Havent we just had the most academy players selected for the England squad? More than Saints, Wigan and Leeds, so this cant be an excuse anymore. We've made HUGE strides with our Academy. Our problems lie with the coaching staff, I agree with Sally in that Price should be given time until someone becomes available. I'm not sure if Watson or Danny Ward might be worth a go.

I'd forgotten about Ward. He performed miracles with London laat year and they are punching above their weight again this season.

I'd have him above Wane, based on the quality of rugby.

I honestly believe the club started looking for a replacement when it became clear that Smith's position was no longer tenable. I don't believe there was a master plan that resulted in Steve Price.

I was saying that a relative unknown does not necessarily mean a "lower quality coach" as hinted at by the previous poster and used Holbrook to back up my point. Of course I am not advocating that we promote someone [ibecause [/ithey are unknown and hope for the best.

The Holbrook comparison is based on conjecture to say "if this, if that", just look at his stats.

P 87
W 70
D 0
L 17
Win Ratio 80%

Truth is he came in shortly before Price when Saints were in a shambles, delivered 2 LLS and a GF in 2.5 years. I'd rather have that than a CC win and 2 runners up medals and a downward spiral of league form.

Sure, Holbrook was a hit, but my point is that on average you're more likely to get a hit if you draw from a population of proven success.

Its like if you want to sign a prop and I offer you two pools to draw from at random: one is of NRL/international props and the other is Championship props.

Now you can say, Roy Asotasi had an NRL/international background and Chris Hill had a Championship background.

But if you had to draw one at random, you're going to hit more often with the NRL internationals than with the Championship props.

Rather than take repeated draws from the lottery of coaches and hope that you'll strike lucky I'd rather just sit tight and search long and hard to find the opportunity when a real class act becomes available and willing to come in. Look at Guardiola at City or Klopp at Liverpool. Those weren't just random draws from the lottery of sacking coaches.

What about if at some point in the next 5 years, one of these coaches wants to take a Super League job:
Des Hasler
Craig Bellamy
Michael Maguire
Ricky Stuart
Brad Arthur

Or we have the opportunity to appoint:
Daryl Powell
Shaun Wane
Brian McDermott

I would rather set feelers out, scout out when an opportunity may be available and pounce at that point. You could say well no harm in getting rid of Price now and then appointing someone from the lottery and then if they don't work out sacking them and getting one of these big names, but each time you bring in a new coach you disrupt everything with all the recruitment plans, style of play etc and also you send a signal out to potential new coaches that you are trigger happy and thus less attractive as a destination.

lb for £...the best coach of The last decade in SL was Madge McGuire?
Shaun Wane hadn't come close to doing what Madge did...with the same team in only 2 years?

Shouldn't we consider him rather than his monkey Wane?

On point 3, its interesting how both Holbrook and Maguire managed to win a GF from a low base. I wonder if they'd have been able to do that at a club outside Wigan, Saints or Leeds? It seems like certain clubs have a basic infrastructure which sets them up for success. TS turned Leeds from perennial nearly men in to two time GF winners but with us, he was only ever able to turn us from also rans in to nearly men (plus cups).

Point 4 - no that's too extreme. We have to be wary of long term verbal promises else we get in the situation Wigan had with Shaun Edwards. I think its more about being opportunistic and basing a coach switch more on what you can switch to rather than what you can switch from, unless you have completely gone to pot.

But going back to that basic infrastructure point I think we need to look at stuff like who is responsible for our recruitment, it was a problem in the later TS era too. The big turning point in our fortunes over the past decade was after the 2013 season when Briers, Hodgson and Morley left. That marked the divide between the early TS era and late TS era. The Price era has basically been a continuum of the late TS era. The difference in calibre of player on the roster pre- and post-2013 is telling.

If we do jettison Price, I would be interested in Paul Anderson who doesn't seem to have been mentioned so far. I think Anderson was cut too soon by Hudds. He had actually improved them relative to where they were under Nathan Brown who went on to get the Saints job. Anderson had Hudds winning the League Leaders Shield. For decades its just been the same clubs, Wigan, Saints, Leeds plus Bradford for a brief window and us a couple of times, who have finished top of the league and then there's one year when Hudds popped up there when he was their coach. Pretty big achievement, when you think of the quality of the Leeds, Wigan and Warrington teams Hudds had to finish ahead of.

Hudds basically had a couple of bad months run of form (when his squad was disrupted by one of the players sleeping with anothers wife) and wasn't given the chance to turn it round, and since then Hudds have been playing the coach lottery and never been as good since. So why hasn't PA had another shot in SL?

Only Madge and Daniel Anderson you can not make an argument against that they were completely successful coaches.

We've trained well all week.

We also know what kind of footy team we have got.

Someone's going to get it when we click.

Maguire was top class. One of the great coaches of the modern era.

Anderson....less sure. He had the fortune to have a very good squad with a lot of great players there who were also great leaders. He did well but not sure he was exceptional. One Grand Final win and a run of cups. He didn't do what say Brian McDermott did with Leeds, winning Grand Final after Grand Final.

It may be a controversial view but I actually think St Helens underachieved slightly during the Millward and Anderson eras - barring one stellar season in 2006 they were good but not dominant. I wonder whether a better coach would have taken a team with Cunningham, Sculthorpe, Long, Wellens and co and made them more successful than Leeds. Much as I respect the Sinfield/Peacock/McGuire/Burrow axis at Leeds I think I'd take the Saints core ahead of them.

Perhaps one for Saddened or Redvee, we know they read this forum....?

Probably. Then the week after we'll get beat by Salford at home.