Professional sport is no place for sacrosanct heroes. The experience of Newcastle United in the Premier League shows that. Shearer was the fans’ choice. He was a St. James’s Park legend and he was to be the Moses that would lead the Magpies to safety. Instead, reality bit hard; his tenure was distinctly unimpressive and five points from a possible thirty during his tenure meant that Newcastle United became the biggest club to suffer the dreaded drop since Leeds United were relegated all those years ago.

Shearer’s passion for the club was obvious but the reality of the man managing a group of players, many of whom he had been playing with only a few seasons ago, proved somewhat different to the myth and aura that surrounded the figure in that number nine shirt. There is only so much that such messiahs can achieve in topflight sport and, in the case of Newcastle United, it simply wasn’t enough. Shearer was an inexperienced coach. He’d never coached at the highest level before and, in retrospect, it seems almost insane to think that his name alone could act as the catalyst for a miracle recovery on Tyneside.

There are comparisons between Ulster Rugby and Newcastle United, and those comparisons can only grow if Ulster take the David Humphreys route, following the departure of Matt Williams. Stop me if you’ve heard all of this before, but both can, in their own ways, be thought of sleeping giants of their respective sports. At times, both have sacrificed long-term stability in search of more immediate glory and, perhaps most damagingly of all, both have suffered from a lack of strong decision making behind the scenes.

There is a key difference, however – in recent years, Ulster have at least attempted to build for the future; while Newcastle went in search of instant spoils by chopping and changing managers, there was something burning behind the scenes at Ulster. It started with Solomons attempting to build a base of young, domestic, talent and it led, eventually, to the appointment of Mark McCall and an attempt to develop a domestic coaching team of the highest quality. While Newcastle United have focused, to much detriment, on the now, Ulster at least attempted to keep one eye on the future. The trouble? Despite a longer-term focus, Ulster still managed to get it wrong.

Exactly how Ulster got it wrong is another matter entirely – in part, it must surely come down to far too many journeymen being imported into the Ulster team; there can be no doubt that, in different eras, Robbie Kempson, Justin Harrison and B.J. Botha have brought a lot more than their (considerable) individual attributes to Ravenhill and that’s not to mention the effect and guidance that came from Paul Steinmetz but it’s less clear-cut what the likes of Mark Bartholomeusz, Scott Young and a whole host of others really brought to the party in the long-term; they were immediate solutions to longer-term structural problems. Add to this what appeared to be an attempt to simultaneously develop a coaching staff and a team at the same time and the longer-term failings begin to take their shape...

Ulster did not have the immediate player resources to compete at the highest end of the league, so set about developing local talent for the long-term. At the same time, management was parachuting imports into the first team to keep up appearances on the park. It was this dual focus, it seems, that led to the undoing of Ulster Rugby – at some stage, a decision needed to be taken to focus, entirely, on the future. The one-eyed approach simply wasn’t enough. While it would imprudent and abstracted to pin the implosion that marked the end of the McCall era on this dual-directional policy, it was an extreme end to a foregone conclusion set up by boardroom failings.

Miraculously, Ulster have been given another chance so soon after the first one was spurned. Another generation of young and gifted players has emerged in Ulster and appear to have the ability, on their day, to compete with the best in Europe.

This column has rigidly stood by Matt Williams throughout the season and, despite the bemusement and disappointment in the act and manner of his departure, I will maintain that Matt Williams is exactly what Ulster needed after McCall fell upon his sword. I wrote recently that Williams achieved his immediate goals at Ulster; he settled the squad, he developed young talent and his operations on the transfer market were almost flawless. Williams was given the chance to focus, solely, on the long-term and, despite the whinging of a section of the Ulster fanbase, he did just that. It is the opinion of this column that, without Matt Williams at the helm to implement the second half of his 36-month plan, Ulster Rugby has lost out.

This is not a time, however, for rash decisions or a change in policy from those behind the scenes. While the results may not have been as expected this season, and while Matt Williams will no longer steer the ship, the strategy that lead to his appointment and brief is sound. We should not forget that Ulster are a very young team – a front row with an average age of less than 28, a second row with an average age of 25 and a backrow with an average age of 22 adds together to create an incredibly youthful pack.

The team is young and it is developing. It’s not just in the starting XV and matchday squads; Anderson, Cochrane, Faloon, Porter… there is talent waiting in the wings but it is young, it is nascent and it needs the right kind of leadership and guidance to turn it into a potent force. This is why now is not the time for those at the top echelons of Ulster Rugby to start trying to develop a young, indigenous coaching staff alongside a young, mostly indigenous team. There is a dearth of leadership at Ulster Rugby as it is. No more is this embodied than in Ed O’Donoghue; a new arrival at the club, it fell to him to call the lineouts after only a few weeks playing with his new team mates. The last thing that is needed is a coaching staff with similar inexperience.

David Humphreys’ name has already been mentioned, while the newly appointed forwards coach, Jeremy Davidson, is another obvious contender. Neither candidate offers a satisfactory solution, however. Humphreys has never coached at this kind of level before; as with Shearer, he is just too close to the current squad and, while being the logical figurehead for the Ulster Rugby brand, is not the kind of strong leader that a young and inexperienced team needs. Similarly, Davidson may have coached top-flight rugby before but it should be noted that at Castres, he had a director of rugby as his go to guy.

An outside bet has been raised in the form of Brian McLaughlin. There should be no doubting McLaughlin’s coaching pedigree and abilities to transfer his skills into the professional arena but, again, we are dealing with a man that has never been a head coach at this kind of level. McLaughlin would certainly be an excellent acquisition to the coaching set-up at Ulster but his own inexperience is not what an inexperienced Ulster team need right now.

Names like Jake White, really, are the stuff of dreams and while Eddie Jones finds himself at a loose end, he is still unlikely to resemble a realistic prospect. Looking a little closer to home, Frank Hadden should be a serious target for Ulster Rugby. Hadden has shown with Scotland that, while he has limitations, most notably in his selection policy, he was able to develop a vastly improved team from scant resources. He has worked well with young talent with potential in his time with Scotland, and indeed, during his time with the (then) Edinburgh Gunners.

Hadden is available and has a proven ability to take teams forward, especially at club level. He might not be the fashionable choice and he may not have lived up to Scottish media's expectation but the Scotland team was improving, as Ulster have done so this season. Hadden's leadership and coaching abilities could prove a valuable asset at Ravenhill – Andy Robinson failed, spectacularly, as an England coach but has turned Edinburgh into a competitive force in the Magners League. Hadden could well have the same effect at Ulster.

Regardless of the name of Williams’ successor, it is clear that Ulster need a coach who has done the job at this level, or higher, before. They need a strong leader and they need experience at the helm. The temptation to attempt to develop a strong, local coaching set up will, no doubt, be strong but the powers that be at Ulster must resist taking this step too early. Right now, it will not benefit the young team at Ravenhill and, as McCall’s fall from grace shows, it may not be to the long-term benefit of the coach either. It should not be forgotten that McCall has proven himself to be a gifted coach but the cloud and accusation under which he left Ravenhill mean that he is unlikely to return. McCall, with experience, could have been an excellent head-coach and may well yet prove to be one elsewhere but his opportunity at Ulster came just too soon. It makes no sense to leave Davidson or Humphreys to a similar fate and it makes no sense to risk the development of a talented but inexperienced squad by entrusting them to an unproven and experimental coaching set up.