New coach_contendor no.1 for Barton

Quote: Wheatsheaf Arms "Forgetting the personalities of the people involved i just cant see how we will attract a top quality ambitious coach (unless they are currently out of a job!) from UK/ Oz who is willing to work under a D of R. Surely all potential candidates will want to live/ die by their own actions and be responsible to only Mr Wilkinson and the board.

Adrian Lam would be a contender for me. Is he still U20s/ Assistant at St George?! Im normally all for promoting young English talent, but just feel we need an NRL coach who has worked within a good professional system along lines of Nathan Brown and McGuire. Perhaps Manly's Geoff Toovey?

Then over time bring on board good young potential English coaches - along lines of Wigan who seem to pride themselves on how they will produce coaches from the bottom to the top for the future. Wigan could do this if Wane moves up and you have Purtill and Anderson at other clubs.

Jesus its so difficult!
I know earlier on the thread I was banging on about English coaches, that was a bit of a wind up post to illustrate the lack of credible options and also, the basic fact that if you hire an English coach, they have to be successful from the word go like Noble was, otherwise it is very hard for them because they get regarded by the fans as a 'no name' even if they were a good player (eg Lowes, Harris). If I was being totally honest the only English coaches I would want as a Salford fan would be Noble or Kear, if Wakefield lose their franchise then I think Kear would do well at Salford, he would come in with confidence because he's been in situations like Sheffield and Wakefield before where he's gone into a side at the wrong end of the table, and made them hard fighting contenders. Also his one year as Hull head coach they won the Challenge Cup and knocked Warrington and Andrew Johns out of the playoffs..before the 'politics' of the Hull dressing room and a couple of high profile overseas players who he didn't see eye to eye with, undermined him. I would have Kear after TS at Warrington if we had the chance. Another possibility would be Jon Sharp who I think was decent at Hudds most of the time.

Outside of those the best bet is like you say to find a young and hungry NRL assistant coach. Some of these are very ambitious, and very confident in their abilities, but they need a head coach opening to give them a chance. It happens in American Football where you will get some guy who was "offence co-ordinator" at a top team jumping on a struggling team as head coach and then turning them around. The advantage with those is, if Salford advertise for a job, the ones with confidence in their ability will self-select themselves. A lot of people would see Salford as a potential graveyard job because none of Gregory, Harvey, McCormack, Harrison have ever had a job in the top flight again. But then there might be some Aussie totally out of the scene of SL with no negative preconceptions of Salford being a struggling club in an ageing stadium, who will just think "head coaching job, club who's not been in the playoffs much, sounds like a place I can demonstrate my quality". That's what Tony Smith did when he came to Huddersfield who were bottom every year before he arrived. Also Castleford unearthed two coaches when they were in bad times - Raper and Matterson, both of them made Cas competitive.

The hardest thing will be the issue with work permits. It's hard to get a work permit for them if they haven't been a head coach or an international coach.