New Head Coach: Mike Blair

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New Head Coach: Mike Blair

Postby TheSmidge on Fri Jul 23, 2021 1:24 pm

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Re: New Head Coach: Mike Blair

Postby Impega on Fri Jul 23, 2021 1:33 pm

Congratulations to him.

Looking forward to the change in playing style this will (surely, please) bring.
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Re: New Head Coach: Mike Blair

Postby BigD163 on Fri Jul 23, 2021 1:37 pm

Congratulations and best of luck to him.
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Re: New Head Coach: Mike Blair

Postby doedin on Fri Jul 23, 2021 1:47 pm

Excellent appointment and one all us fans were hoping for. A real thinker and very analytical in his approach he will do well. He is also a nice guy. I wonder what changes he will make in his coaching team, if any? This makes up for the sudden departure of Cockers, who I liked as well, and Blair will know all the players well and will hit the ground running.
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Re: New Head Coach: Mike Blair

Postby Friday Knight Lights on Fri Jul 23, 2021 1:57 pm

doedin wrote:Excellent appointment and one all us fans were hoping for. A real thinker and very analytical in his approach he will do well. He is also a nice guy. I wonder what changes he will make in his coaching team, if any? This makes up for the sudden departure of Cockers, who I liked as well, and Blair will know all the players well and will hit the ground running.


We need a forwards coach I think. Lawrie is a bit inexperienced for my tastes.

I am a bit concerned, he has been groomed for this role obviously but I hope they went through a thorough interview process still.
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Re: New Head Coach: Mike Blair

Postby doedin on Fri Jul 23, 2021 2:56 pm

Friday Knight Lights wrote:
doedin wrote:Excellent appointment and one all us fans were hoping for. A real thinker and very analytical in his approach he will do well. He is also a nice guy. I wonder what changes he will make in his coaching team, if any? This makes up for the sudden departure of Cockers, who I liked as well, and Blair will know all the players well and will hit the ground running.


We need a forwards coach I think. Lawrie is a bit inexperienced for my tastes.

I am a bit concerned, he has been groomed for this role obviously but I hope they went through a thorough interview process still.


Don't think an interview will make the slightest bit of difference, they tend to be used to confirm existing views and prejudices anyway. More of an anointment than a selection process given the timescales and urgency involved and to be honest that's fine by me. Succession planning.
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Re: New Head Coach: Mike Blair

Postby Pitfitter446 on Fri Jul 23, 2021 3:07 pm

Congratulations to Mike and has to be good news that we have a settlement before the season starts, let’s hope we get off to flying start to the season.
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Re: New Head Coach: Mike Blair

Postby Friday Knight Lights on Fri Jul 23, 2021 3:25 pm

doedin wrote:
Friday Knight Lights wrote:
doedin wrote:Excellent appointment and one all us fans were hoping for. A real thinker and very analytical in his approach he will do well. He is also a nice guy. I wonder what changes he will make in his coaching team, if any? This makes up for the sudden departure of Cockers, who I liked as well, and Blair will know all the players well and will hit the ground running.


We need a forwards coach I think. Lawrie is a bit inexperienced for my tastes.

I am a bit concerned, he has been groomed for this role obviously but I hope they went through a thorough interview process still.


Don't think an interview will make the slightest bit of difference, they tend to be used to confirm existing views and prejudices anyway. More of an anointment than a selection process given the timescales and urgency involved and to be honest that's fine by me. Succession planning.


I meant interview people who are not Mike Blair.
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Re: New Head Coach: Mike Blair

Postby TheSmidge on Fri Jul 23, 2021 3:27 pm

doedin wrote:
Friday Knight Lights wrote:
doedin wrote:Excellent appointment and one all us fans were hoping for. A real thinker and very analytical in his approach he will do well. He is also a nice guy. I wonder what changes he will make in his coaching team, if any? This makes up for the sudden departure of Cockers, who I liked as well, and Blair will know all the players well and will hit the ground running.


We need a forwards coach I think. Lawrie is a bit inexperienced for my tastes.

I am a bit concerned, he has been groomed for this role obviously but I hope they went through a thorough interview process still.


Don't think an interview will make the slightest bit of difference, they tend to be used to confirm existing views and prejudices anyway. More of an anointment than a selection process given the timescales and urgency involved and to be honest that's fine by me. Succession planning.


I have no problem with this appointment at all. It's good for us, as surely our attack can only improve, and good for Scotland, as the likely successor to Townsend gets his chance to show he can be a head coach AND will be highly motivated while doing so.
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Re: New Head Coach: Mike Blair

Postby Tichtheid on Fri Jul 23, 2021 3:28 pm

Very chuffed with this, I’ve alway been impressed with MB’s thoughtful articles, I think this could be the tonic the club needs.

Gaaahn Mikey!
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Re: New Head Coach: Mike Blair

Postby dolf_lundgren on Fri Jul 23, 2021 3:32 pm

I think this is very good news and hopefully if we can keep most of the positives in terms of forward play from the Cockers era we can now add a bit more nouse behind the scrum. Notable there has been no mention of Hodge throughout the past week, I feel for him a bit. I dont necessarily think he is a great coach, but he deserves to be treated with a bit of respect.

I dont think there was a need for an interview process here, it is succession planning and although possibly a year earlier than planned it is a good fit.

Much is made in the announcement around Blair bringing through young players, so hopefully he can do that. I think we have a good crop of youngsters who need managed and brought on a little. Im quite excited about the squad, with Lang coming in, alongside Currie, Taylor and Bennet its feels like we have some quality nd spark in the midfield, Jaco may get a new lease of life if we start to have a threat either side of him too

It still wont be easy keeping all of the backrow happy, so much depth there and more coming through.
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Re: New Head Coach: Mike Blair

Postby The Feral Goat on Fri Jul 23, 2021 3:54 pm

Good stuff. Exciting young coach and the first ER coach in a very long time whose remit is not to come and fix a car crash.

Agree we cant lose the edge Cockerill had instilled in the pack and hopefully Blair can give Chamberlain and Savala a bit of confidence an game time.

Got to be good for Sheil and Vellacott as well to have Blair as coach.
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Re: New Head Coach: Mike Blair

Postby Trophyhunter on Fri Jul 23, 2021 4:31 pm

Excellent appointment. Should refresh attitudes and confidence levels , particularly behind the scrum now the stifling shackles and the blatant limitations of Cockerill culture have moved on. Biggest problem is 9/10 . Talents are there and hopefully MB will fix that quality of midfield will come from that and be good to see the obvious quality in Dean and Bennett be galvanised and return to form rotated amongst excellent options across the park in Hutchinson ,JJ, Currie and Taylor Lang I suspect will rotate between 10/12 /13 depending on gameplan needs with opposition , weather and injury as he did at Harlequins. Think some players will be unrecognisable next season .Excited but not getting carried away … Yet!
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Re: New Head Coach: Mike Blair

Postby Martin Bell on Fri Jul 23, 2021 5:43 pm

The nightmare from my point of view would have been recruiting externally and ending up with several years of reconstruction from the ground up once again. I don't see a need for that. So I echo the very warm welcome for the prodigal's return. What seems like an obvious move has not always been the road the SRU has taken, so it's good to see they have taken a common sense approach here. On the face of it, Mike should move us away from the Springbok/Saracens gameplan to something that is closer to that of the national team. While it'll be more fun to watch, it also makes a bit more sense if we are wanting to have consistency between club and country playing styles. I'm confident that he can keep the strong foundation Cockers has left and build on it.

I'd be very happy for Stevie Lawrie to step up to forwards coach. Much though I would love to see Roddy back, he's a similar age and similar time in coaching so I'm not convinced that Stevie cannot cope equally well. I'm guessing that his role as assistant forwards coach was partly to learn from Cockers so he could take a step up when the time came.
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Re: New Head Coach: Mike Blair

Postby Crichton Gunner on Fri Jul 23, 2021 5:56 pm

Very happy with MB as head coach. No one knows how things will go for him, all coaches/managers are a bit of a punt, but he is as exciting a prospect as we could hope for. I'd very surprised if we don't see a more expansive game plan, which I'm sure will please a lot of the players as well as us fans. With a fair wind it could be exciting days ahead for ER.
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