"He's a good lad and a good coach, but I don't know if he is a head coach," Kenny said in the Sunday Times. "The head coach needs a unique mentality. Warren Gatland (the hugely successful Kiwi whom Kenny worked under at Wasps) was liked, but disliked, and ultimately respected by the players. Even when we were doing well, you never knew what he was thinking.
"In Scotland, I found a nicey-nicey attitude. We'd get beat by 30 points, and the coach would be saying, 'yeah, but let's look at all the good things.' Hugh being sacked was the first instance of someone really shouting their mouths off at what was going on, and there are a lot of players at Glasgow who needed that earlier."
Meanwhile, Gordon McKie has rejected suggestions that there was anything untoward in his appointment of Sean Lineen as head coach at Glasgow.
McKie's decision to have Sean Lineen succeed Hugh Campbell, and to simultaneously re-advertise the Edinburgh job for which Sean was a leading candidate, was perceived in some quarters as further evidence of Murrayfield favouritism for the Gunners, traditionally the best-funded Scottish team.
McKie, however, has moved to clarify that circumstance, not capability, was behind his desire to keep Sean in Glasgow. "I'm sure Sean could have done a marvellous job for Edinburgh, but I took the view that Glasgow's needs were more urgent than Edinburgh's," he said. "Sean knows what's wrong, and is the best guy to fix it. Bringing Sean to Edinburgh, and a completely new guy to Glasgow, would have been completely hotch-potch. If there were two Seans, one could do Glasgow, and one could do Edinburgh. As it was, there was effectively one candidate for two jobs."
McKie went on to concede that poor results were not the only factor in Hugh Campbell's demise. "From November it was clear things were getting worse, in terms of performances, morale and attendances," he said. "Word travels, particularly when people are unhappy. People were increasingly disillusioned with the way Glasgow were being coached, there was a deepening malaise within the place, and I can't ignore that.
"Sean will bring charisma, energy and enthusiasm that have not been there. He will bring a style of leadership that has been lacking."