Monday's Musings

POINTS TO PONDER

Within a day of Rugby Canada announcing the new NSMT's coach, Stephen Meehan, I happened to come across this Instagram post.  Now whether it was "doctored" or a typo, I know not. I must admit I was flummoxed with the fact that this man must be a magician to be in two countries at the same time!

I source Rugby Canada to inform us more about this man.
 
"Rugby Canada is pleased to announce the appointment of Steve Meehan as the new Head Coach of Canada’s Men’s Rugby Team. 

Meehan comes into the role with 17 years of professional coaching experience with some of the top rugby competitions in the world. He served as Head Coach of Bath in the English Premiership for five seasons which included winning the European Challenge Cup. His coaching experience includes stints with French Top 14 teams Stade Français and Toulon, as well as Australia’s Western Force and Queensland Reds in Super Rugby.

"This is an exciting opportunity to be part of the next chapter for Canada’s Rugby Team and help guide the program into the future,” said Meehan. “I know Canada is a proud rugby country with a deeply passionate rugby community, and I look forward to start meeting coaches and players around the country. I see great potential in the players and I look forward to the role I can play to help grow the team and our sport across Canada.”

In pursuit of qualifying for the 2027 Rugby World Cup in Australia, the decision to name Meehan was taken following a lengthy process analyzing team results, performance, preparation, player feedback, and staff effectiveness conducted by Rugby Canada’s High Performance Director.

"A coach profile was identified to guide the competences, experience and characteristics needed in the next Canadian national team coach in order to give the program the best opportunity to succeed,” said Stephen Aboud, Rugby Canada’s High Performance Director. “We did a wide and expansive search for the next coach, evaluated over 150 coaches and Steve came through the process as our top candidate.”

"Steve brings proven experience in coaching successful teams and a strong track record for improving players,” said Nathan Bombrys, Rugby Canada CEO. “We believe Steve’s positive coaching and leadership will create the right environment for our team to achieve the growth needed to reach their potential and qualify for the Rugby World Cup.” 

What can we ponder from these bio notes?

* Bath, that was some time ago, in fact, about thirteen season's back!

* I tried some digging to ascertain his role with the Force and Reds to no avail.

* CW has a "graduate" connection with the GPS club in Brisbane and we have fisched for some verification info from this source, not received at time of post.

* 150 applicants!  Wowzer!  Obviously, Meehan's paper creds are very high, the best of 150 applicants, or so we can presume. The hidden "player feedback" criteria would be very interesting to hear more about.  What players, when, where?  One wonders about the terms and length of his contract.

* We were a proud rugby country and we are a passionate community however, personally, I still believe a choice with greater chance for some improvement and success would be Canadian, someone that our players know, respect, and would believe.

* With no offence to "Steve/Stephen".  I ask the redundant, just how many times do we go outside of the resources under our nose?

On this note, I end today's post with the comment, because of our passion, we will contiinue to work hard and wish the successful candidate well, however, we are all welcome to our opinions. Having so stated, this content is purely that of the blogger, with no connection to CWRFC.

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