Have to say, I do like Wane's after match interviews even if he should be doing better with the current squad he has:

"That was rubbish. I don't care if our first 17 is out injured I expect the basics to be done correctly by this bunch of academy players..."

“They haven't really recovered since a big weekend and it's damaged our confidence again"

"I thought we started with some promise but we didn't convert that into points and our heads dropped,"

"We know we are going to get some form together, probably when it gets drier"

"Huddersfield are breathing down our neck at the other end of the league and to give them a huge advantage is ridiculous. It almost penalises you for being successful in the Challenge Cup."
“We’ve copped a battering from two top teams and they’re putting their feet up in some Jacuzzi.”

We should have a separate thread for the excuseathon

"We're not far off"

Classic!



We were blinking miles off.

Not far off the bottom

"these charge downs are really paying off, were putting the kicker under pressure and getting the results"

The board have full confidence in the coach-sports speak for "here is your P 45"

I think the straight answer to this is 'nobody knows'. If we recruit the rumoured players we might feel quite bullish - but the team has barely started to take shape yet. Even more difficult is the coach. Even if we recruited an experienced coach with some cup wins behind him I don't (personally speaking) feel it would necessarily guarantee success as there are probably many other factors that come into play. There doesn't seem to be too many Alex Ferguson's around who can get one GF win, but then re-build a team and continue to succeed.
So I think we probably need to get a bit lucky and a young enthusiastic coach that has gone through his apprenticeship may have just as much chance as an experienced older coach with a couple of 'GF" wins.

If we are talking about targets for 2018, or expectations, then clearly the new man needs to ensure we finish top 4 (which I think was TS's target) and to be at least contesting a final. For year 2 I think it should be top 4 and winning a final, preferably the GF. If we recruit some good quality players, anything less than this would surely be failure ? I think we could almost certainly have guaranteed finishing in the top 8 with tired old TS in 2018, so the bar needs to be set at a respectable hight. I don't think Saints, Wigan or Leeds will be setting it any lower.

When some (inc me) retrospectively applied that criteria to Smith for 2016 we (inc me) were lambasted on here.

My argument against your criteria was that these criteria of "if coach achieves X, keep him, if he doesn't, ditch him" are not the right ones.

The real criteria that matters is
a) if we get rid of the coach at this point who would be the best available choice that would come in
b) is that best available coach more likely to deliver success han the current coach

So say next season we finish 2nd in the league, and lose in the Challenge Cup semis and the playoff semi. Your stretch criteria for the first season of the new coach was 4th/5th in the league with a good cup run. Does that mean he stays or goes?

Now how about you find out that Craig Bellamy wants to leave the Storm and come to Super League, he's interested in coming to Warrington but also you hear that Wigan are thinking of ditching Wane after a second trophyless season to get Bellamy in.

Do we try to get Bellamy or accept that Price achieved the objective criteria he was set so has earned his chance to pit himself against Bellamy's Wigan in 2019?