OPINION: No signs as knives sharpened for coach

ANENDRA SINGH - sports editor | 26th October 2009

When it comes to a coup, I develop a sixth sense like animals before an earthquake.

Dogs start howling and barking and cows moo incessantly in the paddocks before the tremor loosens the foundation.

It doesn't matter how you dress it up, the unceremonious dumping of Black Caps coach Andy Moles smacks of a well-executed coup from the players.

New Zealand Cricket CEO Justin Vaughan said senior players did not turn up in mob-like fashion to knock his door down, demanding the Englishman be removed.

It was, he enlightened the media, via individual one-to-one feedback from the players and support staff.

No, in this era of professionalism you don't have players rattling their cages with stainless steel mugs, chanting: ``Dead man walking, here comes a dead man walking.''

No siree, there is an air of civility about it amid deathly silence before someone even contemplates walking the gang plank.

Moles, fronting a media scrum via a phone conference on Saturday afternoon, confessed in his preamble that the vote of no-confidence struck him like a beamer.

``It is unfortunate that it [his perceived coaching inadequacies] wasn't raised before and that will be looked at, I'm sure, by New Zealand Cricket going forward.

``If I had got some feedback earlier, we may have been able to quell this problem and been aware of it.''

I didn't get to ask any questions and I'm not holding my breath in the slim hope Daniel Vettori will return my call but it's painfully obvious Dan wasn't Moles' man either.

Shouldn't a captain be working in tandem with his coach?

At the elite level, coaches certainly do not teach the Caps how to suck eggs.

The political upheaval, through democratic (or is it mob rule) signals the end of a professional coaching era of the yesteryear, as we know it.

Napier Old Boys' Marist premier cricket club coach Brendon Bracewell sums it up best: ``You have to feel for every coach in this country.

``Coaches talk about bowling in the right spots and channels. They also talk about batsmen keeping their heads down for long spells when they are out there but they can't go out there to play the game for them.''

Enough said.

A common residue of any coup is anarchy. Translated in cricketing terms, that means Brendon McCullum now doesn't have to worry about going through a barren batting patch every season.

With the skipper's omnipresence, meetings will be conducted in William Golding's Lord of the Flies fashion with everyone patting each other on the back to say what jolly good fellows they are.

Moles, 48, who will be in coaching wilderness (and you can't blame him for not wanting to work in Pakistan), repeatedly talked about finding a coach with the right ``chemistry''.

Does that mean John Bracewell and Aussie Steve Rixon also lacked the magic potion to transform underachieving seniors into wicket-taking and run-making wonders?

The media has been pulling out names such as John Wright, Glenn Turner, Mark Greatbatch and even Stephen Fleming as Moles' successors.

Who in his right mind would want to coach a team whose players reserve the right to stab you in the back after putting you through a monastery-like solitude for perceived transgressions.

Wright, with an illustrious record, has helped but shied from going all the way.

What's wrong with the coaches. Can't they perceive players' mood swings through osmosis?

And no, Moles did not say judge me after the World Cup or have the luxury of several seasons as Graham Henry and Ruth Aitken have had.