Powell being recalled signals to me that the 4-man shortlist has ended in disaster.

Ladies and Gents, let me be the first to welcome Mr Powell as Head Coach of Harlequins Rugby League for 2011.

I sincerely hope you are wrong.......but fear you are right.

Harlequins RL has now become the pet project of someone who has 1 aim and only 1 aim...to develop the game in London and the South East.......we will finish last in 2011, be given another 3 years and maybe become a mid table team by 2014...........but as a business, we are hamstrung until someone else takes over the financial burden.

I expect to be shot for having a pop at St David of Twickenham but I stand by what I have always said.........fans (or severe lack of them) have never been an issue for DH.....I sincerely hope the RFL put him straight on that!

I'm not trying to read too much into this at the moment, but I suspect you may be correct.

I cannot anyone see anyone with any clout taking the job on until after the licence situation is written in stone. Who would really want to coach a SL team for only 1 season. Coaches will come in with a long term plan and would need some kind of guarantees about the club's status in SL beyond 2011

I'm still secretly hoping that the article is correct and he's simply just been recalled to maintain stability leading up to pre season training

Another interpretation is that the new coach is about to be announced and Rob Powell's been recalled to do the hand-over. No. I don't believe that either, but we'll see!

I think it's interesting that the club hasn't announced anything officially about recalling Powell. At risk of stating the downright obvious, this recall is no doubt due to some change in circumstances.

The wonderfully titled article (rlROB POWELL SUBBED TOO EARLYrl) linked to earlier has a quote from Powell which statesI was an assistant at Harlequins when I agreed, since then the head coach has left and as of yet a successor has not been appointed and I have taken up the acting Head Coach role'"

Hard to see it any other way......looks like Rob Powell is our new coach.

Had to smile at Rob`s comment that he needed to return to `finalise` the squad...............jesus, there are so many gaps you would struggle to know that we had started building it, let alone `finalising`selection.

Is it not possible that pre-season will start before we have the new coach in place, and he has been recalled in order to fill the gap in between?

I know very little about the bloke but do wonder what qualifications he has to be our head coach.

Why read anything more than it being good business to have the most senior member of the remaining coaching staff in the same country and available to the owner to talk through signings prior to the appointment of a new head coach.

The agreement to coach would have been with Rob Powell with Harlequins blessing, but it was Powell's decision. Hughes has recalled him out of self-interest and the best interests of the club. Tawhai has replaced Rob Powell as Lebanon coach to allow Powell to secure signings up until a new coach is appointed.

I did say that they may appoint RP and LT as coaches, if no better could be found and I was roundly criticised. I may take up scrutinising my crystal balls yet!

pre-season training scheduled to start 1st November I think

Bloody hell even McDermott could have pulled that one off...................

Something I didn't know, he went to my school.

Yup so far ahead that italy won the second test and then beat wales last sundy. oops

I'm aquainted with him from South London days, was a promising amateur RU player (he's from Sheffield) who got into student RL at Uni, but he also suffered an injury effectively ending his playing days. So he went into coaching and junior development work, he's a very intelligent and astute coach, the only downside is he never played at a high level. He will have worked with a lot of our younger players as they came through the ranks, someone like Lamont will have been working with him for years.