No. Sadly the clappy super wire Wembley wolfs won’t hear a word against him. They won’t admit he’s the wrong person to lead this club forward, and are happy to accept mediocrity even if it relegates us.

Only consolation is, they’ll be paying admission and clapping all the way to League One.



Lose on Thursday, and I guarantee we’ll have issues a statement by Friday morning along the lines of “Powell and Sheridan have left the club with mutual consent,” or some other bull, leaving someone else (likely Richard Marshall) to clean up the mess and be the man at the helm where we do get relegated.

The long and short of it is, we can’t defend. The players have been in for 5 weeks now (since Nicholson arrived) and we have conceded 30 4 times in a row. There is no improvement on this front, if anything we have regressed from the start of the season, don’t think we conceded 30 until Wakefield in round 5 or 6. We were plagued with bad apples and fashion designers then too.

Defence is not up to scratch, but at the same time, a number of those defensive errors at Wigan were individual, from younger players. If we're going to play younger players and bed them in, we have to forgive some mistakes.

Not necessarily. The first try, Field went straight between Bullock and Holmes in the build up which saw French brush off Holmes again. The last, it’s Williams that missed Field. That’s just off the top of my head.

But this is another excuse, so what is it? Are the players too young, not interested, bad apples, needing time to gel or is this buck passing mixology? I’m on record for saying that we should have picked the younger players when the season was dead (I said this 10 weeks ago, assuming that we wouldn’t be in a relegation battle, granted), but since then the youngsters have been dropped routinely. Thewlis, Wrench, Dean and Nicholson have all been in and out, in addition to Longstaff. So if we’re having the ‘nurturing and developing’ mitigation, stop dropping them and picking them out in press conferences.

It’s just contradictory again, the excuses offered up simply don’t add up.

So you don't think inexperience had anything to do with Nicholson not clamping the ball properly in a 3 man tackle, allowing kai Paul to release for a try.

What about those two full back errors from Thewlis. Do you not think inexperience had anything to do with those? If not, should we be playing a fullback which who appears to be that vulnerable?

These all occurred during the first part of the second half onwards and they killed us.

If younger players are to be played, mistakes have to be factored in.

And if we’re to accept those mistakes, so is the coach. Naming Dean twice, then “taking Thewlis out of the firing line”, dropping Nicholson after the Cas game, picking Minikin over Wrench… these are all inconsistent with the argument that you’re making.

The young players he played on Friday have probably improved since then and are probably more cohesive with other members of the team. What was appropriate 3/4/5 weeks ago probably isn't now.

If you don't trust Powell, no probs. But we aren't privy to the vast majority of players development on the training pitch. The only people who can only truly assess the situation are the coaches etc there. Powell, I imagine is basing his decisions on this. But if you don't trust him, fair enough.

Also, it has been brought to Powell's attention that, in the past 2 months, stickiness levels on the terraces has been building up. This will have clouded Powell's judgment, along with some rustness on the stadium roof. I think once the stickiness has cleared, the defensive structures will improve.

You’re entitled to your opinion, of course. But I find it hard to believe that the one week since Thewlis was dropped had a marked improvement on his ability. It’s a cop out for me.

You could sense the desperation against Hull KR resorting to Holmes at second row and picking Matautia, Ratchford and Minikin on the edge in an effort to firm up the defence. Then when that failed, the merry-go-round starts again and the “development” matters again.

It’s not about me trusting Powell. It’s about assessing the evidence presented. There is no plan A, even with all of the “stable tools” in place, there is no plan for that right side. And Nicholson aside, they all stated the year with us, they all had a pre-season. Widdop out and Ratchford in to half was a tactical thing, not as a result of injury, so was displacing Holmes with a mid-season recruit, Holmes is still available for selection. We’ve tinkered all year looking for something to work, and when it doesn’t, a kid gets dropped to the reserves for a spell.

You could argue that our strongest performer on the right side this season is still Josh Charnley. Despite only playing a handful of games.

He's still our 2nd in our 2022 try scorers list I think

Surely not, Thewlis has scored quite a few…

Quote Barbed Wire="Barbed Wire"Surely not, Thewlis has scored quite a few…'" Thewlis - 7 SL tries https://www.superleague.co.uk/player/926/josh-thewlis Charnley - 8 SL tries https://www.superleague.co.uk/player/371/josh-charnley

Quote Barbed Wire="Barbed Wire"Surely not, Thewlis has scored quite a few…'" Thewlis - 7 SL tries https://www.superleague.co.uk/player/926/josh-thewlis Charnley - 8 SL tries https://www.superleague.co.uk/player/371/josh-charnley