Looking at Castleford's early season form they are reminiscent of us a few years ago, and Powell has taken them steadily forwards since he has been there. He had to deal with the disruption of losing Denny Solomona and they have taken it in their stride unlike us with Sandow.

Powell also had a good record before with Featherstone and it's between him and Wane as to who is the best of the British coaches. He should be a good shout for the next England coach.

So if we did part company with Smith he would be the best option to target, but I don't see it happening. Castleford has been his project for a few years and he has got them where he wants them now - a team with whom he can have a real go at winning trophies. To move to us now would seem like a step backwards.

If he does have half an eye on his next role, it will probably be Leeds, where he is Hetherington's mate, has a history with the club and probably would be his preferred role out of the big clubs. He will see Brian McDermott is vulnerable at Leeds and might have already a few off the record nudges that he is in their thoughts for being McDermott's successor. I seem to remember that back when he was replaced as Leeds coach in 2003 by Tony Smith, the original plan was for Smith to be coach for 2 years and then Powell to return in to the head coaching role, before he went off to RU for a while...?

We would have to look elsewhere if it wasn't Smith.

Your coach hasn't been sacked (yet), Powell has a job to do at Cas, and then we'll see what he does if he does decide to leave - but this seems a little premature for people to be discussing his next moves.

If We need a new coach after the Leigh game it won't be any currently employed head coach... and certainly not Powell.

So we should be looking at current assistants that have head coaching ambitions. ..
Personally I'd like to see Michael Monaghan given a shot.... after that I'm struggling. ..

Its just nonsense to think Powell will come here while riding high with Cas. ...

I would also like to see Michael Monaghan in charge. I couldn't care less if he hasn't got any experience of coaching a SL side... From what ive heard, he pretty much coached this side when he was here anyway.

Lets face it, we hardly have a dearth of coaching talent in this country do we? Only one i would be interested in is Powell and if he came here it would be purely for money.

The fans would get right behind Monaghan... it would give the place a lift... Give him 2/3 years and lets see how it goes.

back on Powell, he seems to be a good motivator AND an astute tactician.

You can look at that cas squad and think 'i dont fancy them' at quite a a few of their players. But he has them performing to a high standard and playing the best RL of their careers (probably). They are putting higher paid 'elite' players to shame.

I've seen people saying 'well warrington were playing like this a few years ago'.. and we were. Difference is Powell is doing it with other peoples cast offs and young talent. His recruitment is second to none.. We did it with probably the most expensively assembled squad in SL history... actually our current squad is probably the most expensively assembled in SL history.

How about Brett Hodgson? He is currently coaching the Widnes academy team and could be worth considering.

I think Hodgson was touted as a future coach before he fell out with Mr Smith.

Hmmmm. The Monas and Hodgson coaching magic didn't deliver much at Catalans last year, or Widnes errrrm well ever has it?

Appointing an untried, unproven rookie coach would be potential suicide I'm afraid.

If you want change, Geoff Toovey should be rescued from Bradford post haste then TS given some nice shiny job title and AN Other brought in as assistant. NEXT YEAR.

Recent history tells us that replacing the coach mid season is far from the panacea you all crave. Quite the opposite, be careful what you wish for.

We replaced Jimmy Lowes mid season and won the Challenge Cup a few months later.

Well yeah he was the exception. I'd have supported the appointment of Barney the purple dinosaur to replace Lowes though. Would have made for more intelligent post match interviews too.

Speaking of which, what happened to the bloke who always used to post those WG interviews on here?

How many GFs did he deliver and could he not have done better with the side that he had?

The only reason people say Monaghan is because they liked him as a player, but he wouldn't be coming back as a player he would be coming back as a rookie coach who hasn't had his first head coaching job to get his mistakes out of his system. Is Warrington the place for a rookie to learn from his mistakes...? It would be fine if we were a small club with modest ambitions but we are a club that has been near the top for the past few seasons so we need to win the Grand Final - not have more "near misses" or excuses like last season - we need a coach that can deliver the trophy at Old Trafford. Otherwise, we won't have improved on Tony Smith.

Now sure he might do "OK", like Keiron Cunningham is doing "OK" at Saints. Two seasons, two playoff appearances is pretty decent going for a rookie coach and he will get better the more time he has but look over at the Saints board at the calls for KC out. And KC is much more of a long standing Saints legend than Monaghan is with us.

The fans would get behind Monaghan - sure for a few weeks, but how long before the forum experts on here started pointing out his flaws - playing players in the wrong position, selection mistakes, being too negative, being too positive, he would soon be getting dissected on here and just doing what Cunningham has done at Saints and making the playoffs would be regarded as just a poor man's version of Tony Smith.