It's seven games in and they've sacked a coach who got them to a GF last year.

He's not had the best of times so far this year, but he's proven himself more thsn Rush and Cunningham so far, so its more likely they'll do the same or worse.

With Roby, Soliola, LMS back Simmons owuld have still guided that team to a top 6 finish minimum imho.

Top 6 isn't good enough for a team like Saints, however they will be challenging later in the season, probably hoping to do as the Rhinos did last season.

Depends on who comes in and when.

Who is available?

It adds to the rumour I posted last week that Simmons would go and Nathan Brown would come in; the two who are stepping up don't really have any pedigree, so they reek of a temporary fix until Brown is out of contract at the Giants.

Bit hasty to oust him this early, but if as some suggest he's lost the players, then it's probably an exercise in cutting losses in the short term; this could effectively be seen as Saints writing off this season for longer term gains.

To be fair, Laffranchi has been good up front, though he was never going to fill the void left by Graham. While I don't particularly rate Hohaia, I think he's doing a good job at 9 with Roby out. So I don't think they recruited poorly.

Doesn't N Brown keep saying he is going home to Aus?

From what I can gather, Simmons asked for Lance and also wanted Laffranchi as he had coached him earlier in his career.

No, on SL Extra Time he said he hadn't made a decision.

Distinctly possible. But amazing that 7 games in Saints would appoint a couple of seat warmers for 75%+ of the season.

yes but with no nrl jobs in the offing then his hand could be forced and end up at saints at the start of next season

got a job with the giants to finish first...club statement released saying hes going knowhere till end of the season

The problem IMO is that saints haven't replaced James Graham. he has carried saints for the last couple of seasons. Once Roby got injuried, the writing was on the wall. Wigan suffered the same when Farrell left (another who had carried a team for a number of seasons).
It happens.
Every team goes through a change as our players cannot play for ever. Coaches must start to blood the new generation of players 1 or 2 at a time so that when the time come that they are ready to step up .

Rhinos (more importantly, Sinfield and the players) stayed rock solid behind McDermott during their 'crisis' though didn't they ?

Saints are developing a habit of this ....announced McRae would be leaving well before the end of '98; Hanley left 4 games into 2000; Millward went about May time in '05; now Royce.

Since Anderson left they've made two dud appointments and paid the price.

They also got McClennan the shove a year before his contract was up too for similar reasons Royce has by the sounds of it. Player power always wins. They are the guys who win the trophies. Obviously a good coach helps but if the relationship isnt working between the 2 then it's the coach who goes every time.

As if the Giants would stand in his way. He's just finalising the rental of a house as we speak. He's on the East Lancs heading back towards the M62 as I've just seen him at a petrol station.

The Giants statement is just hot air, they'll get their compensation when Brown resigns from Huddersfield in three weeks after this tough run of games is over for Saints.

Hudds keep releasing stuff on their website carrying the name of Paul Anderson and not the Head Coach Nathan Brown.

Surely its a formality now that Brown will be at St Helens some point this year?