Getting rid of Royce is one thing, but to then employ a vastly inexperienced coaching team to take over from him, and expect them to guide the Saints club through it's most difficult period in quite some time, is laughable.

Why is it a ridiculous knee jerk? It's obviously not working and what benefit would seeing the season out have had?

You don't know what was going on behind the scenes. People who do on here have spoken in recent weeks about the players and the coach not agreeing on how things are done tactically. In that situation it's up to the coach to get everyone on board and playing his way. He clearly failed to do that. I thought the scenes on Sky from the Bradford game were telling. Saints went out onto the field early after a talk by Purtill, leaving Royce walking round in a circle in the changing rooms. Purtill was also apparently taking the team talks because of issues with Simmons and the players. It doesn't take much to read into it that he didn't have everyone's support within the club. In those kind of situations, it is always the coach that loses out, it's happened before and it'll happen again.

Had we kept Royce we WOULD have lost the next 3 games at least. Being in the bottom 2 or 3 after 10 games would not have been acceptable for Saints.

Depends on how you look at it. We would have lost the next 3 games under Simmons. So sacking them now gives at least a possibility that there will be a positive reaction from the players and an up turn in form. If not, we can just blame it on Simmons and the mess he's created.

I'm surprised that Eammon has made this decision; as I've posted elsewhere, I expected to see Royce see out his contract or go voluntarily if the situation got any worse.

If the chairman is prepared to take the financial hit of paying off two high profile staff members, then I think it's the right move. It's sad for Royce who I think has given his best, but I think a good clean sweep will help put the club on a positive footing again.

They'll be a positive reaction I'm sure, whether it'll be enough to get the win remains to be seen. It's when euphoria about the new coaching team dies down, and your perhaps still not performing to Saints " standards", then we'll see what this coaching team has about them. It's times like these that experienced heads are needed, any Wigan fan will tell you that.



That's the spirit. I'm sure by thinking like that you'll challenging for honors in no time.

As usual, you are talking utter garbage.

How can you describe it as being ridiculous and knee-jerk when we are playing some of the worst rugby in the 20 years I've been watching Saints?
His tactical knowledge/awareness is shocking and our team looks absolutely clueless.
Only an idiot would fail to see that a change simply had to happen and unfortunately he is just not up to the job.

And if we were the "old boys club" that you claim we are, a certain Mr.Long wouldn't be running up and down the Salford touchline nowadays.

Your post is as clueless as Royce's team selections.

You'll still lose the next 3 games

Spooge. I have to agree with Saddened for once. Bringing KC in will generate some good will allowing the team much needed time to recover form. Hold the same coach will build pressure on the players, now it's done, the current coaching team will not get hammered by the fans even if we get hammered by Leeds, Warrington and Wigan.

Royce has been sacked so now anything bad is obviously going to get lumped on him. If the result on Sunday goes bad, we can hardly say well that proves the sacking was a bad call.

This will give us 3 weeks to in a way reshape for the next part of the season after easter. To work on some plays and basically pick a team that can bring some wins.

I'll hold you to that!

I saw just as bad last season so what you say is to your usual levels of nothingness.


Such an intelligent response. I am entirely overwhelmed and therefore unable to reply.

Oh yeah? How so? Cunningham played with these guys. It is the hardest thing to manage the people who were once your peers.

And any goodwill he has upon his appointment will soon disappear like a snowflake in the breeze if we lose the next three games, which personally I wouldn't be surprised at regardless of who is in charge.

does no one in st helens understand your in transition ? your golden age of players have nearly all gone and your trying to build a young team. it isnt gonna be easy it doesnt mean your automatically gonna be top of the league. the way your talking its like your supposed to have a gods given right to be top, you have hard a bad start but you have hardly been getting battered

your young players need more time to settle with the pressure of your club. its a similar situation to leeds last year with the exp players they have and they was struggling but they stuck with the coach and knew in the end they could get through it and well they beat you in the final as normall, all whats happend is you have paniced because your not used to having a bad start and just will have to see what happens

This has absolutely amazed me... Either there is a lot of stuff behind the scenes we don't know about that has forced the board's hand, or we've just gone and sacked a coach (who was 3 unlucky injuries away from winning us the GF just 8 games ago, remember) for the [iterrible[/i crime of losing 4 hohum early season games (2 of them narrowly against top sides and perhaps a little unluckily) in a way that would make even Abramovich blush in it's panicy kneejerkiness. I hope to God it's the former as otherwise we might as well put the Saints' coach's job out to the result of a redvee poll every week....

Exactly - we're now, for whatever reason and for better or worse, relying on 3 inexperienced youngsters running the team in the halves and an understaffed front row. Bad results are going to happen, but if we have another trophiless season or 2 bedding the kids in then so be it. All these Johhny-Come-Lately fans who've known nothing but good times in a red vee and somehow magically expect us to win every week come whatever happens need a serious reality check. It simply is not possible to win every season anymore under the salary cap.

Not going to be Nathan Brown at any point this season www.giantsrl.com/news/article/12 ... han-brown- 'Nathan Brown will be the Head Coach at Huddersfield Giants until October 30th 2012. There is categorically no wish from either party to deviate in any form from the coaching succession plan put in place last year'

Not going to be Nathan Brown at any point this season www.giantsrl.com/news/article/12 ... han-brown- 'Nathan Brown will be the Head Coach at Huddersfield Giants until October 30th 2012. There is categorically no wish from either party to deviate in any form from the coaching succession plan put in place last year'

So you admit that we've been playing poorly since last year, yet you still describe the decision to replace Simmons as ridiculous?

I think this what they call an own goal; think before you type.

Northampton we know you see the league as ho hum. But the board see the league as their major generation of income. Winning a GF but poor performances for the first quarter of a season, would lead to fans following suit and not renewing season tickets in favour of picking games and backloading the season, just to watch the playoff run in.

Saints as all sports clubs is a business, letting the start of the season slide, would lead to letting income slide. The board have seen what income they can generate and letting the current form continue would be akin to Barrings bank saying hey nick, just go on as you are and try and recover all that money we have invested.

It's money that is the governing factor for Saints as a club. That stadium did not come for free and profits are the only way the board will get their money back.

It's not about god given rights, we have not won the GF for 5 years.

It's about a poorly structured side, the facts are clear, it's our worst run of form for 20 years. Even the mighty Murphy was removed by Saints. So removing Royce for poor form is not totally alien.

Other teams sack coaches far more often. Wigan got to the GF with big Frank and still sacked him, he did not even get to the next season. Brian noble got wigan out of relegation and into contenders, sacked. Bluey got Leeds to be GF winners has one season out of the GF and gets bumped out the team by brain mac.

Don't pretend this is anything other than the club protecting itself the only way it can within the rules.

Simmons going is no surprise, Purtil derparting is.
I'd have though Purtil might have stepped up to the head coach's job.
Does this mean that who ever is lined up has demanded he brings his own assistant with him?
Noble head coach and bringing Jon Sharp as asst?

You have no memory, clearly. We were hopeless in the early part of last season. Fans booed then too. But hey, we won our last 10 games, narrowly lost in the CC semi (as we had done in the previous two years also, under Potter), finished third and got to the GF, putting out probably our best performance there since 2006 and unlucky to be undone by injuries plus a Meli/Soliola combo on the wing (Christmas for Sinfield).


Indeed. You have just shown that you are in fact a plank.

Whatever way you dress it, unless there's been serious ructions behind the scenes (and who knows what has gone on), this is a mad, panicy, knee-jerk reaction which defies any logical analysis. Whatever Royce's pros and cons, he's a coach with a proven ability to get a team up for it at the business end of a season and who will now be, almost certainly with no experienced alternatives available, replaced with someone with no experience in the role at all who might turn out to be an absolute disaster. We would have had a more successful season keeping Royce than bringing in KC 8 games in to have a crack at it with at least 75% certainty. If Saints sell a few more tickets as KC Fever bites then great, but the decision is still lunacy and will probably be to the detriment of the rest of our season performance-wise, which is what concerns me and hopefully every other fan over financial issues at the club every time.

Finance is the club, more finance the better the club is doing. Royce had his chances. This is not knee jerk. How many games should we loose before it's not knee jerk. We lost 7 in the whole of last season.

Not watching week in week out you may not have seen some of the dire play. But that's what people see week in and week out. If you think that is not important, well I'm sorry I disagree, the GF is a one off, and is not enough to keep a team afloat.

I'm kind of in agreement with that. I'm not sure you can say that Simmons has a proven ability of getting teams up for the business end of the season based on one season's worth of results when you could argue that Wire and Wigoon just run out of gas. The rest though are fairly valid. I suppose for me the concern is that if he isn't coaching the players well that we lose a season's worth of development for them. Placing Mike and KC in charge puts a lot of pressure on them (not necessarily a bad thing for them to see how hard a job it is) but at least it will get the team off the hook i.e. fans less likely to get on the team's back.

You're right in saying that it's a risk though because they could be rubbish and our defence could go further backwards. Is it a risk worth taking? Well we're going to find out.

I have a very good memory. You don't need to tell me what happened last season as I witnessed it with my own eyes. However, only an idiot would fail to see that Royce is absolutely clueless at the minute and we are possibly at our lowest point, in terms of form, since Super League began.

So what would you suggest? Keep faith with him because he is a nice bloke? Something had to happen and whether you like it or not, he is largely responsible for the way we play and solely responsible for team selection. Therefore, he had to go.

Can one of you more enlightened fans please explain this statement from McManus?

"Force of circumstance has reconstituted change."

Sorry but anyone attempting to justify a sacking with gobbledegook like that, simply shouldn't be in charge of hiring & firing a tea lady