used to hate him and wouldn't have ever DREAMED of having him as warrington coach.

i would take him in a heartbeat as next seasons coach now.

That will to win and drive is exactly what we need... im sick of turning up and seeing abject performances.... I want my coach to be going in there and tearing these lot a new one.

If I remember correctly on the eve of the start of the season Rankin moved to cas to replace Gale so that was about the only option. I guess we thought that Patton could hold the Fort in the hope that Brown would be back by July.
The problem we had is that we announced widdop so early so we backed ourself into a corner a little bit there.
On the subject of a potential new coach I recently saw M Monas as coach back at Manly. Now he has been to Wakey, Catalan and back in the NRL. Natural progression is back over here in a head coach role before taking a head coach gig in the NRL.
Just an observation!

No they aren't, unless we have space under the salary cap, and also other clubs won't release players.

Do you really think that we had the ability to go and bring in a superstar halfback but we chose not to because we wanted to go with Patton...

All of the better options were tied up on contracts with absolutely no chance of signing a replacement for whoever we signed a player from! The fact of the matter is as third choice halfback go, patton is one of the best in the league, perhaps Richardson is better, but why would saints have sold him to us at that point and I bet afte this exploits the previous season he probably had absolutely no desire to come to wire. Browns injury came too late for us to react by signing a new player.

Regarding Brown, when it became obvious they needed recruits Leeds went out and signed half a dozen new first teamers.

All of whom were pretty good quality, signed at short notice and in one case [ia half back from SL opposition.[/i I'm aware they had to cook the books to create salary space, but they just got on with it and did what was necessary.

Face it, Price gambled on Patton delivering and they both failed.

Well I guess its a difference in philosophy. What do you do when you have a young talent on your books. Do you give him a chance to see how he develops or do you sign whoever is available, even if they aren't elite players, to take the security.

If we had done the latter I wonder if it would now been part of the charge sheet against Price - there would still be people thinking Patton could have developed in to a top class talent if only he'd been given a chance but typical Wire decide to ruin him.

At least now we know what Patton is (an OK player who can be a decent understudy at SL level) and what he isn't (another Briers/Burrow/McGuire type talent). Surely as Wire fans we want home grown talent to be given a chance, or would we rather have a coach who just takes the safe option.

Well Price could've given him half a season, more than enough to see his huge limitations, and then go looking for 'unavailable' players which Leeds/Wigan/London/Salford/Hull could clearly find...or play Riley Dean, or move Mamo to FB and put Ratch in the halves.

Mamo at fullback? Whatever the question is that can’t be the answer.

Oh I agree it's not ideal but Mamo at FB with Ratch and Austin in halves would've given us a more potent attack IMO. Unfortunately our attack was clearly an afterthought around mid-season onwards.

I don't think Patton was the gamble...Austin unfit was the gamble. Austin fit and Patton were a match for Saints.
We'd have been cruising too, but for the indiscipline of Hill and Cooper especially.

Why do Cas,Saints,Wigan and others appear to have stronger squads than us? Is it because they are not obsessed by star players but spend money more smartly across their squads and have adventurous coaches who get the best out of them.
Price has failed to do that not allowing the halves to play with freedom. The gametime given to Siti remains a mystery and allowing Harvey Livett to go out on loan for a season is baffling as is the signing of Burrell. He has a lot of questions to answer.

The CC win papered over the cracks, that have been there most of the season. We've looked average at best all season, we let far too many teams back in and most weeks started by chasing deficits from conceding early tries. We should have used the dispensation of KB to get another HB in our in hindsight blood a young lad, Patton is the local lad we all want to do well. He's had some good games this season but for every good one he has had a stinker (especially Cas in playoffs). I'd like to see Patton stay at the club, don't see him being here next season though with the lack of game time looming.

I wonder how much Price has to do with transfers and extensions. Some of these have been baffling.

See this where I find it hard to come to a conclusion. I think that our biggest problem has been recruitment. The quality of a squad at any one time will depend on the recruitment over about the past 5 or so years. Compared to those other clubs our recruitment has been poor since around 2012/13 so we are paying the price.

The comparison between us and Cas in recruitment over that period is especially revealing. There's no way Cas have a recruitment advantage over us in terms of money, size of club etc, and they were bottom of the league back in 2013 but look how they built themselves up. Also in that period they have on three(!) occasions had to deal with the loss of their best player (Chase, Clark, Solomona) and each time they rebuilt and came back better without them. Contrast that to what happened when we lost Morley, Hodgson, Briers.

I think our recruitment has been poor for a long time and this has left us with a shortage of big game gamebreakers and too many players who are regular starters that are average and would not get in the Saints/Wigan side. Surely I am not alone in that view...?

BUT...if you accept that view then how do you explain that in the past four seasons, we've made five finals (two under TS and three under Price), won a League Leaders Shield under TS and a Challenge Cup under Price. That suggests that we have had coaches who have actually overachieved - even if they have been involved in the poor recruitment decisions - they have managed to get an average squad punching quite high up.

If previous Wire coaches: Cullen, Van de Velde, Johnson, had been in charge of these players over the past few years, would we have had more success? I doubt it. We would have played more adventurous rugby under Cullen, but I don't think we would have been as well structured defensively. I do feel like in terms of being able to organise a team, TS and Price have been a big upgrade on what we had before.

I am still trying to figure out my real view on all this. I think it's that

a) Price is a similar calibre coach to TS, and neither should be underrated. Also remember Price has won a major trophy without the big gun players that TS had,

b) If you thought that TS was the kind of coach with a ceiling that would never get us to the next level, you probably have to put Price in the same category,

c) since the likes of Briers, Morley, Hodgson and the Monaghans retired, both coaches have been handcuffed by having an ordinary squad with a few highlights, rather than a top class squad. This goes much further than the coaches and we have to look at why the operations at the club that are set up to recruit experienced talent and bring through youth talent are not as good as our rivals.

Until we sort the problems in c) out I am not expecting a Grand Final win, not even if we bring in someone like Craig Bellamy or Ricky Stuart as our coach. But if we were say top 2 in the league in both recruitment and bringing through youth talent, then we could keep Price or bring back TS and have a fair chance of winning one.

Fascinating post Sal.
My thoughts still go back to us having a fairly decent squad compromised by the ineptness of some of our play. Why?
The appalling lack of creativity is a major cause of concern. Even in early season we were, in a number of games, heavily reliant on individual brilliance rather that a structures and cohesive plan or set of moves. I wouldn't mind so much if moves were tried and they didn't come off all the time but 5 drives and a kick and hope are not sufficient. I just do not know if Price is getting the best out of the players he has at his disposal. Last season offered hope and improvement but this season I just think we have gone backwards.

All very good points SC. I come back to the fact that for most of the season we have looked like we couldn’t string 2 passes together. The fact that that has got worse as the season progressed leads me back to the coaching.