“There are only two types of manager: those who have been sacked and those who will be sacked in the future.” Howard Wilkinson, the last English manager to win the top-flight league title with Leeds in 1992, was talking about football, but rugby union has long been part of the sack race.
It was even in the amateur era. But the difference then was it did not cost anything to get rid of a coach, which is why in Wales there was a period when they tended to last a season: autumn, winter, spring and even summer. Payoffs make dismissals more costly, but when Harlequins parted company with head of rugby Paul Gustard last week it was six months before the end of his contract and his successor will not be appointed until the summer.
With relegation likely be suspended for at least this season, Quins did not feel the need to bring anyone else in. Unusually, they explained on their website the reason for the decision to release Gustard early, jettisoning the fluff that follows dismissals and going direct.
“The one thing I have learned over my time working in sport is that certain individuals suit certain environments,” said the club’s chief executive, Laurie Dalrymple. “We took time to reflect on the way we have been playing and the way we want to live and operate and create an identity that is reflective of us as a club. We took a decision that in due course we want to go in a different direction.”
Dalrymple, who arrived at Quins 15 months ago from the Premier League – he was Wolverhampton’s managing director – and so had no influence in Gustard’s appointment, pointed out it was easy to act superficially based on success or failure, results and position. The implication was that Gustard, seen as a misfit within the club’s culture, would not have been offered a new deal had their form this season been better.
Gustard, whose playing career included stints at Leicester and Saracens, clubs tactically very different from Harlequins, arrived at the Stoop before the 2018-19 season having been England’s defence coach. He inherited a core of players who had been at the club for either all or most of their senior careers and had a commitment to a cause that was not his: more art than science.
Gustard brought discipline, rigour, organisation and minute detail but as Dalrymple, a longtime supporter of the club, recognised, Quins stood for something more reflexive and relaxed. Not that changing direction is necessarily geared to failure: Warren Gatland trampled over Wales’s reputation for flair while in football Arsène Wenger made an Arsenal team that for years been renowned for its defence one of the most adventurous in Europe before José Mourinho did almost the opposite at Chelsea.
Gatland, Wenger and Mourinho gained numerous winners’ medals, but Chelsea this week fired their manager whose playing career at Stamford Bridge had been adorned with silver, Frank Lampard. He lasted 18 months in a division where they prefer their coffee to be instant rather than percolated, having arrived after a year’s experience as a manager.
Longevity is rare. There are two head coaches/directors of rugby in the Premiership who have been at their clubs for more than four years, Rob Baxter at Exeter and Dean Richards at Newcastle, who survived relegation two seasons ago. Pat Lam will join them after the summer, but at five of the clubs the incumbent has not yet been in place for a year, while Bath’s Stuart Hooper is in his second year.
George Skivington took over at Gloucester last summer pledging change and they are currently bottom of the table. The club are taking a relaxed attitude to the lack of results, again confident in the knowledge that relegation will not haunt the Premiership this season, but they will be weighing up whether their head coach, who was part of London Irish’s management team and is the youngest in his position in the division, has what it takes to be a No 1.
It is very different from being an assistant, as Skivington reflected this month. It is an all-consuming job and is coupled with the role of chief selector, a factor which has derailed many a career. Gustard is not jumping straight back having signed a three-year contract to become Marco Bortolami’s assistant at Treviso, who have relapsed into bad habits in the PRO14.
Gustard took a passing swipe at Quins after accepting Treviso’s offer, talking about wanting to be part of a group where “there was a clear vision, a deep level of trust and a dynamic environment drive towards high goals … the general manager Antonio Pavanello outlined a clear strategic and cultural purpose for the club and my specific roles within it”.
Sometimes it simply does not work out; think Brian Clough and his 44 days at Leeds. Listening to Gustard after his side’s home defeat by Bristol on Boxing Day, it was difficult to see the union lasting. Quins had been comfortable coping with the expected in the first half, but when Bristol tweaked their approach, they had no response. The players had become more reliant on coaching than they had been under Conor O’Shea, forfeiting their spontaneity.
It was not that Gustard was too removed from what Harlequins felt they represented, but that he did not have the time to create a team in his own image. And Dalrymple the fan did not want him to have it, placing a greater emphasis on approach and style than league position. It was almost as if a change of the club’s multi-coloured strip was next on the list.
Gustard did not, like Lee Blackett at Wasps, add without taking away, but he will be the wiser the next time should he look to step up again.
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