Quote Barbed Wire="Barbed Wire"What are the board looking for though? What is the job spec and key defining attributes that they are looking for in order to know they have the right person next time?
I said the same at Powell’s appointment. We have flip flopped from overload attacking with Smith, to park the bus Price, to what was allegedly a “promote from within and develop the players we have” in Powell.
It’s been said a million times, but we don’t know what club we are. We’re “new money”. We have no etiquette, no legacy. We’re just buying the latest brand of fashion, which as fashion does, goes out of style as fast as it arrives. Saints are the complete contrast. They play the same way they have since the 90’s, and all the coach has to do is keep the engine ticking over and steer it in the right direction. There’s no rebuild, it’s just tinkering,
The club now need to map out the blue print, find out what good actually looks like, before appointing a coach. If that take 7 weeks, and Chambers and Marshall have a free hit at making a name for themselves, so be it. But we can’t get this wrong, and without knowing what you actually want, you’re just speculating again.'"
I’m afraid you’re buying into the “entertainers” hype. When did they last play an entertaining brand of rugby? They thrive, and have done for years now on a supersonically fast defensive line targeting the ptb and 2 out. The only entertaining player they have is Welsby who definitely has star quality to go with his totally unsympathetic character.
Our board are desperate for success, they clearly feel the lack of that elusive title as well as we do. Where we have failed, and Saints have succeeded is in spotting talent especially coaching talent (obviously Cunningham was a delightful blip). But they brought in Millard, Holbrook and Woolf Anderson etc. We have gone for safer choices like Powell or close but no medal Price. The only one we got right in recent history was Smith and that was so close but no cigar.
So talent spotting coaching talent has been our big failure.
I also wonder how much importance we have put on character when recruiting. Judging by comments before he got here Maguire was potentially always a problem.