It’s human nature for supporters of other clubs to resent big money being thrown at any team other than their own. You really can’t win because if you do well it’s only because of the money and if you under perform people are cueing up to stick the boot in.

I remember taking some satisfaction from seeing Leeds struggle a few years ago before they eventually got their act together. Remember when they were throwing the huge money at flops like John Gallagher and David Young etc? Not that David Young was a flop for Salford he was immense.

I can't believe anything about the World Cup was not above board - and fixture-rigging would not be above board.
I have seen the inexperienced Welsh squad but I think their lack of success was down to not having warm-weather training in South Africa and not having 11 games in which to gel.
Obviously with this in mind no Super League coach would only organize 2 pre-season games.

'Old Cliffy',
I have checked through your old postings and you were making lots of postings in 2010 and far fewer since 2011.
I get the impression you are involved with the Wigan club - re team selections - or close to someone who is very involved with the club.

Bit naughty your posts on this thread.I do hope you went to Mr Lenagan and pointed out his lack of character judgement and appointment ability.

Good effort on your attempt at manipulation.

theredshed,
I am certain David Young went into coaching after he was ignored by the coaching staff at Leeds,when he arrived from the other code.( Perhaps a bit like Iestyn Harris was when he went the other way and was thrown into the international arena before he was ready )

I just cannot recall who the coach was at Leeds when he signed.Fox,Bamford,Reilly,Laughton they went through so many.

It's not 'fixture rigging', Wales were placed into a group with USA and Cook Islands, the two lowest ranked teams in the competition, and their cross-pool match was against Italy, the third lowest ranked team in the competition. Wales were given the easiest possible draw on paper and still managed to lose all three games pretty convincingly. I have no idea what the second part of your post is about but overseas training camps and between one and three trial matches is the standard pre-season routine for virtually every Super League club.

I'm rapidly warming to Harris:

“The policy is that we’re physical,” he said. “That’s the policy of any team I’ll ever coach. I want them to be aggressive and dominant. The byproduct of that is that you do hurt people at times – that’s the game of rugby league.”

Bring on the biff!

Maybe the oppo fans & trolls on this thread should read their own inaccurate comments about IH.

Jeez, I'd forgotten about this thread. Some people have really embarrassed themselves here. No surprise to see 'newgroundb4wakey' in the mix. I think he really needs to start considering the possibility that everything he knows is wrong.

At the moment, the appointment of Iestyn is looking like a masterstroke by Marwan. I wonder if some of the people on here who thought he was being impatient might want to consider the possibility that, despite being in the sport for such a short time, Marwan has a deeper understanding of the game than they do after their many years of watching. Food for thought for those with the capacity to think (I'm narrowing the field considerably there).

I'm happy to confess I was wrong about Harris .
It's the way he quickly identified the shortcomings,and rectified them.

There's usually a short term improvement whenever a new coach takes over anyway, and let's be honest the gaps that Harris has plugged were glaringly obvious to all concerned (apart from Brian Noble, apparently). Don't get me wrong I have been impressed with what Harris has done so far, and will admit to being amongst the skeptics when he was appointed, but to claim he has been a success or failure based on what we have seen so far is premature.

Absolutely. If we could predict the future, we'd all be lottery winners, and no-one in their right minds should be thinking we're the finished article or that Iestyn is nailed on for coach of the year 2015. So, given that we can't predict the future, the confident pronouncements made by various people at the start of this thread looked daft at the time, and, right now, look even dafter.

I have been massively impressed with Harris in recent weeks. He called it when he first took over and had time to take stock of our current state, we needed time to implement his methods. We’re months on now and are reaping the benefits of said methods. What has impressed me the most is our defence, we were leaking points for fun under Noble yet in the past few weeks (since Castleford away) we’ve conceded on average just 16 points per game. You see the visible impact on the pitch too, 2 or 3 men per tackle, one around the legs, the other two turning the opposition forward on their back or facing their own goal thus giving our defence time to re-set. The addition of Caton-Brown in lieu of Martin Gleeson and Josh Griffin for Francis Meli has strengthened us individually outwide too.

Our attack still has some improvement to make, but what has been exciting is our ability to score from anywhere on the pitch. We have strike players littered throughout as we seen yesterday with Caton-Brown, Johnson, Griffin, Evalds and Theo.

A swallow doesn’t make a summer, remember James Webster at Wakefield has taken points of Hull FC, Wigan, Leeds and Widnes in recent weeks too, but it’s certainly looking good for 2015.

Headhunter has gone very quiet you may have noticed. What says you now, Headhunter? Is Harris still a terrible coach. I just love it when people like him come out with nonsense like he did and then are proved wrong.

The 'honeymoon period' usually lasts for about three or four weeks into a new coach's tenure. In Harris' case, he didn't have the greatest of starts but the team has continued to show improvement week on week since then.

I'm not going to claim that he's the definitely the guy to take us forward and win things, but the initial signs are good.

We're still improving under Harris, and I see no reason to be looking for another coach anytime soon.

Next year will be the real test though. Will a full pre-season under Iestyn with a team he has rebuilt/reshaped, as he see fit, see us compete at the top...or will it be the usual Salford case of one step forwards, twenty-two long, stumbling steps back?

All the signs look good so far but it's far too early to tell...Though making the playoffs at Widnes' expense on the last day of the season, then knocking Cas out of the playoffs would seal the deal for me!

Of course, if we somehow managed to win the grand final, he needs to be offered a football-esque contract...Can't quite see that one though!

4 or 5 weeks ago ,the Widnes points difference to ours was about 120 points , due to the hard work and restructuring Harris and the boys have put in we now have a better difference than them , how crucial could that be come the last game of the season