Hiya mate, just on us then…..we’ve been going downhill from a CEO perspective for 5 years now (see other thread!). I think Powell coming in was a decent idea, he just seems to have come in like a bull in a China shop though and blown everything up completely. Too much too soon. He’ll see the season out, but he’ll be judged VERY early on in the 2023 season that’s for sure.

Next week is a wild card, which could favour us. Being at home isn’t easy at the moment, with the pressure and atmosphere. And being away, obviously the home team are excited to get us and kick us while we’re down.

But next week, we could fly under the radar a bit, I wouldn’t expect a huge crowd for the game before us, and even so, neither of them are “anti-Warrington”, so the crowd could be really sp and quiet, to let us get on with the job.

But, not confident of beating Catalan at all. Cas could be a tough away day, for obvious reasons, then it’s Hull KR (winnable) and Huddersfield (unlikely but not out of the question) before Wigan away. Tough couple of weeks coming up

Is anyone honestly surprised, the season was gone 7-8 matches ago, if we win happy days if we don't it's no surprise. Nothing we can do, we won't get relegated i honestly believe that. We're not good enough this year across the entire board, we'll be in Super league next year and i'll give Powell 6 games before i start calling for his head. But i am expecting a dramatic change next year for the better.
I'm a massive Powell suporter but i'm even having doubts now.

I was expecting a bit of bounce within the team with the new signings, but my heart sank when I saw the team sheet.

I read the reserves match report and it sounded like Nicholson, Dean and Longstaff had big games so to see the starting halves, plus Davis in the starting 13 was a very negative selection.

So you are not allowed on any other forum but your own?
It was a straight forward question and in no way meant as sarcasm.

Fair point.
We`ve had similar with Hetherington taking his eye off the ball and Sinfield coming in and giving contracts to some players who should not be at the club.
Powell sounds like Brian Clough when he came to LU trying to weed out players far too quickly.

I've not come away from a game so frustrated in a long time. Absolutely unforgivable to lose after being 24-8 in front. Our game management is terrible, giving away cheap penalties in crucial areas.
I'm backing Powell for now but he makes some strange decisions having players like Holmes and Currie who clearly are either not good enough or don't want to play for him. Surely Widdop and Dean would have been better in the halves.
I'm no expert on the technicalities of the game but when I watch Saints attack they have a man run at the gap between two defenders who both commit to tackling him. Half a second before he's tackled, he passes the ball to someone behind him running at speed. Same move x2 then the outside backs have a two against 1 and usually score. We just seem to make square passes to someone half a yard off 2 defenders. Occasionally there will be a fluke or a mistake resulting in a try. Not good enough.

I was ambivalent to the appointment of Powell, but I've seen precious little so far that encourages me to believe that he's the right man for the job.
Our owners must be seriously questioning how were proceeding in such a backwards direction, conceding 30+ points in four of our last five games.
Powell was supposedly going to improve the squad as both individuals and as a team, while recruiting a pack that we desperately need. However, I think that he's created more bad apples than he started with, by tinkering around with the team selection, especially in the backs. For me, I wanted to see Powell build for the future by forming a team around our rising talent, with the established first team players who want to pull their weight. A new era with a meritocracy doesn't appear to be part of Powell's agenda, when we have Holmes, Mat'utia and now Minikin that he brought with him all in the starting 13, two of which have shown little to give any feint impression they deserve a shirt, and a third who is maybe less questionable on merit, playing out of position. The main objectives may be getting some attention, but the changes have caused mass disruption to the organisation we had in defence, and were start pretty appalling with ball in hand.

I accepted that this year would be a write off, as long as there were going to be signs that it could be seen that we were on the right path and moving in the right direction. Were in July folks, and it isn't happening. Peet and Smith have had a positive effect on Wigan and Leeds, why aren't we saying the same of Powell. The answer could well be that bringing him in was a bigger problem than the ones we needed to fix.

The other problem is that Powell is not in the same class as Clough. Clough was a serial winner, Powell’s record speaks for itself.

Powell is a joke, and will not fix us. I think its gonna be a case of him taking the whole bike apart to fix the chain and then not knowing how to put it back together. The bike is well and truly in pieces now.

Previously, I'd gone along with the bad apples theory, albeit with a fair dollop of sceptecism.

After today, and given the revolving door that is the dressing room of late, I'm now convinced that Powell is so unpopular and that there is such a chasm between players and staff that the situation is rapidly becoming untenable.

I'm in the Powell camp atm get shut of the so called stars that don't want play for our club...the one gripe I have with Powell tho is play the young lads..Riley dean should be playing regularly so should longstaff..if we get beat so be it..were getting beat with this lot