So if the players think Brown is a great coach, were do they think it's gone wrong? The lack of a half back cannot be blamed for a lot of the feeble showings this year.

God knows mate.

He might be a great coach with the exception of match days, so do we put a lot of blame on the players who can,t even do the basics right of pass, catch and tackle and adding the terrible playing attitude this season.

The majority of the team are brain dead in rugby terms surely Brown is responsible for that.

He got a pretty poor Huddersfield team to tackle and defend well, there's a reason it isn't working here. I'm not sure it's all his fault to be honest, our defence is the worst part of our game.

A couple of contacts I have at Saints really rate Brown so either he's a very good salesman and conning them or the fans have got it wrong. I suppose time will tell.

I think he is conning everybody, we have 2 on loan players which are holding back the development of our own players.

We have o,Brien who is now taking the place of a better player in Charnock, we have Howarth who is now taking the place of a better player in Thompson.
Another thing we have noticed is that the on loan players made reasonably satisfactory debuts, but now they sre familar with the coaching regime they have got progressively worse.

Mr Wane would have none of this, so maybe Brown is a better coach than Wane and the fans no nothing.

He coached an NRL team for 5 years, and took Huddersfield up a notch to cup finals and consistent high placed league finishes. That doesn't correspond to someone conning anyone about his ability. I don't think he's a real top class coach in the mould of Bennett, but his record suggests better than what we're seeing at the moment. If players are also rating him, that suggests to me that the faults may lie elsewhere, at least in part.

But he has history of messing players about which he appears to be at every club he has managed. He was found guilty of assaulting Thompson and Barrett and fined 5000 dollars, he had the mutiny at Huddersfield last year.
The picture I am getting now is that his man management technique maybe conning the players short term to believe in him when in reality his coaching abilty is erratic by way of selection and game execution.
We have 7 more games to try and turn things around but I don,t have confidence that Brown is capable of improving the current players skillset and more importantly..............ATTITUDE.

Were St George successful under him?

So far as Hudds are concerned, he got them to ONE cup final, which they lost, and they progressively deteriorated under him subsequent to that up to the point where they imploded in 2012. Contrast that with, say, Tony Smith at Wire, where there has been consistent challenging from a team that had previously consistently missed the boat and I'd say Brown's record certainly doesn't warrant the faith that McManus put in him (ie didn't bother interviewing anyone else, signed him up for three years).

But Tony Smith has brought hardly anybody through from his youth system since he came to Warrington.
On Monday night the only player on the Wire side that has come through their system since Smith arrived was Ben Currie. He fielded about ten players over the age of thirty.

I was privy to a conversation between a Wigan staff member and a Wire staff member at the U19's game at Orrell between the two teams earlier in the season.

Wire employee "Your young players did well last night, HE won't give ours a chance"

Took them to second and knocked out of the playoffs by the eventual winners in one year, in the hothouse of the NRL, if he'd been garbage he'd have been found out in a year. He took Huddersfield a step up above what they were, had them consistently finishing at a higher level than they had previously and got them to a cup final.

I would expect Smith to be challenging given the amount of money he's spent, though he has struggled to take them the extra step to League Champions.

Whilst he may have problems as a coach, the way this year has fallen apart is too extreme for it to be his fault alone, especially if players are stating that he's a good coach.

That actually seems to happen in coaching to some anyway even in the NRL. For example, Daniel Anderson took the Eels to a grand final in his first year and then they plummeted down the table in the second (and he subsequently got the chop of course).


Not quite true. They didn't reach those dizzy heights again.


Unless there is something going on behind the scenes at Saints - and I can't dismiss that obviously - then the only difference between last season and this is the coach.

Those dizzy heights of finishing league positions?



Is it? Have there been no other changes at all behind the scenes?

Who says the players think he's a good coach?
Have they been quoted in the press or on air?
Even so, they are hardly likely to say anything else, if they have to work for him after they have stated their views?

I don't think he's lost the plot; I don't think he ever had the plot.