Gerry Thornley

what do we make of this is this usual to be given a 12 month notice period I mean Joe Schmidt's long goodbye didn't go very well for Irish rugby well I think first thing you'd say is he's going out on his own terms isn't he he's not being pushed or shunted in any way shape or form he's entirely going of his own free will and his own volition and he's choosing halfway through a two year contract so that gives the RFU and Leinster a full year to identify and find a replacement for him so I think

he's also leaving at the same time as Jack Nienabar is almost certainly leaving as well when his four-year tenure comes to an end as head coach.

I think, I'm not sure about the other, but I think most of the coaching ticket is expiring at the end of next season.

So the timing is to coincide with Nienabar leaving and that means whoever comes in as the next head coach will have some scope to appoint their own right-hand man as of where, which I think is important as well.

My understanding is that it had nothing to do with last Friday's

and he had decided this before last Friday's URC final against the Bulls, which lends to one that this was the right time.

I mean, it'll be 12 years and that's long enough, really, isn't it?

That's a good stint.

And I'd say it's taken its toll on him.

It's a very, very, very, very demanding job.

And there was evidence of that in a few broadsides at the media in recent weeks and so forth that perhaps

pressures and demands of the job which we can get into are extraordinary and after 12 years it's taken us toll on them he thinks we will have had enough I think also he wants to stay on for one more season he wants to be part of the lengths to moving back into the RDS or the lay arena we're going to be going into

It's more so that he's just... No, and that's very much the way Leinster operate, really.

I mean, it's been now 11 seasons since they removed Matt O'Connor, which was...

You know, they also did it with Gariella, but they tend not to remove their coaches.

Irish rugby tends not to remove their coaches.

The head coaches of all the four provinces are, strictly speaking, employees of the IRFU, first and foremost.

So David Lucifer in the past and David Humphries now would have the primary say in these matters and who would be the head coaches.

Humphries would have had a big role to play in the appointment of Lancaster, Connacht and Clayton McMillan at Ulster and Richie Murphy at Ulster.

Now he's got another...