To be fair, Lowes could have spat the dummy and walked today. The guy wears his heart on his sleeve, that's evident. Whilst he may not be the greatest head coach right now, i did admire his honesty throughout even if that was blind in the latter stages.

I would imagine it takes a lot of balls to sit in that press conference and accept that your "not quite ready" or even worse "not quite good enough" yet agree to stay on.

I also think the press reports covering the players who state their admiration for Lowes and his approach are true. He seems like very much "a man's man", a protector, which is a good quality to have in sport. I just think he got some of the fundamental things wrong, like the lack of pre-season matches and general match tactics/structures.
He also lacked the proffessionalism in front of the camera that many look to for signs of control.

The club shouldn't have put him in this situation in the first place and it was a knee jerk reaction to a half decent winning run in my opinion.

Tony Smith joining Lowes is the best all round move and the club should be congratulated. It just feels like someone has finally turned the lights on at Warrington.

Listening to the interviews throughout the day and on the radio tonight I seriously feel that the club and Tony Smith want Jimmy to stay. I suppose its up to Jimmy now, his future is in own hands, give 100% to our club and learn from an experienced coach for the next few years or ship out.

Whatever the club's good intentions, Lowes will - I believe - be gone sooner rather than later.

I'm not convinced he will go. When he looks at it after he has got over the disappointment has died down, and his pride has recovered from the bashing it has taken, he will hopefully see this as a good thing.

He has worked for Smith before as assistant, so hopefully their relationship is already sound, and the club could have been ruthless and sacked him.

Hopefully he will realise he has lots to learn, and he will be working for one of the best around.

I do feel for him slightly, as he has had to go through this learning curve in public, in a very demanding position, but it is just one of those things. I'm sure nobody thought things would be as bad as they have turned out, and the club had to act.

Why, after all the vitriol aimed at James Lowes over the last few weeks, do people seem happy to keep him at the club in an assistant role? If the guy doesn't know what he is doing as most people said then he doesn't know what he is doing. Simple as that. And isn't Nigel Wright asssitant coach? Why are we paying two people to do one job. There is no place for sentiment and feeling sorry for people in top level professional sport and we should have let him go. I know he is out of contract at the end of season and probably won't be staying, but we have been a bit of a soft touch in my opinion. He has been an assistant before and hasn't seemed to learn much and if he feels he is ready to be a head coach he should try and find a job in NL1 to prove himself first.

I think most people are quite willing to give Lowes a chance and accept that Wire's poor form was down to his lack of experience and learning, rather than him just being a bad coach. For someone like Tony Smith to say he thinks Lowes could be great with the right training is a pretty decent endorsement.

As assisstant coach he makes no major decisions on strategy, squad etc. Although he does get a say Smith will have the final word.

Although I never rated Jimmy and *really* didn't want him as our head coach, I can accept that his (and the team's) poor performance came down to a complete lack of experience and being put into a situation he never should have been by the club, something which was said many times on here even before we knew about Tony Smith.

I think the way to look at Jimmy is in the same way as Chris Reiley. Some people think he's just not good enough and never will be. Some people think that with the right framework and support he could be a top player. Lowes is very similar, it depends which side of the fence you're sitting on. With Smith as his mentor he could become a very good coach. Plus his contract only runs to the end of the year, he may well choose to move on then. I think Smith as top dog with Lowes in an assisstant role is the best outcome for all concerned. At the end of the day, better Lowes stay and another young British coach is developed and moves on rather than sacked and disappears into obscurity to be replaced by yet another Aussie coach.

Lowes is a good coach, but is not a good head coach.

Good post.

I don't have a problem with Jimmy staying and who's to say that what he was trying to achieve is wrong. It may be that his lack of experience has determined that he couldn't get the squad to where he wanted them to be quick enough. Tony Smith can help him with that and if Jimmy is willing to be patient and to learn then if after Smith's contract is up and Jimmy takes over solely then we can judge him on his ability as a head coach.

The board took the risk and it didn't pay off they have now acted so lets see what happens now.

Lowes might be a good assistant coach(although i don't know what this is based on) but he strikes me as the type who will never settle for that and wants to be the top man. Even if he stays under smith and learns, which i doubt he will, i still do not want him given the head coach job until he has proven he is capable. It seems that because he was such a good player who played at the top level he seems unwilling to learn his trade as a coach at the lower levels.

Well it seems Smith has the idea to train Lowes up to be that good. Every time I've heard Smith talking about Lowes, it's always:

"Train him up to be a good head coach, either at this club, or somewhere else"

If Lowes doesn't want to play second fiddle, then he has the option to walk. Needless to say, I believe that will be a massive mistake on his part.

Plus I never said he was a good assistant coach, I said he was a good coach.

I don't think it's necessarily that. But if people give him opportunities along the way he isn't exactly going to turn them down is he.

I can't see what's wrong with him having aspirations to be the top man.

I think Lowes has already proved that comment wrong by choosing to see out this year and be mentored by Smith. There is nothing wrong with aspiring to be a head coach, surely there'd be something wrong if he didn't? But it takes humility to admit that maybe you weren't ready for the role and take a step back for somebody else. It must have been very hard to take and I can't imagine how he must be feeling with having to admit that in front of the whole RL community. Good on him for stepping on and admitting that he's not quite there yet and accepting the decision the club have made. I hope Smith can turn him into a great British coach - there isn't enough of them as it is.

I'm not too sure that these remarks made by Lowes show any humility at all. Grudgingly conceding that he was 'possibly' not ready or not good enough isn't quite the same as admitting what most people could see, which is that he was clearly neither ready nor good enough.
And as for going off for 'a couple of days mourning' - wtf? How about having a couple of days thinking about where the team have been going wrong lately and getting together with your new boss to try and find ways of sorting it out.
Humble? No. Hubristic more like.