Smith has still got a few seasons left in him. His full title is Head of Football something or other, so he would be involved in recruitment, planning and player motivation. I think the recruitment this season hasn't been too good, we lost some key players in pivot positions, and we've not really replaced them (apart from maybe Russell at FB). The HB position is still an issue, but we'll get there. I knew it wasn't going to be easy after Briers retired and Morley left. We've had a few bad results, but, and this is coming from an extreme pessimist, we will bounce back, I'm certain of it.

In my opinion, one of the major poor decisions Smith has made over the course of this season was getting rid of Carvell. The guy was immense last year.

Moran is not Koukash, which is enough to say that Smith will have plenty of time to get this turned around.

Watch this space

Agreed especially about Carvell

It was a real head shaker when I heard that he was going, but even more so when it was Bradford he was going to. He lives up in that area though I believe, so that may have been one of the reasons for his move.

We played with a triumvirate of ball players in Briers, Hodgson and Monaghan. We are left with one of those, who, unfortunately, is not playing to his previous exceptional standards. We were planning on going into this season with two of those three. Unfortunately, circumstances dictated otherwise.

It doesn't take the most taxing of thought processes to conclude we are a couple of ballplayers down from where we need to be. Russell will continue to develop as will Myler.

One thing I do know, is that Smith is the guy I want developing those players.

I wonder if Melbourne are considering getting rid of Bellamy?

"What you hear, what you say WY"?

There's more to it than that, Lee. And he actually lives in Stockton Heath now, the big fella. He relocated here.

This thread is total madness, you lose several very experienced ball players, the style of the team will therefore change till a new style of play becomes second nature. This team will come good, maybe one or two aren't up to it at this level and may well be replaced, but change the coach? seriously? I sometimes despair at the stuff Wire fans come up with, such short memories and lack of any real knowledge of Rugby League

It's a difficult situation to try and assess.

Simply put; we look very poor. The biggest drop in quality from one year to the next that I can remember and I'm including the teams who've gone into administration recently in that too. On the whole they were already average(at best) or crap(at worst) and got worse. We've gone from five finals in four years, winning three and topping the table once with two second place finishes...to the most disjointed and lethargic team in Super League. At least with the bottom teams they look like they know what they're doing and look physically 'on it', it's just that they aren't very good. That's not the case with us, we look all over the place.

It would be easy to look at one man and say it's his fault. But should we point the finger at Tony Smith? I'm not so sure. And if it is his fault, I'm thinking it might be in a slightly different way to what others might think it is.

Looking over the time with Simon Moran, you can see the improvements over his time with us. We were no longer a relegation battling side, but not a particularly serious Play-off side neither - as good as finishing fourth was in 2005 beating Leeds in 2006 was. We then pushed further with some really good signings and then a serious coach to take us towards being a serious team, in Smith. We won the 2009 Challenge Cup and it changed us, we stared to get better in the Play-offs and kept winning CCups and finally got to two Grand Finals.

Going off that, you would expect our next drive would be to start winning a GF(s) and competing in he World Club Challenge. Creating a (I don't like this word but it's used a lot in sport) dynasty. Well, that's what I was expecting anyway.

However, it seems like either are true. So I'm prepared to give Tony a year's grace and see where we are this time next year. Because this time next year, if we're in the same position, there is a huge chance that we could be playing London Wakefield Leigh or Fev from Round 23 onwards. But that's a long way off yet, so I'm happy to wait and see.

Who's to say, this time next year we may actually have found out who we really need to get rid off on the playing staff and we could have some really good replacements for them, and the ones we've lost last Winter, and Smith - being the very good coach he is - could have us flying again. You just don't know. We could look back and laugh at ourselves discussing this!

Really? I didn't know he lived down here. Some trek that is every other week, Stocky to Hull and back.

people keep referring to Saints. Saints finished 5th in their so called transition season. I would snap your hand off for 5th right now. Sadly people have started voting with their feet as the recruitment has been shocking.