That interview says one thing - if we don't start off next season like a house on fire, then Price is gone.

Personally, I'd have terminated his contract within 24 hours of the Cas defeat, however, the club obviously want to give him a chance to rectify things on the back of the Wembley win.

Can Price turn it around though??... I really just can't see it. From his 2 years so far, he looks like a man with a very solid Plan A, but absolutely nothing after that. Will Widdop really make such a huge difference?... while a big upgrade on Patton it is asking a lot for him to change a side which, in the second half of the season, was showing relegation form, both in results & quality.

I hope Price can do it and prove me, & others, wrong, but I will be very surprised if he does and fully expect him to be gone by May.

its all a bit of a blag job this interview.....

a) he has read the forums and knows the opinion of the fans
b) he knows there is NO way the club will be removing Price before the start of next season
c) he has eyes.. he knows where this is going.

he is showing we will make a chnage if we need to....

So Price somehow needs to be able to coach a nice brand of rugby and look good.... he has no chance.

We should have won both competitions and we failed...so our the season was a failure.
However...would I have taken the CC in 4th and bombed out?...of course I would...2012 was our last win...'losing becomes a habit!' Someone once said.
As I've said before...what I expect this team to do and what I would take if offered are 2 different things.
Draw up a contract with the same terms in 2020 and I'd sign it now...however I expect the double and hubcap...and I'd replaced Price if we don't as the progressive vision of our club is to be the 'greatest RL brand in the world'...but we are stalling and could argue gone backwards from 2018 as we made both finals.

Forgive me if I've got the wrong end of the stick, regarding this interview (I only skimmed through it).
It's done for the purposes of a paper /website (printed questions and answers) and not a TV style interview, where Fitzpatrick would've been "####ed up hill and down dale" by a Paxmanesque interviewer. This seemed all a bit like those cosy interviews that David Frost used to do, about 15 years ago. You know the type. "Are you sitting comfortably? Cup of tea, custard cream? Errr, OK" kind of thing.

One thing is being forgotten here. Price IS Fitzpatrick's man. When Smith's Wire career was obviously coming to an end, he announced it in August 17, giving us time to find a successor. We ambled on, until the end of the middle eights, and still no announcement on who'll replace Smith. Season has ended, and KF hops on a plane to Australia, and it takes him a month, to come back with what can only be described as an NRL failure. In the meantime, someone sanctioned the (as it turned out, disaster) Roberts deal.
Basically, KF ISN'T going to sit down in an interview, and say "yeah, we ####ed up", because HE employed Price, and it makes him look stupid. He's got to give the interviewer a little bit, and the reader some, too.

My own thoughts on the season. Failure. Not massive, as a cup win overrides that. But we did our best to lose that HKR game, early rounds, and thank God Saints bokkled it again,and surely won't play as badly again".
Looking at the league, with two games to go, if we hadn't beaten Wakefield, we could have finished 6th or even seventh (unlikely with points difference), after being second for twenty plus rounds, that's pathetic.
Then there was the capitulations v Wakefield and HKR (both away). Not good.
The only plus points I remember, were early season wins against an out of for.m Wigan and a depleted Hull, where we last played any kind of easy on the eye rugby.

Not sure how much more KP could have said short of “I’ve just sacked him”. It wasn’t the current politician style answer of answering the question you want to answer rather than the one that was asked. If I was Steve Price reading that I would feel very uncomfortable which makes me think there has been some fairly straight talking behind the scenes.

I liked the interview, basically I think words have been had but price is given the chance to turn it around. I still think that will prove a mistake but that's what we have got. I don't like searching for for a forward in the NRL, they are more expensive, no better and often just don't adapt at all because they want to be here. I'd prefer to take a proven superleague prop like we did when we signed carvell.

I think we missed out big time with George burgess.

I'd agree with this. Sounds like Price has been told that, whatever he thinks, last season was poor and that a continuation of it during the early part of next season, definitely results wise, hopefully quality wise, will see him out of a job.

If KF is doing his job properly, he will already be quietly putting together a shortlist of contenders to take on the job, should Price not fix things. (At the moment, it's probably a very short list reading Ian Watson, though I fear our best chance to get him would be the close season, as no club will want to let their coach go after a season is already underway).

With Austin out for the second half of the season, Patton and/or Smith in the halves, a total lack of size/strength/speed/tackle busts/offload game in the props and no depth at all in the front row (all we have is Clark Cooper Hill and Philbin who either play or contribute anything), and absolutely no loose forward or ball handling forward... how on Earth do you come up with the opinion we should have won both competitions?

We are well short!

Teams fighting relegation had better half backs, more depth in the front row (and an actual ball handling/running loose forward) than we did from July onwards.

Absolutely every player from 1-17 played the game of their season at Wembley and we deservedly best the best side in the country. But try and get any sort of consistency with the deficiencies I listed above and we’ve got no chance.

For me it was the style of rugby I was most disappointed with this season. We are boring and really need to improve in that respect. But there’s a problem of a disconnect between hope and reality if we think we [ishould[/i be winning things with our squad.

We have two extremes to our squad, some of the leagues best players and one of the world’s best players in Clark. But we have glaring holes and weaknesses in our squad that even relegation battling sides easily have. Rugby league is a team game, a squad game, no team is as good as its best handful of players - all teams are only as good as their weakest links and we have too many.

You've contradicted yourself there massively

Oh, where to begin?

So the remit in the off season is to improve the style of play in other words go against the style that Price settled on his de facto gameplan.

What if he does that and results don't follow? What if we then sack him.- is ability to play eye catching rugby top of the job description or do we bring Wane in for more of the same but an improvment in results?

The club has bottled a big decision, kicked the can down the road and potentially given itself a big problem.come May/June.

Spot on. A top coach's main attribute is the ability to get 100% from their supposed weak links on a consistent basis. One of biggest problems has been that we have too often been carrying passengers, who only seem to get up for a match on a 1 in 4 or 5 game basis & the rest of the time they go missing.

Players like BMM, Sita, Tasi, Patton, Jason Clark, are simply not contributing enough to the side & that, in the main, is down to the coach.

This inability to get the best from all of the squad is also a factor in why we struggle to bring through younger, home grown players into our side - If those younger players are to develop, they need an environment where the senior players are all playing to potential & so giving leeway for a youngster's inexperience. We simply don't have that luxury, because we already have passengers in the team & so it leads to unneeded pressure on a young player to instantly be a game changer.

Long term, to be a successful club in this competition, we need to be bringing through our own players. No club can get lucky in the recruitment market on a regular basis and we need a coach who can utilise every aspect of his squad, star players, squad players & youth players , to their absolute 100% potential.

In terms of the prop we need I'd be throwing the chequebook at Watts.

See that doesn't sit right with me, if Fitzpatrick is having a go at Price and using the media to ratchet up the pressure on Price without facing accountability himself.

The problems that we are talking about today: boring style of rugby, team underachieving, unable to win Grand Finals, poor recruitment, not bringing through young talent, were here before Price. Remember how it used to be TS fault or Agar's fault. Now it's Price's fault.

At what point does KF decide that this isn't the job for him and walk away and do something else...? Or does he just sit on top of the organisation, demand success and hold others accountable, in which case, plenty of people from this forum could do that job.

KFP will be even more aware of our shortcomings after Saford, with no Academy, very limited financial clout, and few attractions other than ££ for new players to sign on, have managed to get the the GF. Well done Salford, they deserve all the credit for their achievement, but it certainly highlights our underperformance this year.

I think Dita raises a very good point about our Academy. We do need some top quality players coming through rather than constantly getting out the check book. And it's not simply that we are missing the stars, those that make it through as just squad players bring an awful lot of enthusiasm as they try and break through into the first team. Plus their salaries are typically low in the early years, we get a salary cap reduction, and they are invaluable for filling the gaps when we get a string of injuries. I think we need to get a lot more streetwise about using amateur clubs that draft in players and have strong U15 squads. From what I understand both Leeds and Wigan both provide free coaching to some clubs and then have first pick of the best kids. £100k spent on this type of exercise must surely be worth far more than £100k on a new signing - or a lot more if we have to get a prop from Oz.