Mentions the fact that we had 13 players off contract next year a big factor for our poor season. Says players who were told they were not having their contract renewed weren’t fully committed.

Says he will drop ‘his’ players and he thought Ma’atutia was one of our best players this season which made me nearly spit out my water.

Needed to change the culture here and a few players didn’t like it or see why it had to be changed hence him moving them on.

To be fair i thought the interview was really good. Provided a good insight into the year. I thought Powell was as honest as he could be without naming names (from the answers you could have a good guess as to who he was on about) and Carney asked some questions in a way that most rugby league interviewers would normally not dare to ask.

One thing that stood out for me and I know I keep going on about it. I dont recall the word pressure being mentioned once. It has changed to "tough situations"

It was refreshing to see such an honest approach rather than the usual comfortable questions that normally get asked.

EDIT: Just realised I only viewed the short clip from last night… Doh!

Thought it was an open and honest interview, Carney didn't shy away from asking questions and pulling Powell up on some of his answers. Fair play to Daryl for doing it.


I may be wrong as it was a long interview, but I thought this was more in relation to the question - who stood up and tried to drive the standards/culture that DP was trying to instill? and not related to playing form. Thewlis was the other one mentioned as a youngster setting high standards in that area.

Yeah I agree, I think he was more alluding to the fact he see’s him as leader in the full length interview. However, in the fans questions (7 min video) he does mention mata’utia as being ‘consistent’ throughout the year which is completely bonkers for me..

Powell does mention that we are looking to sign a centre, I got the impression he would like to keep hold of Wardle.. He does mention a half back as another area we need to strengthen in too. I do appreciate the honesty from Powell in the interview & Carney does do a fair bit of grilling however, I just get the impression it’s more of a ploy from the club to get fans on board for 2023. *Season ticket sales hit all time low*

Watched it late last night, can't say I'm overly impressed. Might give it another go later today through less tired eyes.

Seems like he's expecting Vaughan and maguire to come in and set standards and hold people to account, a whole new leadership group so it appears

Must admit I though Ma'atutia was one of our best as well ... in a struggling team of course.

Almost through the entire interview now, and putting the pieces together (certainly regarding the ‘culture’ issue) it seems we have become a club where a player can become ‘comfortable’. We’ve had a lot of older, experienced and more established players who have been there and done it, and seemingly don’t appreciate being asked to develop their game or adjust the way they play to fit into new systems. I think this has become a systemic problem for the club - a ‘just enough’ mentality maybe?

We’ve spent the last 20 years buying up top talent on big money, without getting the relative results (and yes I know we’ve had the cup victories). Instead of recognising that we’ve been going about business the wrong way, we seem to have perpetuated it with a ‘perceived quick fix’ by buying the next ex-NRL big name player available without getting the best of the current crop or our academy. So we have a perpetuating cycle of ‘player comes in and gets paid lots while career winds down before retirement’. It’s a happy enough affair for them - there’s not a huge amount of pressure to justify the salary, and they can go through the motions each week having ‘peaked’ at their previous clubs. This then seems to become the toxic ‘path’ that filters down through the rest of the squad. The senior players maybe feeling a bit entitled, and the squad fillers following suit - either sitting there enviously waiting for their turn at the big salary and cushy life, or getting demotivated with the lopsided state of affairs where their own performances better that of the seniors players without fair reward. To have members of your leadership group confirmed as resisting change, refusing to play a new way, or not wanting to develop their own game because they’re already a senior player, just says it all for me. Can you imagine Wigan or Saints tolerating that sort of attitude, no matter who how ‘famous’ the player is? I also like the fact that Powell has admitted he called it wrong on certain occasions coming down too hard, too early, but it’s clear now that this likely wouldn’t have made things much better when we’ve got pushback from the leadership group over changes.

I think we’ve had the perfect storm of a huge amount of pressure on the squad from day one, combined with a lot of senior players coming off contract and facing a coach who’s pushing them hard to change when they’ve become comfortable. That’s a lot of anxiety and displeasure brewing underneath, and for those being let go, no motivation to drive the standards being asked for. I think things were broken early in the first few games - certain senior players didn’t like the criticism after a victory and this pressure combined with the anxiety of May 1st just resulted in a big collapse. Then every next game became the ultimate pressure pot situation - this manifested in games seemingly being won, only to have a score against us which opened the floodgates as we panicked. Although I’m not a massive fan of NRL imports based on our recent failures, I’m happy that Powell will be putting Maguire and Vaughan straight up there in the leadership group (both on the field and in training) driving standards from day one. The culture filters from the top down and hopefully they’ll be on board with Daryl from the start, and the atmosphere will be conducive to change and raising the bar.

Going forward into 2023, I don’t want to build up any hopes but I do at least get the feeling that we’ve been through a necessary demolition that will build us back up in a better way. A way that eventually puts us closer to the way that the likes of Saints, Wigan and Leeds operate. I guess we'll see. It's going to be a long off-season.

Admittedly a bit of a waffle post. Sorry.

Not sure exactly what giving so much information achieves. I await the start of the season with great interest (as usual).

For 2023 lowered expectation leads to more contentment. I suspect we will be "OK" but not challenging for the big prize.

The most concerning thing for me from that interview was the talk before the Toulouse game by the playing group, that they just had to 'turn up'. Shocking attitude and its no wonder Powell has pushed for change and the frightening thing is it doesn't surprise me. I've long felt we get beat more often than we should in games we were expected to win comfortably.

I think there is admission from Powell that he would change things if he could go back, although he seems to allude to the fact this was him being too harsh after the early Wakefield games, for me he was right to be harsh!

Leaders in the group will be key next year, those leaders are likely to be very different from previous years when Hill, Cooper & Hughes i'm sure featured highly. He seemed to suggest this year he had different leaders for different things, for environment (attitude off the pitch, defence and general) I don't think it needs to be that complicated, we need people to drive standards, pick those that do.

The players do need to set themselves a far higher standard. Bigger names than what we have had recently have turned up and would run through walls for us, Morley, carvell, Hodgson, monoghans, matt King, Briers, plus players like Westwood, Harrison, grux, Chris Bridge and Louis Anderson who were all very much front foot players.

The attitude needed ripping out of the playing roster and if that meant a lot of changes then I think it was the right thing to do, I'm fed up of the poor performances, I'm fed up of a disjointed team that looks as though they've never met before. I back powell over the players, they need to know its not just the coach they play for but the whole club, they needed to put any differences with the coach aside and do their jobs to the best of their ability and they didn't. I'm not sorry about any that have left given that interview and I'm hopeful what we have going in to 2023 is a far better blend.

A much freshened squad is hopefully a platform to get us back to a self assessing performance culture. I'm really encouraged by dufty, mikaele and hopefully Wardle. But we are so far off the pace I'm not sure we will be much better off next season. I'm not really excited about it anyway. I do think a centre and a half is the right areas that we need to sign so the fact the club are targeting weaknesses in the team is a good sign for recruitment at least.

I forgot to mention this in my post. I think maybe the comment was made in a slightly different context, but nonetheless it seems crazy that somehow the playing group and also the club hadn't worked out that this was a key area in which we consistently fall down. The pundits have been saying it for years, and so have the fans. At what point did the board sit up and think 'Oh, maybe it's not just a case of bringing in Greg Inglis to fix us'...?

Hopefully, less pressure and expectation will be a better platform to work from. Realistically, all we can hope for in 2023 is a vast improvement in effort and defence, with some signs that Powell's attacking style is starting to stick. Challenging for 5th-6th at best, with obvious indications that Powell is turning us into something bigger and better.

Well challenging for 5/6th 'at best' simply won't cut it for me and hopefully not the board either.