I do wonder if marquee players are part of the problem & have undermined the rest of the squad over quite a few years. Not since the Monaghans & Hicks ,Solomona & Rauhihi ,Waterhouse & the Andersons have attracted reliable Antipodeans. Some of the so called marquee players we have had in recent seasons have not been good & i wonder if the fact that they are on a lot more money has undermined the attitude of the players who get less for doing the same job.

"I'll fight you for saying that"

While I agree with some of this, I think it's been squad building and recruitment in general that's been the main issue.

Yes, we have had some dud marquee signings, but let's be honest, if you had offered any SL club Widdop and Williams at the point we signed them, most would have took them and certainly, in flashes, we have seen why they are our marquee players.

The problem comes though when you surround them with as much averageness as we presently have - I suspect if you stuck them in the squads that the Monaghan's & Matt King were brought over to play in, then they would be absolutely tearing it up. However, they are playing in the sort of mediocre squad that Allan Langer had to play with.

So, rather than the squad looking at the marquee signings and thinking why are they getting the big money, I think right now the marquee signings are looking at the squad and thinking how the hell am I supposed to perform with this lot around me?

Broadly agree, but even as recently as July players including Philbin, Clark, Currie, Ratchford, Williams, Matautia, Wardle and (was ours at the time) Cooper we’re determined international standard.

We have actively recruited throughout the campaign to add to the squad, Mikaele and Dufty have been flown in, a decorated Amor and an up and coming Nicholson brought in to improve on what we had.

From the squad of last season, which finished 3rd, we decided that we didn’t want Mamo, Austin and Hill and replaced them. We haven’t had players bought or chose to leave us, we have moved them on.

I accept that RIGHT NOW the team looks to be filled with average players, but the players are actually decent on paper.

Allan Langer tore it up in a mediocre squad. The difference was, he was still an elite player when he joined us. Our marquee players in recent years were past their best when they joined us.

Although when we're talking about mediocre squad it's all relative, I wouldn't mind having Nutley, Wood, Nikau, Briers, Toa, Hunte and Smyth in our team today. I think Jon Clarke joined when Langer was here and I'd have him too.

Langer did do very well for us, but I suspect he'd have been even better in the squads of 2008-2012?

I think overall, we are talking about a demise in the standard of the league generally and while a lot of players are built up on word of mouth, what they actually produce is of a relatively mediocre standard.

I mean, only 12 months ago we were talking of someone like Toby King has an international quality centre, when, in reality, he's never looked anything of the sort - I can probably reel off a dozen better centres I've seen over the years play for us.

Sadly, this pretty much goes for the league in general. Look at French & Field tearing it up for Wigan, yet most of us will have seen far better players in the league over the years.

Our views on Powell may differ, but on this, you're spot on.
The demise of SL sums it up, perfectly.
I've just turned off the Saints v Cas game, as it's BLOODY AWFUL. Constant mistakes from both sides, and Saints represent the game's elite.

Toby King....enough said. The dictionary definition of a workaday SL player, who hit a patch of good form. A year later, the club are bored of him.

As for French and Field...yes, they do look outstanding. Because the rest of the league is so bland. A bit like going into a pub in Earlestown, seeing a totally average looking woman in there, and after you've been in there for 10 minutes, you think she could enter Miss World, compared to the rest of the clientele


Don't get me wrong French and Field ARE great players.





And Earlestown is full of Munters

Hill wasn't moved on, he's stated in interviews he wanted to leave as he felt the time was right.
Mamo was bog standard here until he had a great run of form for the last half of the season, but by this time we'd already signed mata'utia.
And nobody wanted Austin to stay and he's not been missed, he had an amazing first half of his first season then got found out and did nothing for the rest of his time here.

This is just another distraction from the real problem we have this year. The new coach was signed and one of his supposed strengths was taking average players and turning them into very good ones, producing a winning team, all fighting for each other.
What happened? We now have a coach who wants to fight anyone who disagrees with him.
We now have a team with no spirit, no ideas, no obvious game plan. Why hasn't he simply developed a stripped back simple to understand method of playing to suit the various incompetents we seem to have according to a number of posters on here? And yet he still has supporters on here....
You couldn't make it up could you?

Just quality, flew back to Aus to play SoO. Even the Scaffold inspired song about him still makes me smile. Shame about the ankle injury that made his stay a shorter one than hoped for,.

Is Langer the only player who has played a State of Origin game, whilst being based in the UK team, and registered to play for a Super League team?

I can`t recall any other player achieving that.

Not wanting to get dragged into another inevitable argument that ends up getting locked on here, despite the obvious passive aggressive nature of your final sentences, but do you seriously believe the deficiencies of our squad would be fixed purely by replacing Powell and his coaching staff?

I believe so.

Yes.

You are again talking about the so called deficiencies in our squad. I'm talking about the deficiency in our current coaching team. If we had the current England squad, and less face it we had a number of them earlier this year, I don't believe he would improve our game. With no disrespect intended, or passive aggresion.
...I would rather have the coach of Crosfields than this guy.
I've said it before, Powell is Midas in reverse.