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Newcastle statement: The exit of defence coach Scott Baldwin
By Liam Heagney
Defence coach Scott Baldwin has stepped away from his role at Newcastle, citing personal reasons for his decision. The retired Wales hooker joined the Gallagher Premiership club last summer as part of the refreshed management ticket under new boss Alex Codling.
The Falcons now have Steve Diamond at the helm after Codling stepped down in January and their season ended with them finishing bottom of the league with no wins in 18 matches. Diamond is currently overhauling the squad for next season and he will now also need a new assistant to fill the vacancy created by Baldwin’s departure.
A statement read: “Newcastle Falcons defence coach Scott Baldwin has stepped down from his position at Kingston Park. The former Welsh international hooker joined the Falcons last summer but has taken the decision for personal reasons, leaving with the thanks and best wishes of the club.”
Baldwin said: “I have got a young family down in South Wales and it has been tough commuting up and down to Newcastle, living in a hotel during the week and nipping back for the odd day in between games. I want to be fair to my family and also to the club, who have been great in terms of understanding my situation.
“I’d like to thank all the players and staff at the Falcons for the support they have given me during my season up in the North East, and the effort they have shown.
"Everyone would acknowledge it has been a challenging year but I really enjoyed working with the lads up there, and I have grown as a coach and a person during that time.
“I’m now looking forward to my next challenge back in Wales, which is away from rugby. I’ll be doing some coaching at semi-pro level a couple of nights a week so I’ll retain a foothold in the game, and I wish nothing but the best for Newcastle Falcons as they move into next season.”
Chairman of rugby Matt Thompson added: “We have enjoyed having Scott with us, and despite it being a difficult campaign we really valued the contribution he made.
"It has been tough for him being so far away from his young family for most of the week, and as much as he was relishing the challenge of his coaching career in Newcastle you also have to think of the bigger picture.
“Scott has been very open and honest with us about his situation, which we completely understand, and he just felt it would be fairest to the club and to his family if he stood down from the last year of his contract.
"On behalf of the entire staff here at Kingston Park I’d like to thank him for all his hard work during his time with us, and wish him well for whatever comes next.”
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Like I've said before about your idea (actually it might have been something to do with mine, I can't remember), I like that teams will a small sustainable league focus can gain the reward of more consistent CC involvement. I'd really like the most consistent option available.
Thing is, I think rugby can do better than footballs version. I think for instance I wanted everyone in it to think they can win it, where you're talking about the worst teams not giving up because they are so far off the pace we get really bad scoreline when that and giving up to concentrate on the league is happening together.
So I really like that you could have a way to remedy that, but personally I would want my model to not need that crutch. Some of this is the same problem that football has. I really like the landscape in both the URC and Prem, but Ireland with Leinster specifically, and France, are a problem IMO. In football this has turned CL pool stages in to simply cash cow fixtures for the also ran countries teams who just want to have a Real Madrid or ManC to lose to in their pool for that bumper revenue hit. It's always been a comp that had suffered for real interest until the knockouts as well (they might have changed it in recent years?).
You've got some great principles but I'm not sure it's going to deliver on that hard hitting impact right from the start without the best teams playing in it. I think you might need to think about the most minimal requirement/way/performance, a team needs to execute to stay in the Champions Cup as I was having some thougt about that earlier and had some theory I can't remember. First they could get entry by being a losing quarter finalist in the challenge, then putting all their eggs in the Champions pool play bucket in order to never finish last in their pool, all the while showing the same indifference to their league some show to EPCR rugby now, just to remain in champions. You extrapolate that out and is there ever likely to be more change to the champions cup that the bottom four sides rotate out each year for the 4 challenge teams? Are the leagues ever likely to have the sort of 'flux' required to see some variation? Even a good one like Englands.
I'd love to have a table at hand were you can see all the outcomes, and know how likely any of your top 12 teams are going break into Champions rubyg on th back it it are?
Go to commentsYou always get idiots who go overboard. What else is new? I ignore them. Why bother?
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