I'm staying, says Ryan after last-match flop
Voyce - in
By Cherry Picker
April 26 2009
Dean Ryan expects to be Gloucester coach when the new season starts in five months or so, and after his team ended their season with a limp capitulation at Wasps he turned his anger on the media. Coming just a few days after his rant against the club’s fans caused uproar amongst supporters, we are beginning to wonder who or what Ryan will target next as the fall-out from a poor season continues.
However, if he expects to remain in charge, then we must presume he makes such a statement based on talks with the powers that be at Kingsholm … surely he wouldn’t dare make such a presumption if nobody had actually told him his job is safe.
Would he?
The performance at Wasps was just as bad as those who saw the Worcester game four days earlier feared it might be, and no matter what anybody might say surely the fans have every right to be dissatisfied with finishing in sixth place.
Ryan (right) told the BBC: "There's a lot to learn from clubs like Wasps. There's a celebration of seventh and a destruction of sixth, yet Wasps are the champions. (Sorry Dean, don’t get that one. Celebration? Destruction? What are you on about?)
"Wasps have taken some pain this season but understand that when all their arrows are pointing in the right way it's still a good club. (Glaws is a good club as well. It’s the team we are worried about.)
"It's not just a case of it hasn't worked for us, everyone out. There's a review going on and we'll understand the problems.
"I expect to be here. We've got to rebuild Gloucester. We can't just destroy something just because it's not going well. (So it’s not everyone out, but we are rebuilding?)
"Most of the desire to pull it apart seems to have from external forces like the media." (If in doubt, blame the media for reflecting the views of fans. So let’s get it straight Dean, are we destroying, rebuilding, pulling apart or what?)
Whatever the answer is, we know that Olly Barkley is going back to Bath and that Carlos Nieto (Saracens), Gareth Cooper (Cardiff Blues), Jack Forster (Sale), Jack Adams and Dan Norton (Bristol) will follow.
Also expected to go are Ryan Lamb (London Irish), Anthony Allen (Leicester), Carlos Spencer and Iain Balshaw (Biarritz).
We make that ten – two thirds of a team, but we don’t know if it qualifies as rebuilding, destroying or pulling apart.
Apo Satala has signed to stay next season for next season, and newcomers already announced are Nicky Robinson (Cardiff Blues), Tom Voyce (Wasps) and Seru Rabeni (Leicester).
It’s not clear what is going to happen behind the scenes, and we strongly urge the club to either back Dean Ryan or sack him, putting an end to the speculation and allowing whoever is going to run the team next season to get on with the job of making up a squad that can do better than finish sixth.
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A word of advice DR ... don't take on the media, because you will NEVER win, whether it's the Gloucester Citizen or the Washington Post.
