Would have agreed Roger, but at best only two know what they are doing and what to look for (I hope!)

By name (after a quick look at Linkedin) - McFarlane & Bastian are the two who should be able to judge the candidates.

Duffy has not a clue and is well past the sell by date. In that post, we desperately need new blood with a professional attitude - that would be a breath of fresh air.

Unfortunately, he seems firmly stuck to the side of the pot, and the bleach isn't shifting him.

Perhaps Chalmers is introducing some sort of money saving technique of not employing a coach during the off season?

Sports coaching/management appears to have this "We must appoint a replacement ASAP" mentality. In any other line of work the process to seek a replacement usually takes a few weeks. That being said, it was clear as day at the last fans forum that Toovey was not staying on. The club really should have started that process at the end of the season, just in case GT jumped on a plane and didn't come back.

Agree on Bastian, but I find it completely flabbergasting this is being entrusted with Duffy, no playing experience of this level and has been in the background of every single one of the clubs failings! The emails going directly to him with applications (meaning he can potentially let through applicants of his desire) are ridiculous. This should be the owner doing this with Bastian backing him up as they will be working closely together. Goes to show how much of a shambles it actually ystill is when the owner is washing his hands of hiring a head coach

I don't understand what's going on, but I would guess that once applications are in, of those available, you could have Kermit and Miss Piggy on the panel, the winner will still be obvious

So why have this charade FA?

A month to find a coach when this was always a potential task since we were relegated. Think they might have had feelers out a bit earlier. Perhaps Chalmers is too busy looking for potential owners to be bothered looking for a new coach. Could explain why Toovey is not coming back. Jan2017: Chalmers' Hey Geoff, will you help us out with the Bulls as a favour?'. Toovey: 'Sure Andrew'. Nov 2017: Toovey 'Hey Andrew, do you want me back this year?'. AC 'No mate. I'm out of there as soon as I can find another mug, sorry I mean potential owner'.

Beats the hell out of me

After all that's happened of late,I would have expected firm control, expertise, experience and influence, as paramount in any further management of the Club...but we do seem to blunder on with a fair sprinkling of U turns on the way. Wish they would deliver reliable positivity and optimism in their judgement and announcements!

Captain hindsight here but they should really have sorted the coach out first before player recruitment.

Exactly.A month to find a coach who can coach us in Champ 1.Its laughable at best and embarrassing and cringeworthy at worst.Why do we always seem to make hard work of doing something on the face of it is pretty straightforward.

'Plausible deniability'?

It's common sense really isn't it? Every other sensible successful club does it this way.



Makes you wonder if the owners are actually up to the job. Last year the understandable excuse was that we had a matter of weeks to get the club up and running so things were a bit "seat of the pants". That was fair enough.

Now this time around relegation has been known about for months (despite the conspiracy theorist bollox). Other clubs manage coaching succession planning ok - why can't we do the same? Instead we seem to have done nothing for weeks on end and now are falling over ourselves to play catch up.

To those that say "we don't need a head coach in place yet" I ask you if that's the case how come at every other club the head coach is present at pre season training? Why are they bothering if they're "not needed"? Fact is they are seeing how their players react under stress, finding out who the leaders are and who is taking short cuts. This is all very important stuff to be aware of when building a team. You can't just leave it to the trainer anymore - that's the sort of thing that used to happen in the days of Alex Murphy and Dougie Laughton.

I can see him at the fans forum now "Er sorry folks I left the coaching appointment to 2 blokes without any qualifications so blame them."

I think he'd need Rimmer's minders to help him get out of the room alive.

I really did hope that we had hit rock bottom and was quite looking forwards to visiting some interesting away grounds next season, but this announcement that it's going to take another month to find a coach, even though it was obvious Toovey wasn't coming back, and that Chalmers is leaving it to Duffy to find them leaves me utterly dismayed. How that man has kept his job throughout more than a decade of disastrous decline is completely beyond me. Very much doubt I'll be traipsing up to Odsal next year, but might have a few away days at York, Newcastle, Wales etc.