Stuart Lancaster

Let's move on to Connacht now.

Very interesting going into year two of the Stuart Lancaster project.

And Just to sum up how last season went in the end, you can really split Connacht's league season down the middle.

They played 18 league games.

Obviously maybe they didn't mesh as well because ultimately Sieb probably thought he was taking a different job when he came over.

So he's gone now.

Lancaster's brought in Ger Mullin from Harlequins an Irish coach to be the attack coach so he's going to pick his own person for that role so you'd assume maybe that might be a better fit than what he had inherited initially yeah you mentioned like Billy Bohan and Sam Illo on the front row like two very exciting players as well in addition to Sean Jansen who had a really good season last year Keane I want to read you Matt Canson's quote about playing under Stuart Lancaster or kind of training under him at the moment this really got my energy going out of the new season Keane Stu has been pushing me to be world class, whatever position I'm playing.

And if I'm not doing that, he's made it very clear that's not good enough.

Mm-hmm.

Um, Rod Seave was leaving as attack coach, 'cause I think what he was doing has quite overlapped a lot with what Stuart Lancaster likes to do as a coach.

So there's a new backs coach in Ger Mullen.

Uh, interesting to see Trevor Woodman, huge amount of experience as scrum coach.

If we see early in the season the scrum struggling as it's learning slightly changes of, of approaches and stuff like that.

I think on the kind of attacking and backs coach, uh, I, I, I would hope you'll see an improvement here, like, you know, uh, uh, like Rod sort of, you know, supposedly wanted the, the, the head job.

Obviously didn't get it, so there might have been a little bit of tension there, you know, throughout the last season with Stuart Lancaster, different approaches, that kind of thing.

So I think again, when you have a new head coach coming in, some of those changes are natural and expected and, and people moving on and kind of getting different co- you know, uh, uh, Stuart putting his own coaching ticket in place in that sense.

Do you approach it as such? Do you say, I want to be playing rugby right the way through until November, 2027?

I think, as Stu Lancaster would say, how do you eat an elephant? Bit by bit.

But yeah, I sort of just kind of focus on getting the best shape possible this pre-season.

I know that sounds cliche, but it is probably something that plays in the back of your mind a bit.

And just to explain brilliantly what this is all about, you know, whoa, why is it such a row? Yeah.

And by the way, we're told Stuart Lancaster's neck is on the block if this goes wrong.

He says, judge me on this match, is what he says.

That's right, judge me on this match, because he's dropped George Ford and put Owen Farrell in, right? Yeah.

Suppose England mess it up against Wales.

That was a brilliant plan, wasn't it? Well, it's always possible because, as you know, I'm not a big

fan of Stuart Lancaster and neither are you.

And I'm not convinced that

What happens if we put in a super light pack or we just pick out really heavy guys or we recruit from the champ? So a really good example.

So Stuart Lancaster, who was in charge of England in 2011, 15, 11, 15.

His son, Dan Lancaster, played for Ealing, who are, you know, champ, kind of one of the best team in the champ, but can't get promoted to the Prem.

And he was a, you know, perfectly good mid-pack player.

Stuart Lancaster went to Racing 92 in Paris and he bought Dan over.

And it was a little bit of a kind of a, this is, this looks a bit silly, And then an injury crisis hit and Dan Lancaster was the starting fly half for Lassing.

And he was great.

So he's not responsible for talent generation at every level across.