No matter where you are on the rugby coaching ladder, no matter what external forces influence your teams results as a coach you will pay with your job.

High profile rugby coaches are fast becoming the commodity that their football counterparts have been for many years.

In Australia you have the ludicrous situation of this season’s most successful Super 14 coach being told his services are no longer required a few games into a short super 14 season. That coach has now made a mockery of the decision by finishing second in the ladder, no doubt there will be a European team benefitting from the NSW managements haste.

In Wales Lyn Jones has lost his job too.

His charges The Ospreys have not hit the heights as a club team that most of them did as a national team for Wales' grand slam win.

Jones though lost a number of his squad for a few months.

The unfairness of both of these situations is that the players who drop the ball or miss the tackles for the most part are not culpable until their contracts run out.

Football has long been ruthless with coaches, however football has had a long time to develop a conveyer belt of coaching talent, rugby has not had this time in the professional era to just cast aside talent in the same manner. It is a point that should be heeded.

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