It’s been a dismal season for the Eagles, who haven’t won a game all year, but is now really the time to axe Mike Tolkin? Should he stay or go?

To an outside observer, an 0-7 run culminating in arguably their worst performances of the season when it mattered the most would be more than enough reason to hand the head coach a pink slip. Looking a little deeper at the problems, however, is it really the best course of action? A good interview from the Rugby Wrap-Up this week illuminated some of the issues that Tolkin has had, and he has, it has to be said, been refreshingly candid facing some hard questions. A particularly salient observation was this fact:

“We can only get together for about 8 training sessions before our matches. We do what we can in those sessions but the skills handling that you’re talking about only improves under continuous pressure – work done over many months. I don’t downplay skills at our sessions at all, but people need to be aware that there is not unlimited time and resources, and each part needs time together.”

That’s an important thing to consider. We’ve seen a few suggestions that the Eagles need a skills coach, pointing out that we have skills coaches here in Canada. This is true, but we have a national training facility that the players have access to year-round. That is where the skill work is done. When our players come into camp, they are working entirely on team cohesiveness – set pieces and a general system. It’s not complicated.

There seems to have been three overlying issues exposed further the last two weeks:

1) Domestic players are not up to par.

They don’t have high level match experience and their skills under pressure are lacking. This is going to continue to be an issue until the union figures out how to produce a quality high performance competition, and funding for regional development centers. The new Elite Cup competition is nice, but it’s still just club sides and there are too many good players left out.

Critics often point out, and rightly so, that Canada has managed to achieve far superior results with a smaller player base and similar geographical constraints. They highlight that fact that the best players play almost year-round, first in the BC premier league, then for their home region in the CRC, then if they excel they move to the ARC, and subsequently the November tour for the truly elite athletes. It’s a clear pathway to the senior side and it produces players better equipped to deal with the pressures of international competition.

These are all fair points, but it should be known that this pathway, while certainly based on older models, is a relatively new development in Canadian rugby, and is still a work in progress. It evolved from the old provincial competition, through the now-defunct Super League, and the failed NA4 experiment. It has not been without hiccups, as evidenced by last year’s refusal of the BCRU to support the CRC, instead supplanted by a pseudo representative side run entirely by Rugby Canada and emboldened with the name and logo of a fish.

Thankfully this year common sense has prevailed and BC has replaced the salmon with a bear, and the CRC is beginning to look like a proper regional competition. It’s important to note that this clarity of competition and selection is only possible with the cooperation of the provincial unions, and the players themselves. Yes, it’s most certainly a drain on the east that our best players inevitably head west for their shot at glory, but we have no control over the weather and for the time being it’s the best solution for all parties until our own regional development centres have been established.

Without having the privilege of being a fly on the wall at USA Rugby meetings, it’s difficult to opine on the political difficulties of a similar setup for our neighbours to the south, particularly with far more state unions involved and as such far more stakeholders. That said, it might be possible to have a similar setup in California, then moving on to a regional competition of sorts, followed by the ARC. Obviously this would require sacrifices to be made by both coaches and players, but until rugby becomes professional in this part of the world these are the kinds of tough decisions that will have to be made.

Of course this is hardly revelatory, everyone recognizes the need for it, but the plan needs to be put forth now – something definitive and concrete to aim for – even if it’s something that won’t come to fruition until after 2015.

2) The professional players have underperformed.

There are different factors at play here. The pros have looked frustrated, and understandably so, in the games this year. They are used to elite environments and the American one just isn’t there yet. Fair enough, but they have to get over this, and that is up to both themselves and the coaches.

Players like Todd Clever need to stand up and take some personal responsibility for the fact that they have not fronted up and there are no excuses. Sure Tolkin would love to have the depth and ability to drop a Fry or Ngwenya or even Clever himself but realistically who is going to replace them? Carlin Isles – a name peculiarly bandied about as an option – is nowhere near ready for a XVs cap, and frankly there’s a question whether he’s well suited at all for the full game.

Ignore the coaches blowing hot air and naming their players as the second coming of Richie McCaw. If the players were really that good they would be there already. Are there some diamonds in the rough out there? Sure, but the fact is without suitable options right now, what you see is what you get.

With that in mind, Tolkin has to find a way to get the best out of his pros. That’s part of the job description, and it’s the same with every high level coach in every sport in the world. The players have egos, so what. Deal with it. Find a way to hold them accountable for performing below their best, even knowing that they can’t be dropped completely.

Again critics have pointed to this apparent lack of motivational attributes as one of Tolkin’s shortcomings thus far. They’ve said that he’s out of his depth, he should just head back to NYAC and Xavier and do what he does best there. The step up is too great. Fair digs? Is a year and a half enough to grow into the role? Has the national body put their full weight behind him? Would they do so for anyone else?

3) The game plan has been poor.

This is down to Tolkin. He recognizes that his time with the team is limited, but ultimately he has to decide what tactics the team uses, and ensure that his players execute it. Whether he chooses the game plan first or tailors one according to who he has available is up to him, the bottom line is that either it hasn’t been up to scratch or the players haven’t responded to him. This is a problem, and again raises the issue of whether he’s capable of succeeding given more time.

It’s been suggested that perhaps he has relied too much on domestic players, players he is familiar with, in the playmaking positions, especially the halfbacks. Mike Petri and Toby L’Estrange are both NYAC players. Both have been decidedly ho-hum in their Eagle performances of recent times. How much of the team tactics have been of their making, and how much can be accredited to Tolkin? Starting Robbie Shaw at scrumhalf this past weekend suggests that perhaps Petri had been deemed the villain for a poor performance in Charleston, but how much was that decision based on poor performance, and how much did he stray from the supposed game plan?

The most glaring absence of quality in the Eagles side of the pro era has been at flyhalf. Even Michael Hercus, the best of a bad lot, was no world-beater. Fair enough that an opportunity was given to the Australian transplant after winning two of his first three tests in the hot seat, but he has now started ten tests on the trot and has shown little this year, against superior opposition, to suggest he is the answer going forward. His lack of a top class kicking game is a rather glaring weakness.

Tolkin’s persistence in defending his club man should not be a surprise, and he might counter that none of the other alternatives are particularly enticing, but again one must ask how well does L’Estrange suit the current game plan? If kicking is not his strongest suit and running and passing is, which certainly seems the case, why are the Eagles aimlessly kicking away the ball so much? Nobody is suggesting that they start running from inside their in-goal, but surely when you’re 18 points down with nothing to lose you can throw caution to the wind and, in the quiet words of Graham Henry, have a crack.

Certainly it would seem to outside observers that Tolkin’s selections have not entirely panned out, and maybe going forward there needs to be a panel to help him – or whoever the coach might be – out, but again we must keep in mind the quandary of having lots of options, but none immediately and obviously superior to another.

So all of this begs the question – do the Eagles retain Tolkin going forward? The answer to that comes from a derivative question – is there another coach, foreign or domestic, who could achieve significantly better results given the same resources? Keeping in mind that there is less than a year to achieve World Cup qualification, and barely two until the tournament itself, the answer to this has to be doubtful. Yes, Tolkin’s results have been poor, and this answer might seem perplexing and unsatisfactory to many passionate Eagle fans, but as the saying goes, you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.

In another, albeit brief, Wrap Up interview with USA Rugby head honcho Nigel Melville, the former England scrumhalf was less than forthcoming about the future of his head coach. He stopped short of outright suggesting that there would be a change, but there was also a curious lack of anything complimentary. Yes, it’s been a bad year, but surely he could have said something positive about the man he was responsible for appointing last February. If Tolkin doesn’t have the full support of his employer, how can he possibly be expected to succeed?

Melville, who himself should be called under question for delivering mediocre results in his time as CEO, needs to very quickly give his coach a vote of confidence and an extension through to the end of 2015. More importantly, soon thereafter should be presented a real – and detailed – plan for the development of an elite level of domestic competition to commence no later than 2016. Change won’t happen overnight, but there has to be a blueprint. Once that is in place at least the Americans will have something they can throw their support behind rather than spinning their wheels as they have been for some time now. Anything less and they’ll be stuck with the status quo – abject failure.