with them in the future – even if it flies in the face of everything your noggin is telling you. The real problems arise when the guy opposite you identifies this conservatism and turns it against you. Take Ian Millward for example. When Millward got the job at Knowsley Road he very quickly switched the point of attack away from the flanks to the centre of the field. At the time some thought it odd because we were very strong in the backs (with two of the best centres in the game in Newlove and Iro) but less so in the forwards. What we did have was speed around the dummy half. Cunningham was in his prime whilst Higham had explosive acceleration in addition to being pretty much unknown to SL coaches. During the off season Millward drilled the players on a completely novel gameplan – one which involved a rapid turnover of the set with an unprecedented amount of dummy-half running (four to five times the league average). In that first season Saints were very difficult to contain. Millward rotated Cunningham and Higham gaining maximum advantage just when the opposition was beginning to wilt. The only team that caused Saints problems was Wigan (Bradford’s big forwards just weren’t fit enough to cope with the intensity). Raper’s tactics were to slow down the PTB as much as possible without being penalised and put bodies in front of Cunningham and Higham (it was good fortune to have players who could execute Raper’s strategy – because many could not). This limited the amount of Saints yardage and took pressure off Wigan’s own try line. The season after more and more teams adopted similar tactics and Saints found it increasingly difficult to achieve the same level of success. And this is where Millward’s conservatism betrayed him because instead of using his undoubted intelligence to come up with a new blueprint for success he chose to stick with what won him the trophies (again, this is a perfectly understandable decision). Saints were fortunate in having the likes of Sculthorpe, Cunningham, Fairleigh, Wellens, Martyn, Long etc., who managed to offset the tactical weakness and secure success. But the methodology and MIllward were holed below the waterline.
There’s nothing new in this. Time at the top is fleeting and all but the greats (or perhaps the luckiest) fall victim to their own conservatism because that devil you know is infinitely less scary than the one you don’t.
For someone returning from RU after a long period out of the game, someone who has no prior (league) coaching mistakes to get out of his system early before he joins a club - whose supporters are convinced they should be challenging (and beating) the best - the obstacles seem insurmountable. Sure Edwards has demonstrated remarkable ingenuity in RU. But that’s RU. Ask any Union player who has returned to the sport after dabbling in league and they all say the same thing – in league there are so many more things to think about. Let’s say Noble is canned at the end of the season and Edwards is drafted in as a replacement. On his very first day he’ll be faced by a mountain of information (tactics, rules, regulations, agents, the media, the opposition, the team, the fans, the medical arrangements, the tea lady, the training facilities, the sponsors etc.) that’s passed him by whilst he’s been in Union. Far more than an Aussie or Kiwi coach who – presumably – has his finger on the pulse of RL training and tactics). Where’s the time for him to iron out all the bugs in his game? Edwards’ shelf life will be up before he’s even got started!
Look, you should never say never. Any coaching appointment is ultimately a calculated gamble. But there are odds and there are odds. Hire a top NRL coach with a proven RL track record and you’re giving yourself the best possible chance to succeed. Throw money around at a Union coach with no history of delivering in league and you could very soon stand accused of at best stupidity or at worst wanton recklessness.
You cannot claim to be a rational person whilst harbouring the opinion that a RU coach is more likely to turn Wigan around than someone from a competition which is five to ten years in advance of SL.
