After today it is clearly time for Robinson to go. Who do we think should be his replacement? Allan Donald for me.

Heard rumblings that almost the entire changing room don’t like him as a person.
Plays favourites heavily, is quite unorganised as a bloke (players and coaches often don’t know until late the day before if they are going to be training sometimes), he was a big part of the reason Pop Welch left, he really seems to struggle to get the team to peak at the right time and his success was built on the back of a team Farbrace and Troughton built, and a bowling attack Pop kept fit and performing.

Think Lancashire fans believe they have a similar issue. A talented squad who seem to be undermined by the coaching and administration.

Yep time to go for sure.

How about Trott as a replacement and could he then get Pop Welch back to make a "dream team"?

There is a coach with a 100% winning record as an international head coach, as well as lots of experience coaching international and franchise sides.

Time for TP to return.

I think there are some definite issues with Robinson. And away from rumours about personal interactions, I do think there’s a bigger issue in that he seems to have a lot of power.

Most clubs have a Director of Cricket to whom the first team head coach is answerable to.
That used to be the way with Farbrace and Troughton then Robinson.
In terms of First team cricket, the DoC was responsible for recruitment, contracts, and holding the coach accountable for results and long term planning.
But since it became clear Farbace was leaving, Robinson has seemingly taken on a lot of that responsibility.
He was even involved in the hiring of the new DoC, part of the interview panel. How can he choose, who is essentially his boss? It also appears the DoC role has become a lot less about first team cricket. Meaning Robinson is answering to who?
So now, Robinson seems to have total control and final say over all first team matters with much more limited input from the DoC.
I wonder if he was held accountable better, then we might not see some of the issues regarding clear favourites, bizarre selections, unmerited awards of caps or captaincies. Here’s clearly a very competent coach in terms of strategy and the technical knowledge of the game, but you wonder about his man management.
These are the sorts of issues, you expect to be questioned.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Robinsons best season was the season Farbrace was still very active and clearly the man with whom the buck stopped.
Because as much as we can say we’ve “improved” in white ball, we’ve made the same number of finals and finals days in all 3 of those years. And as a club of the size of Warwickshire, that’s surely how we have to judge ourselves. Or to use a football comparison, we become like Arsenal in the premier league for over a decade where being towards the top and competing but not ultimately winning was seen as a success.

I was one of the stronger backers of Robinson on the semi-final thread though in all reality I'm 50-50 on whether he should go at the end of the season. Why he should go has been covered by others so won't repeat that. My two cents on a case for him staying:

The rumours about his man-management and popularity were also the case when he was England women's coach. As I recall him dropping Charlotte Edwards was particularly controversial. We don't have access to these conversations and it's only rumour so I don't think we can draw too much from this, lets just say he isn't afraid to shuffle his team or management. This is an inherent part of being a coach so this is either a matter of style or something none of us know about to speculate on. Either way, it's not job-terminating on it's own.

He was appointed women's coach in 2015 and England won their world cup in 2017 so there is some evidence there that it takes him, or a coach in general, two years to get to where he wants to be. Eddie Jones, ex England rugby coach said something similar in that the third year was the time for the coach to take total responsibility without blaming predecessors. We're in that period right now. Of course, on this basis, the CC win of 2021 was Jim Troughton's achievement. The poor 2022 (only T20 was good and that ended in embarassment) is on track for this theory.

So I think what we're left with is a problem with choking on big games, three knock-out games lost out of three in two years plus a few champo games when we could have significantly improved our position by playing better. I don't think there's one good reason why you become a better player in these situations but you have to keep playing in them. I also think it's not all on the coach. The players need to play a part seeing as all the key moments happened without a coach within 150 yards.

Put all this together and the logical course of action is a performance review in which he is asked for a plan of how to win clutch games and asked about personnel changes and how he approaches them (includes recruitment). He then needs to work on it with the players who need to actually do the stuff, and then re-assess in one year. I think he can have an extra year as he definitely improved 2023 on 2022 with 2021 being nothing to do with him in terms of performance (Eddie Jones doctrine) and some grace to account for him joining at the end of the pandemic. Lots of people were afforded this bit of privilege so not unreasonable he has the same.

A final, final point. I'm not really sure if we can get better from here, I fear this is the peak and we kind of blew it. However, rationally this can't be proven at this point and sacking people is just a bit too soon.

A lot of the background rancour might be related to all the uncertainty about contracts and the split between those picked for hit and giggle franchise formats and those not picked. He also seems to really want to bring through and work with young players I think that's a plus.

It's a volatile time for the game, we did well to help maintain some semblance of calm and normality by getting the powers that be to just ease up on the Barmy proposals Strauss was the figurehead for last autumn but change as ever is baked into county cricket so a lot will depend on what the landscape looks like going forwards. Will Warwickshire even need a full time coach 12 months of the year in position like him going forwards if they only exist as a sports team for 3-4 months of the year and then are hibernating while the franchise circus takes centre stage? We'll just hire consultants to fill roles for the short-term. It's a horrendous thought but just feels like that's the way the game is going

We are going backwards under Robinson. He must go.
Also, and I ask this question every year, why is Tony Frost still batting coach? Year after year our batsmen show no signs of improvement and consistently fail. He must go too.
Our much heralded director of cricket, Larsen needs to earn his money and take swift action for the long term good of the club.
I'm looking forward to Robinson's post match take. After last week's disaster he was saying we would put it right at the Oval and be "in the mix" for the title. The man is deluded.

I don't know how easy it would be to sort but Mickey Arthur and Ian Bell would come over like a shot!

BosworthBear wrote:

I don't know how easy it would be to sort but Mickey Arthur and Ian Bell would come over like a shot!

They are exactly what we need.

Does Mickey Arthur still have the duel role with Derbyshire and Pakistan?

Andy wrote:

Does Mickey Arthur still have the duel role with Derbyshire and Pakistan?

I believe he is a consultant with Pakistan.

Listen to Robinson's comments:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0gbrqk4

His interviews are like a Robbo Bingo card.
Disappointed ✔️
Take it on the chin ✔️
Long term planning ✔️
We move on ✔️

Heard it all before. All amounts to a coach who has lost his way trying to buy more time.
Sounds like his method is for players to take ownership of their performances and analyse themselves as opposed to offering any kind of leadership himself. He doesn't call them out though, to be fair to him
We need a fresh start and some smart recruitment.

He talks such nonsense half the time, and the other half is a combination of cliches and excuses.

Also his point about Benjamin is ridiculous. If Benjamin hasn’t “hit a ball” since before the hundred. Why not pick Ethan Brookes, irrelevant he’s leaving. Pick the player that gives you the best chance to win. And I refuse to believe Chris Benjamin does that.

Some serious overseas recruitment needed for next year. Like almost everyone else, we need to play 2 overseas. It’s one hand behind your back otherwise. I refuse to believe budget as he claims is the reason. If Somerset, Northants, Essex etc can, no reason we can’t.

Not sure it's possible to get two overseas of the requisite standard anymore. We'd probably have to get two for the first half of the season and two different overseas players for the back half

Ethan Brookes should clearly have been selected for the Surrey game

mad wrote:

Not sure it's possible to get two overseas of the requisite standard anymore. We'd probably have to get two for the first half of the season and two different overseas players for the back half

Ethan Brookes should clearly have been selected for the Surrey game

Agreed, getting one quality overseas is hard enough, so two, with the international cricket calender the way it is and franchise comps etc is going to be extremely difficult.

Re. that Robinson interview. I'm not his biggest fan but I think he's spoke ok there, not sure what else he can say under the circumstances.

I feel he says a lot without saying anything.
The stuff about motivation, I refuse to believe the players weren’t motivated. If they weren’t motivated or can’t motivate themselves going forward then they should be dropped immediately.

A lot of it is waffle, that doesn’t address how he’s going to stop that happening again. I get it’s clearly not his way to call out players in these situations, and do it behind closed doors and that’s more than fair enough. But considering that’s happened against Middlesex, Essex and now Surrey in recent matches, would any other coach in the country not talk about bringing in someone not in the 11? If that 11 plays unchanged against Northants, even with the injuries you have to question what on earth is going on.

Andy wrote:

mad wrote:

Not sure it's possible to get two overseas of the requisite standard anymore. We'd probably have to get two for the first half of the season and two different overseas players for the back half

Ethan Brookes should clearly have been selected for the Surrey game

Agreed, getting one quality overseas is hard enough, so two, with the international cricket calender the way it is and franchise comps etc is going to be extremely difficult.

Re. that Robinson interview. I'm not his biggest fan but I think he's spoke ok there, not sure what else he can say under the circumstances.

He might be trying to protect the players but the supporters don't want to hear the coach after we've been thrashed saying 'hopefully we might be as good as Surrey in four years time". Utter nonsense.

He hasn't said that. Are you directly quoting him there?

I have been quite critical of Robinson's interviews in the past, think he's been a bit mean spirited at times but he's been OK here to be fair to him. He's being honest.

We won't be as good as Surrey next year, anyone who thinks otherwise is in absolute dreamland. Its going to take time.