Good post as usual.

Regarding the highlighted point, this season anyway, the team spirit appeared to be strong up until the Mcguire thing. I don't know the ins and outs of this bar an apparent split in the camp, but this would surely have been outside of Powell's control.

It hasn't obviously worked for Powell but I do feel for him a bit as the cards have been stacked against him since arriving (though he knew they would be) and that Mcguire scenario completely dashed any prospect of building on our early strong start.

How is the new coach going to resolve the split in the camp? It looks like Powell didn't have the interpersonal skills to sort this and if it isn't sorted, then we aren't going to go anywhere with this side.

My take on it is that Powell just wasn’t up to the job. His (limited) success at Cas was based on building a team from players that he had “rescued” and they owed him a huge amount of personal loyalty which he reciprocated. At Wire he was dealing with players with totally different motivations (both from him and each other) and he did not have the skills to meld them together. So while things briefly went well all was good but at the first sign of inter camp problems he didn’t know what to do.
Middletown’s interview in the WG makes it clear that Powell was given carte Blanche to get rid of players and recruit new ones. So the players he was slagging off in his final interview were players he chose and he wanted.
Now we can criticise the club for giving him that power but there was a very strong feeling on here that player recruitment should come from the coach not the CEO. So if we wanted that how can we then criticise?
I now don’t buy the “bad apple” excuse re Cooper and Charnley. I suspect they saw the Emperor’s new clothes for what they were. These were highly experienced senior professionals with international experience, coached by any number of coaches with never a hint of being a problem.
So we are back to square 1 if not worse and much of that is down to Powell. Not too much sympathy from me I’m afraid.

We did and we won games with many starting forwards missing.

The McGuire issue must have been handled poorly but I don't think that's an excuse for players not putting in effort when they pull on the jersey.

Couldn't agree more. There's a fair few posts intimating their sympathy for Powell. Truth is he was tosh as our coach, numbers/results speak for themselves. This bloke nearly got us relegated and has now taken us from 1st to hanging on to 6th in a matter of weeks.

As the head coach of Warrington, he failed and has rightly been relieved of his duties IMO.

I know nothing about dressing room culture, his persona or his coaching style, i wish him no ill will as a human being.
. I do know that on a match day I've seen us collapse on many occasions under his guidance both this season and for the majority of last season. Good riddance.

From when Powell was announced to be coming to us, i told anyone who'd listen it's not an exciting appointment. It was a sideways move from Price in my opinion, and not ambitious enough. Wane was the way i hoped we'd go (if he would entertain Warrington, due to it not being Wigan). That would've been a statement of intent and fueled expectancy. Were it not for Hardaker, i think there's a good chance that Powell may've led Cas to a Grand Final win - although even with that, i still feel it was a performance not too far off Leicester City winning the PL in 2015/16 - a bit of an overachieving flash in the pan.
At the time - Cas played great, exciting rugby which was great to watch and the kind we, at Wire haven't had since peak Smith days. I hoped we were getting that with Powell. I attended the fans forum at the start of last season still very skeptical about Powell's appointment, but left feeling not as skeptical - he does talk a good game. We all know how last season went, so no point dredging that up, but the start of this season showed more promise. Then it all fell apart.
We've been through "5 drives and a kick to Toby King" and after the first 8 this year we got "5 drives up the middle and then...??" every set, every game. No ideas other than hoping for an Ashton intercept. The Wigan Challenge Cup game shown that; playing the majority of the game with 12 men, and yet can't get force an overlap. Still driving it up the middle, where it doesn't make your extra man count. The writing was already on the wall before that, but now it was being written with a Sharpie. Like others on here, i echo that Powell seemed like a good man, but i think he was the wrong coach at the wrong time. Ultimately, i think his 18 months with us will be looked on as a disaster.
I feel that we're at that point now in the season where we're in a bit of limbo. If we can't get the coach we want in now, is it Chambers until the end of the season until we can appoint for start of 24? If so, do the players' regress into the "supply teacher" mindset? Or do we get someone in now who maybe isn't who would be right, but simply who's available and possibly more mediocrity for the next 12-18 months?
All I can say is that I'm glad that it's not my decision. I just want to see us playing well - i can take getting beat, if we put effort in...like Saints at home a few weeks ago.
For the record; Holbrook is my choice - comes with a reputation of being able to do it in Super League and i think (hope) players will respect that.

Does anyone think we’ll get a bounce with this set of players or will they get even lazier with the supply teacher in? I’m worried for Friday.

I think we all accept that coming into the Warrington club at that times was a difficult challenge, and that our organisation clearly has it's problems, and you are right he has been unsuccessful. He made mistakes and perhaps lacks the finer people skills, he is not hugely expressive nor a great communicator.

But I reckon one can have sympathy, on a human level, and still believe it was the right decision to relieve him of his duties. I'm in that camp.

Plucky loss. I'm taking the little one for a quid. £6 in total. I'm prepared to re-invest in the Wire,

I'd be pretty disgusted if they did put in a performance on Friday, as it would be ample proof that they downed tools and withdrew labour.

Personally though, I'm expecting them to get bummed by about 20 points or more.

If you hate your boss, you're going to be less motivated in your job. You're certainly not going to be geared up to work harder to cover their shortcomings. If we win it'll confirm to me that Powell wasn't well liked and I'll also be bloody happy our losing streak has finished.

I'm not saying it's right when you're at a club where people pay money to watch you put a shift in, but I am suggesting it's potentially human nature and not the first time it's happened.

I'm more interested in the team selection, with a fairly fit squad will Marshall and Chambers drop people who were stalwarts for Powell or do they see what he see's in them

They are professional sportman who should harbour an inherent burning desire to win and achieve. To play the best they can. Their motivation should first and foremost come from within.

I suspect a number of our players lack this attribute though.

I think we'll win on Friday.

But what if they are stifled in playing the best they can by instructions and gameplans from the coach? One's they dont believe in or are experiencing first hand aren't working? What if he's instructing them to "always lie on" and they keep getting pinged for penalties or he says "every 4th tackle work it to the left hand side regardless of what's infront of you" and you for having the audacity to pass right on the 4th because you saw a gap.


There must be a point where the psychology of having to follow instructions you feel are flawed has a detrimental effect on your game. They're the ones getting bashed on the pitch for 80 mins.

Those may be daft examples but you get my point. Guess it goes back to DSM's thread on how important a coach is. Were you in the "not very" camp? (That's not meant in an y way fyi)

They may also get frustrated lining up with players that clearly should be dropped or seeing a coach have blind faith in a terrible player as well as an uninspiring captain.

If they lost on purpose to get rid of Powell then I’ve no problem with that, I was pleased when Monaghan threw that deliberate intercept against Cas.