Edwards new reason cited........

[ddtftf]

I was thinking of Wayne when i posted sorry but he can still Fook off

[josie andrews]

I was thinking of Wayne when i posted sorry but he can still Fook off

[josie andrews]

Shaun Edwards: ‘I sensed France really wanted me. That’s why I went’

France’s defence coach discusses why he left Wales, sidestepped Wigan and would like to work for England

Shaun Edwards’s French is coming along fine. “I wouldn’t be able to have a long conversation,” he says, “but I’ve got all the rugby words.” And that’s all he needs right now.

“I’ve always had the belief that 15 minutes of practice is worth an hour of talking and if I’m honest even when I coach in English I only use three or four words at a time.” The trick, he says, is “to say ’em loud”.

Shane Williams tells a story about the first training session Edwards did with Wales. “He spotted me dawdling and yelled: ‘Get on the fucking front line’.” Six words. “And you know what, the next time, I made damn sure I did.”

The old days are on Edwards’ mind right now too. After 12 years working as Wales’ defence coach, he has just started the same job with France. Wales’s players knew him inside out. This is like starting all over. They are a young team, too. The coach, Fabien Galthié, has picked 19 uncapped players in the squad of 42, as he tries to rebuild in time for their home World Cup in 2023. “We must have the youngest team ever in the history of the Six Nations, we must have an average age of 23 or 24,” Edwards says. “You normally have at least a few 30-somethings but we’ve gone the way of youth. Let’s hope they’re young and good.

“It is all a bit like it was when I first went to Wales, the various drills you do, the emphasis on the tackle area, on line speed, various tactical traits which I know have worked in the past, they’re things we’re trying to install in the French now.”

Edwards is only half-joking when he says his is one of the hardest jobs in the game. “This is a little bit self-pitying but there are so many points being scored at the moment. Just look at England’s attack last year.” England averaged 37 points a match in the 2019 Six Nations. Take out the tight defeat to Edwards’ Wales, and it goes up to 41. France, on the other hand, shipped 15 tries in just five games.

“Well,” Edwards says, “they didn’t get me in for nothing, did they?”

That feeling, that the French really wanted him to join, is what swung the decision. He had options, was in negotiations with Wales, and even accepted an offer to become the coach at Wigan. The money on offer was much the same. It was about more than that. He knows there is bad feeling about the way he went back and forth, especially up north. “I don’t want to slag Wigan off but it’s important to explain because I’ve had a lot of criticism and people don’t know the real reason,” Edwards says. “I agreed to go to Wigan but I didn’t get a contract to sign and over time I realised I had no control over the club.”


Edwards wanted to bring in his own fitness coach. “I’d spoken to him, promised him a job, and four months after our first conversation the club still hadn’t rung him up. Then I found out they had sold George Williams, who was going to be a marquee player for the following season. I didn’t find it out from the club, I found it out from a newspaper.”

That didn’t help. “I can accept you don’t have total control of everything but you would expect to have some control over your staff, and over the comings and goings of the players. You’d expect some of that, wouldn’t you?”

It wasn’t the way Edwards was used to working. So he told Wigan he wasn’t coming. After that, Wales offered him a two-year contract to stay on. France, on the other hand, offered him a four and a half year deal. “Listen, I’ve been negotiating deals since 1983, I’ve been a professional a long time, you know, I started when I was 16. And after all that, you know when people really want you. France came in and I sensed they really wanted me, so that’s why I went.” It helped, too, that he is working under his old friend Raphaël Ibañez.

Edwards has a lot of affection for Wales. “The people there were so good to me and gave me so much support, which was something I’d never really had in my career before. The fans gave you nothing but encouragement and some of the relationships I made there go well beyond the game.”

His only regret is “we were never able to give them that ultimate game, the World Cup final.” They were so close, too, only one point away in 2011, three points away in Japan in 2019.

But underneath all that, I wonder if there was just a twist of irritation that the Welsh Rugby Union did not interview him for the coach’s job once it was clear Warren Gatland was going. “I’m sure one or two people in the WRU had no idea I’d even been a head coach,” he says, “or that I’d won a Heineken Cup as a head coach with Wasps in 2007.” Not just the Heineken Cup but the Anglo-Welsh Cup in 2006 and the Premiership in 2008, too. “Three trophies in five years, it’s not a bad record is it?”

Edwards would like to be a head coach again one day and he’d like to work for England, too. They offered him a job in 2006 and he turned it down because he was still mourning his brother, Billy Joe, who died in a car crash in 2003. He wanted to keep himself busy and was worried that if he was in international rugby he would have too much time to stew. “It ended up being the right choice, because I think England have been through five sets of coaching staff since then and I’ve only ever had two jobs, 10 years at Wasps, 12 years with Wales.”

And now France have him. He has ruled himself out of the Lions tour in 2021 (not, he adds, that he thinks he would have been selected anyway), because right now, all he is thinking about is the job in hand. He can hardly wait. “Anyone who says they don’t get emotional for the Six Nations must have something wrong with them. It’s just an amazing competition and it’s one I love to be involved in. It’s my favourite by a distance, because I love that feeling of the whole country stopping to watch rugby.”

After all these years, he says, that is why he is still at it. “I’m addicted to the big games. I was thinking the other day, all the games I was involved in last year, the average crowd must have been about 65,000. Where do you go after that? Where can you get that buzz anywhere else?”

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/ ... ions-wigan

So another excuse

[ddtftf]

He will never make a head coach in RU as the Country he coached would not give him full control

[DaveO]

BBC interview he says he didn't come to Wigan because of "lack of control over what I thought was a head coaches role".

Nonsense or truth?

Interesting.

Got a link to the interview by any chance?

My own view is it’s quite possibly true. The club is run by IL and yes man Rads. That’s it.

Coaches on rolling contracts like Wane was and Lam is, are in no position to rock the boat too much.

Always on form DaveO [emoji23]. Of SE form over the last year don't you think that IL deserves the benefit of the doubt on this one. Do you really believe Wane didn't have a say? And isnt a rolling contract actually a smart idea? No payoff required if its not working just dont renew.

No a rolling contract isn’t a good idea In my opinion. Post Wane who probably always wanted the job so was prepared to put up with it, the only coach you will get on a rolling contract is one grateful for the job. No top coach will sign on a rolling contract.

As to the coach having a say, which members of the back room staff do you think Lam has brought to the club? I would say it’s pretty obvious it’s zero.

Whether Edwards is using this as a new excuse for not taking the job is neither here nor there if it’s true which I think most people accept is the case.

[The Yonner]

Two interesting comments there.

First he says the French convinced him he is really wanted, and then he got nothing but support from the welsh fans. The implication in each case being he didn't get the same from Wigan.

Well I remember when he played there was always a vocal minority constantly griping and on his back when things weren't going perfectly.

Maybe he sees the lack of consultation from Lenagan as a similar lack of respect.

Sensitive chap methinks.

[ddtftf]

And maybe he has shown no respect to the Wigan fans by his sour comments , he is going backwards in his career and will end up at ST Pats as defence coach which is what he really is .

Best thing he can do from now is to keep his fat mouth shut as he has lost all respect he had at our club.

[AndyNick]

I don't think either side comes out of this one with much credibility, but Shaun Edwards certainly comes out worse. We knew before the start of last season that Hastings was coming for this season to replace Williams who was off to the NRL. There are no secrets in rugby league and for Edwards to say that he wasn't aware of this happening shows him to be either incredibly naieve (something he doesn't strike me as) or lying through his teeth.

Personally i'm over it. As far as we're concerned, it's done and a line drawn under it. Lam's done a decent job in the second half of last season and if he's happy to stay over here i'd be happy for him to get a few more years in the job to build his own team.

Let Edwards cash his Euro's on some nice French wine, We've got a new season to get stuck into with no backroom distractions, meanwhile another Wigan legend makes his bow in a top Union job tomorrow with Andy Farrell's first game as Ireland's head coach.