The coaching roller coaster

If you're a quality coach in demand you can be on top of the heap one day and then looking for a job the next and who knows where you'll eventually end up.

Recent cases in point are John Connolly, Wayne Smith and Warren Gatland.

Connolly got the chop from Stade Francais only to turn up with Welsh club Llanelli, Smith got the flick as All Blacks mentor and then surfaced at Northampton, while Gatland was unceremoniously dumped as Ireland coach, but has found work with London Wasps.

I guess being a coach is somewhat akin to being a CEO, you just never know when the axe is going to fall. Yeah sure the money's okay, but who wants to live with that kind of pressure.

And even when you're doing a good job, you're still not immune to the pink slip. All three of these guys were doing fairly reasonable jobs and one would've thought that they were good to go for a while yet, but obviously their respective bosses felt otherwise.

And you know what, this kind of roller coaster lifestyle isn't just peculiar to rugby, it goes on everywhere in the sporting world, and it isn't limited to professional sports either. In the States, college coaches are forever getting the heave ho, especially guys involved in American football or basketball programs. And it can happen mid-season.

There's also a lot of flip-flopping that goes on where a successful college coach will fill a void in the pro ranks caused by the sudden departure of someone who has a less than satisfactory record, and vice versa.

The latest example of that is former Miami Hurricanes college football coach Steve Spurrier being appointed head coach with the Washington Redskins NFL team. The powers that be in DC think this guy can turn around their fortunes next season following a few ordinary years. Well, he certainly can't do any worse than his predecessors.

So why do they do it? Like anyone else in any other chosen career, it's part and parcel of what they do, it goes with the territory.

Hopefully when you're good at what you do you get the big bucks and the just rewards, but when you screw up you can expect to get your just desserts. The problem is that it doesn't always come to pass that way.