Leinster's future riding on their choice of coach

Gerry Thornley On RugbyThere's a feeling about that the Leinster players are akin to errant schoolboys and that the new coach should be some kind of whip-cracking disciplinarian who will make them toe the line.

Apologies for the football analogy, but a similar theory applied at Newcastle United when they replaced Bobby Robson with Graeme Souness, and look what happened there.

As the rather more benign, end-of-season Gerry Murphy reign highlighted, when he presided over a rejuvenated camp by treating the players like adults, the last thing Leinster need is some kind of dour, headmasterly figure.

True, player power played a considerable part in the removal of Gary Ella, but he was a flawed choice as head coach to begin with and his appointment wasn't their doing, although one or two of them may have ratified it.

Granted, there has occasionally been an apparent division, loosely along the lines of frontline Test players and the rest, but that reached its zenith during the heave against Ella.

Leinster are now at a crossroads, and for many reasons the province's next appointment is arguably the most important they've had to make in the professional era. Quite a number of Leinster's frontline players will see their current contracts expire at the end of next season, and the first half of the new season will go some way toward determining whether the likes of Brian O'Driscoll, Denis Hickie, Shane Horgan, Gordon D'Arcy, Malcolm O'Kelly and co stay put or move on.

The IRFU and their influential players' advisory group will do well to remember this. Sure the Irish Test team is the money-earner and the flagship of the game here. But the frontline players also want to be part of provincial teams competitive in both the Celtic League and, especially, Europe.

The Matt Williams era raised the bar, and if the players look across at the likes of Toulouse (whose facilities and set-up are at least 10 years ahead of theirs), Stade Français, Wasps, Leicester, etc, who could blame them for wanting to seek a life-enhancing experience which also would entail a better chance of winning silverware while taking the calculated risk that Eddie O'Sullivan will still pick them?

In comparison to Toulouse, Leinster are competing from a car park with use of a private health and fitness club. Toulouse exist first and foremost to win trophies. They can sign whomever they want, without interference.

This may not be the perfect scenario for Team France and Bernard Laporte, and it helps that they've a vastly bigger pool of players, but if Leinster don't buttress their squad, especially up front, and the new coach isn't the right man for the job, it could effectively be the end of an era.

Post-Lions it will be a tough job, and it is a big job, in every sense. The pack need reinforcements, but a talented squad with a core of Lions and internationals will want to be genuine candidates to win the European Cup, and they will want a technically proficient head coach who can teach them new things.

Leinster are the capital city club. They have all the media on their doorstep. Some colleagues in the press box have been sceptical about Williams' quotability, but it goes with the Leinster terrain. Bizarrely, this appears to not even have been factored into Ella's remit.

The best candidate is probably Williams himself, and a delegation of frontline players have lobbied the Leinster hierarchy to this end. Bearing in mind the need to hit the ground running, an affinity with the Leinster set-up would help.

There will be opponents in the corridors of power, and the Leinster hierarchy may well decide they've listened to the players enough already as well as feeling a new broom is required. Murphy himself, having been out of the professional loop for a while, has developed a liking for the job and is believed to want it.

Ireland have been relatively lucky with their overseas appointments, given Warren Gatland, Williams and Alan Gaffney all left positive legacies.

All, coincidentally or not, are Southern Hemisphere imports and, if not Irish, that profile would arguably be preferable again. For reasons which I'm not sure I can explain, culturally, an Englishman might struggle more in an Irish dressing-room.

But, ultimately, get this one wrong and Leinster could be saying adieu to an era.

gthornley@irish-times.ie