Murray benifited from the addition of four extremely good players: Godden, Glanville, Powell and Fleary. Great coach though he was I don't think we'd have made the 98 GF with a Murray coached 97 squad.

And just to build on that, does anybody seriously think that 98 squad would have been competitive with 10 regulars out? Without bothering with a full like for like comparison how would they have coped without both full backs (Harris & Hilaire), both half backs (Powell, Sheridan) chief enforcer - Morley? Come on, how many games did that side win with even Harris missing? None of this is meant to decry Murray, who is my personal favourite coach, just to point that a coach cannot achieve success with key play makers absent.

Doesnt matter tho cos there was an atmosphere in the South Stand and im sure the 100 yr old corrugated stand, with a spiral staircase and pillars blocking views, while fans stood ankle deep in pee after queueing 10 mins to get into the bogs would have got us ample wins even without any half backs, Iestyn and Moz.

Its funny i dont remember much atmosphere in that centenary season and SL 1 when the team and club was really struggling.

LMAO.

Fleary arrived with no fanfare atall, he became a very good player, under a very good coach, in a system that got the best out of him.

Ofcourse the better the set of players the better the structures and systems work, thats so common sense it dosnt really need saying. But to say coaching isnt that important is ludicrous, a good set of players with good coaching beat a good set of players with poor coaching...This isnt related to our current situation as we seem to of veered off track, this is just an opinion on Rugby or team sports in general.

On our current situation, like i mentioned earlier, even taking into account our injurys, our attack looked comically bad with plenty of good ball on friday, against a very poor team. Early days, but as a specialist attack coach, id be pretty dissapointed with what my attack served up.

Everything else looks pretty good on the whole, defence, pack, effort, commitment, youngsters...Happy.

I think thats a pretty fair and balanced assessment Matt. Of course a coach is vital to the success of any team. In fact for any team to be successful everybody has to be on the same page. Part of a coaches job is to ensure the culture and spirit is right. If it isnt unhappy players wont ever perform.

We have to hope once we stop changing half backs weekly and have a more natural full back, which i think Myler is more than Jack in attack, that the attack, game management and last tackle plays will begin to look better than they have understandably so far.

Weve been in most games weve lost even with the teams weve had to put out and lets hope once more bodies return they will help turn narrow losses into wins.

My point is that Agar and Longy are plenty good enough coaches to get thus team flying when we get out best players consistently on the field. We've missed Gale, Walker, Tet, Newman, even Lui....
That's all I'm saying!

Adding Myler + Tetevano should give us so much more already.

Newman due back for Saints, possibly Eastmond too. We're slowly getting our first team out there.

No more injuries please!

bit of an exaggeration but you may have been visiting widnes since o'connor ws 6, they were good , gannon likeliest of young ones to get more game time

think it was very lucky with injuries practically same 17 same substitutions most weeks but don't think any of the signings were fanfare ones. powell and fleary came as a result of keighley going bust. it was short term but great to get a major win after a long time

now who's being hyperbolic nobody said the old girl was perfect just the size and shape meant it will always trump
the new onefor atmosphere . no i don't remember much of the centenary season apart from a lot of kids getting chances ad not many making it, .it wasn't always that full in the 80s 90s, in the 80s pretty much taken over by hull fans

Oh god back to the south stand debate.

I regret bringing it up I really do. Apologies everyone.

Do you think Holbrook would have been as successful coaching Wakey as he was at Saints - not a chance - would Chester have done as well at Saints as Holbrook - not a chance - its a combination - the better the people in the organisation the better the organisation. I know the agent SMTM thinks a club of moneyball players is where it is at - but the best teams have the best players, coaches, conditioners and management. A club is only as strong as its weakest link.