In his third (possibly fourth?) season?

As a scrum half mate.

Ah - so the undefined, undiagnosed disorder known as "Second Season Syndrome" now comes with additional qualifications meaning a player can be in his fourth, fifth - perhaps even his [iretirement[/i season and still fall victim? You know, a person could be forgiven for thinking you're making this up as you go along...

Exactly, we were in a mess. Swopping and rotating players, only playing 3 players off the bench. Players not knowing what there game plans where, unable to create player partnerships over games.
All Rush did was get the mainstream experience players to take a look at themselves and get back into a team unit, this he did with some degree of success. The half back situation was the biggest problem, was he working to a set agenda and constraint, opportunities were given to Swift and Jones the latter being the positives this year. Makinson was looking as though he was on the same journey as Foster, but I remember he mentioned something in the press where they worked on his game resulting in much better performances over the last 2 to 3 months.
The only negative is Gaskell, will we ever know what was the thinkings and goings on with this player. As for Lomax feel sorry for the lad, he has been the one player with the most pressure to learn and perform he really needed an experienced head alongside him and Lance wasn't it.

Playing 16 week after week didn't bother me that much. I thought it was a pretty bold plan based on at least [isome semblance of reasoning[/i (which is more than can be said of Rush's mishandling of the halfback roles!). Simmons genuinely thought his players were fit enough not to require the introduction of the final sub. I'm guessing he must have looked at the stats and seen some evidence to support this theory. Let's be perfectly honest here - SL is a very tough game and success is as much to do with managing finite resources (both physical and mental fitness) as anything else. If a team can manage with one less substitute (providing injuries on the day aren't too severe) and you aggregate the effect across the entire list of fixtures then, theoretically, you should begin the playoff system with a pretty substantial advantage over all those other sides who've been using their full compliment.

Unfortunately, Simmons never got to see his plan come to fruition but I can't help but wonder what effect it might have had come the playoffs.

Rush was a sticking plaster which worked better than expected but I think we got as far as we did because of a) the players and the effort they put in b0 the quality this year has not been as good as last year (yes I know Mugwump!).

I know of several young players who have played under Rush and did not enjoy the experiance; he concentrates on physical fitness and thats more or less it.

According to the Guardian "Rush, who is now expected to revert to chief executive at St Helens when Nathan Brown takes over as coach".
Revert?

If Rush screws up the business end of the club will we be treated to a host of fans rallying to his defence claiming [i"He isn't a Chief Exec"?[/i

I have to heartily agree. For what ever reason we'd gone down a real hole with Royce. The defeats to Hull (home) and Bradford (away) were simply awful.
Rush steadied the ship and, for a lower tier coach, did ok - finishing 3rd in the table, beating Wire once in the playoffs and getting league results against all the big teams.
He got the pack going forward again, which given the personel, wasn't the most difficult task, but it still needed doing. He tactics in the backs however, were non existant.
Dropping Gaskell was definately part of it, but there was literally no play book out wide. If you think of last season, we were getting decent ball to Meli in the centre who was putting Foster in regulary for well worked tries. We weren't pulling up trees going forward, but were better then currently in terms of backs play.
Gaskell might not be alex murphy, but he's at least good enough to be given a run this year, even if it was alongside Hohaia rather than Lomax (which would have possible worked better than Lomax Hohaia).
When we played London a few weeks ago, i was interested to see how Wheeler would get on in the centre, but watching the game, I'm not sure if he was given the ball once running in his channel.

Thanks for filling in Mike, but I welcome our new coach with open arms and keen anticipation.

We may have spent an entire season never passing the ball right under Royce, but that was still a darn sight better than never passing the ball [iat all[/i this. The more I think about it, the more p***ed off the last 4 completely wasted years bogged down with sub-standard coaching make me - we've just completely wasted a squad that should have won at least a couple of trophies in that time without breaking a sweat. Just imagine what Smith or Maggie could have done with them...

Good job given where we were when he took over. Happy that he isn't getting the job full time though.

I pretty much agree with Mugwump's original point.

Rush's remit was to get us out of the horrible mess that Simmons left us in and steady the ship. In that sense, he did a pretty good job. We were 10th in the league after a quarter of the season with 3 games against Wigan, 2 against Leeds and 2 against Warrington to play. To finish 3rd was very good.

On the negative side he sacrificed style which led to some horrible games to watch and his treatment of some of the younger players left alot to be desired. Hopefully Gaskell will get more of an opportunity under Brown, because he brings better balance to the halves than Hohaia does.

He did what was required.

The issue is the fans. Fans where expecting us to fall into an ever bigger hole when Royce left, this did not happen. Then fans where saying we would only make the top 8 or 6 at a push. It did not happen. Suddenly we were in the top 4 and within 3 points of Warrington and fans sights were aimed on top 2 only to be dashed by a great wire display. Once again the doom mongers held sway. Then we beat Wigan and Wire back to back and the hope rises that we will make the final.

In the end I think he did better than expected when he took over.
But once we where on steady ground people were disappointed that we could not go further and develop faster. It's always the way with fans never satisfied.

Some of the weekly mags have noted the performance of Rush, and they have even mentioned he could have been on the short list for coach of the year if the got the team to the Grand Final.

The question is if he did which hat would he be wearing. The "acting head coach one" or the "chief executive one".

Aye, along with The Ape, Tony Smith, Mick Potter, Richard Agar and Brian McDermott! I've never read a single criticism of any coach in either of the weekly RL papers and so it really isn't of any significance that they were suggesting Rush for coach of the year (although it was pending us winning the Grand Final of course).