Rugby union is becoming more and more like football in its willingness to sack coaches. Chris Hewett examines a disturbing trend, while the Saracens coach offers a first-hand insight into the perils of having to deliver instant success. Read his thoughts in The Independent.
"Richard Hill ended a long and frequently heroic coaching association with Bristol last week, and the manner of his leaving was not pleasant in the slightest. Eddie Jones will walk away from Saracens at the end of the season, exasperated and unfulfilled, while Philippe Saint-André is about to leave Sale, one of the best top-flight teams in England, for Toulon, one of the worst in France. There is no guarantee that when Wasps begin their 2009-10 campaign in September, they will do so under the stewardship of Ian McGeechan. The same uncertainty surrounds Dean Ryan's future at Gloucester.
"In Formula One, they call it "musical chairs". In football, they call it normal. But big-time club rugby was never meant to be like football: everyone said so, from the owners and chairmen in their private lounges to the chief executives and Guinness Premiership administrators charged with growing a business from scratch in the face of considerable adversity. Football was "not the right model" at this early point in the union game's development as a professional sport, they insisted. "If we go down the football road, we'll find a brick wall at the end of it.""
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