Saints sacked a coach who has a statue of himself outside their ground for much less than what Powell is currently doing but apparently everything will be ok next season. Sack him, sack him today!! He is coaching the attack and defence and it's the worst I've ever seen

Considering we were playing a much depleted HKR ,we should really have kicked on from our early lead ,but allowed HKR back in the game . We should have won that game but once the penalties & handling errors crept in it was curtains for us. Danny McGuire's men had a better game plan & played for 80 minutes. There is obviously a lack of confidence in the squad now but if the season is to be saved we need to seriously address handling mistakes & find an 80 minute game plan. Front foot rugby should be the order of the day.

That Hull KR team would have been trounced by every SL club bar Wakefield last night.
Yet another damming result. The lack of weight going forward and the lack of defensive organisation sickens me.
Quite simply this team is playing worse than that of Steve Anderson’s era.

We have a 2 win cushion and points favoured on Wakey, we’ve six games to go…we’ve four games if things stay as they are to be more but for mathematics safe.
I’m no longer looking Wire wins, as I can see any coming, I’m looking at a Wakefields fixtures to see how hard it is for them to catch us up.

By the way, we can compare 2/3 of a season against Smith and Price.

Smith after 20 games - 11 Wins (23-22 Average Score)
Price after 20 games - 13 Wins (23-18 Average Score)
Powell after 20 games - 7 Wins (20-24 Average Score)

I do agree that he should get another season, provided we stay up. Since he will have no excuses next season as it will be near enough his full imprint.

But you can definitely compare his time to others.

Great stats because Price and Smith were also doing a complete overhaul of culture and players.

How many times are people going to state that complete overhaul was not needed to change the culture and remove the "bad apples" (how many are now actually convinced there were bad apples now)
He'll. I don't even think we needed a culture change. It ment butchering the club.
I'm pretty sure that we just wanted a few tweaks here and there to move us onto the next level. To dove us the drive to succeed.

Now we are in a relegation dog fight. And that's rhe cold hard truth. No more butchering. No more playoff talk. This is serious. this is as close to 2002 as relegation dog fights go.

I don't care about overhauls gazwire. I care about this club and not being relegated over something that in all fairness. Didn't need to happen to such a extent.
I ask again. Who bins off and forces out the top try scorer of the club this season. (And possibly the whole of superleague at that point) mid season? It was funny at the time. Not so much now.

There is a change needed now. And you seem the only one blind enough to back the coach. I myself backed Powell. Friday was enough and the tipping point.

You really are deluded and a sandwich short of a picnic

It's not just Powell who identified the need for culture change, the board have brought him in and backed him to do it on the back of underachievement. The fans have expressed this too and the constant decline has manifested into declining attendances.

You've written that I'm the only one [ublind[/u enough to back him. Yet on another thread it is clearly apparent that people are split on keeping Powell 50/50 so far. Thanks for providing everyone with a great example of your idiocy. .

No wonder the quotation and use of statistics is so rank on here with observations such as yours.

Smith did overhaul the culture, he moved on Gleeson and put a rocket up Briers, turned his career around. He also worked with “bad apples” Matt King and Michael Monaghan which enabled them to become superb players for the club and well respected professionals.

Some coaches can work influence positive behavioural change, Smith did this really effectively. Powell has gone with the baby/bath water approach.

The player turnaround under Smith was not as radical as under Powell.

I do agree though that Powell has made mistakes and has probably gone in too harsh on some. That said though, if certain players aren't willing to accept change, then he hasn't got much choice.

You say he turned around King and Monaghan - they were hardly long standing stalwarts at the club. Powell is having to shift a whole bunch of stalwarts who've been central to the complacency problem. I don't see it as an entirely fair comparison but it is a good one.

Perhaps Smith was more positive. Perhaps those players were more malleable - it's hard to know.

Also, when Smith took over, we hadn't won anything, so expectations were lower - he hardly had a smooth ride either at first but we had a great CC run and win so there was a quicker turnaround. (I seem to remember).

I’m a huge Smith fan, but it’s worth noting that Smith had the benefit of inheriting a team of great players in their prime. I think any good coach could have turned that squad into winners, not to take anything away from Smith of course who did an amazing job from 2009-2013.

The Warrington squad at the start of 2022 had one good half back in his prime, and one very good forward at the end of his career, so it’s a bit difficult to compare. If Smith had left HKR to join us with our 2022 squad, I think we’d be having similar threads and asking why we brought him back. We’d probably be safe from relegation but looking non-starters for competing for trophies at any point soon. It’s not like our squad was significantly stronger than HKR’s this season.

If Powell can’t arrest the decline by next season, I wouldn’t be averse to bringing Smith back in some capacity, as we will have a fairly decent squad by then. We might fare better by scouting the NRL assistants though, as much as I was against this at the end of Price’s reign.