Nobby,

I really struggled (well, not really struggled, but thought) about how to spell "drool."
Your comemnt here reminds me of the time we were hanging out with Bill Squire and Bill said something along the lines of "taking a Kenyan who's run 28:30 for 10k on his own and making him a 2:07 marathoner isn't much of coaching achievement. Taking some kid who's done a 2:23 marathon and getting him to 2:13 is coaching."
Probably the big reason I've always been such a Lydiard fan is that he took so many people from starting as kids who were nobodies to such high levels. I can't think of anyone who coaches Kenyans who does that, except perhaps Colm O'Connell.