I agree with the Wenger comparisons that have been made. My big concern is that we seem to be satisfied with second or "improving" - there's only one metric that counts - winning. In the last 4 seasons we haven't won anything. LLS is nice but let's be honest the top rank trophies are the CC and SL GF.

The culture of the club is good but seems a bit soft to me - we don't seem to hate losing or fear failure as much as Wane's Wigan.

The reality is that we need to win a major trophy this season or we need to start thinking about a change. At the minute it feels like an Arsenal situation where the manager is so in charge he's lost all threat to his position.

I'm also wary of reading too much into last weekend - we played well in the similar game in 15 and had a stinker of a season.

Anyway - let's hope we take off from last Saturday and are chanting Smith Forever at OT in October!

Perhaps I can help with your confusion.

The team in the 80's which you refer to was the team to last win silverware for Warrington until recently. The Premiership in '86 and John Player in 91, we won nothing again until 2009, nearly 20 barren years later. It is right that that team is celebrated as they achieved that against the odds being a club with a small support base and limited cash against a dominant Wigan. People who actually watched that side will need no reminding of how good it was.

However it is perfectly possible to hold a position now where one recognises the traits of serially successful clubs and, as the club are now in a position to compete financially with them, consider it reasonable to emulate the desire to win and exhibit winning cultures. We currently do not do that.

So you can see we can laud the team of the 80's and raise the question the winning attitude of the team which 30 years later is in a different space financially.

You can tell the winning attitude a mile away. Wigan would not stick with a coach who won nothing for 4 years, losing 4 finals, neither would Saints or Leeds. Simple as that really.

You're being very selective in your argument though. You can't claim that the LLS means nothing (not sure if you have, but most Smith detractors seem to be suggesting this), then say that the Premiership or Regal Trophy (as it was in '91) count as worth winning. And you've ignored the point that this side wasn't even second best-Widnes and others were ahead, and they had no more cash than us (and only better crowds as they were winning). In '86 Wigan were not a dominant force and their '85 cup win was their first in 20 years, whilst they hadn't won the league in 25. You can't retro fit their later dominance as a reason our team from this time didn't win more.

On the strength of trophies and finals, Smith's achievements even post the 3 cup wins is still ahead of the team in the mid/late 80s, and has been done in an era of the salary cap, with an aging team that needed re-building. I've said before, 2014-2015 will prove to this era the equivalent of our 1951-1952 period; I believe Smith can still lead us to a second peak similar to the mid-50s team. Keep the faith!

I am not comparing the teams of the 80s and the current one. That would not be fair based on the financial situations. All I am defending is that it's possible to recognise the achievements of those wins in 86 and 91 where a win at all costs attitude would be ridiculous, and now having different expectations of the team.

Smith has been wonderful for Warrington. The question was "is it time to part ways if we fail to win the GF in his 8th year". It seems to divide opinion. But as I've said, if we had the ruthless win at all costs attitude that Wigan, Leeds and Saints have then Smith would most likely have been replaced already.

TS built the best team in the league in 2011, it was honestly a travesty that team didn't get a chance to compete in the grand final, I haven't seen a better team win it since.

We were always heading for a rebuilding period, but throughout that period we have challenged. Ask Leeds how they have fared through theirs....

I was sat on a table at a charity do with TS tonight and the guy is just inspiring, there is no one else in SL I would want at the head of my club.

He's built again, this team is more than capable of winning a grand final, and it's the youngest team I've seen at Warrington for a long, long time. He's brought in young English players and he's managed to keep good British players at the club when other teams are seeing players disappear down under.

Yes he is well backed, yes plenty of money has been spent, but TS is the man that WILL land us a grand final. And more importantly, he's the sort of man I want leading my rugby team.

Six years ago.



I would be very happy with Leed's achievements in the last 8 years. To compare is facile. So far they have had one duff season where they won nothing.



I don't dispute any of that. In fact you make my point for me. You are saying that in your case all that is more important than becoming serial winners.

its not the taking part that counts its the winning, second place is the first loser. and whilst some are happy to be the perennial under achievers many are not and accept that we have no god given right to win the gf but have the team to do so yet seem to fall short. in general the reason for our losses in the finals are very similar and we don't or have not adapted to them this is down to smith

its not fair that when something is done well or we have a good win then its down to ts and his great man management but when we lose its not his fault, its a player not making a pass or knock on that lost us the game. I laugh every time I read about us losing the gf because gidly did not make ONE pass.

getting to finals is part of becoming successful given the funds and players he has had available during his time here we should have won more and the buck stops with him and his selection and tactics

I see the revisionists are out in force again. How has it not sunk in that we actually over achieved last year? The fact that we only had 2 front line props for virtually the whole season was a massive handicap.
As for "ruthless" Saints, their commitment to Cunningham would suggest the contrary.
Please note I have NOT mentioned any of the other injuries because to me the team dealt with them.

You're kidding to say wigan didnt have more cash than us ??
And Widnes were famous for spending what they didnt have, sure it got them two championships ( they had to wait 100 years for it though.) but When Dougie's cheque book moved to Leeds it left widnes in a right mess and a huge sell off of players and relegation followed and also yoyoing in and out of the second tier and playing in Northern rail cups etc

I wouldn't swap what we had or have for what widnes have had to endure.....



they finished runners up in 86 and won the lancashire cup and JPS trophy i think that's fairly dominant. next season they lost two league games all year both to wire and won the league at canter with us and saints both 7 points behind them, they won the jps and lancs cup again. you can see why wire fans got/get excited at even getting near to this side that was on another level to everyone else.

people count the trophies we didn't win but I don't doubt for a minute in that era of Wigan dominance no other club was involved in more finals or semi finals than Warrington, and most of them defeats at the hands of the greatest team ever to play rugby league.

so feel free to rubbish it......i certainly remember when we beat wigan at wilderspool in 1997 it was a great win because we had just sacked Dorahy and were in a right mess, but it didnt feel like any of the wins over Wigan in the late 80's because the wigan team wasnt near the same quality.

I think Tony smith cops some unfair criticism at times because at the end of the day he got you to basically 3 finals last season (counting the hull vs Wire game for shield as one) you might of won only 1 out of 3 but at the end of the day there were 2 other teams challenging for everything (us and Hull) it's better than winning nothing and imo winning the league leaders shield is the biggest achievement because you've been the most consistent team all season. I'm 99% sure you'll win the grand final under Smith at some point, I'd be surprised if you don't win a trophy this season and every season apart from 2015 you've been close to winning something. This might be biased however but the bloke who said he wouldn't swap smith for any one, I guarantee Wane would win more at Wire than smith, you might not like him or his way of playing but at the end of the day he's the best coach in super league

I'm not sure Wane would do quite as well at another club. He's part of a Wigan set up that's Wigan through and through. I think it's unfair if you don't include the likes of Radlinski in contributing to Wane's success.

If Wane was at another club he'd surely do quite well, just maybe not quite as well as inspiring Wigan-produced players in a Wigan system to the sort of ground-out, war of attrition victories we've become accustomed to under his tenure.

* years ago we were a an absolute joke, since Smith has taken over we have had one of the most successful periods in the clubs history, we were 10 points and a bit of luck away from sweeping the lot. Madness to suggest change

But we didn't sweep the lot. We failed to win the GF at the 7th time of asking.

o would add that we lost in a similar fashion or for the same reasons as we usually do. its no coincidense we rarely close out big games.

as I have mentioned smith has been great for us as a club but to basically give him an open ended contract is crazy and still stinks of little club mentality that getting to a final is good and makes the season a success. top their teams only count winning as a success.

Why do people keep going on about history as a reason to retain Smith as coach? History is irrelevant, look at manchester city or chelsea in football, as soon as you get the right owner and you can compete for players, you need to be winning..

Smith has had the most freedom and financial backing out of any coach in the league since he took over.

Zero Grand finals win...

Shaun Wane has regularly out coached him. It's time for a change if this trophyless streak continues.