When does it become a coaching issue, didn't see today, but saw the skolars game, and the signs don't seem good.

A heavy friendly defeat in France, a win over Skolars and two defeats to St Helens and Warrington.

Name changes, player changes, but still the same coaching team and set-up, The coaching team if you take it a stage further are basically McDermotts staff with no changes and new input for over 3 seasons, other than a change in conditioner.

Not knocking Powell seems a decent bloke, and has publicly dealt with everything thrown at him with great dignity, I have no doubt he is badged and qualified to the hilt, but can people see any progression. The last two seasons were difficult, all sorts of stories about where we were with the salary cap, an ageing thin squad, so there were issues, even issues with the clubs super league future.

This season story, we are giving it a go, we change our name and image, we recruit and we are told we are up to our salary cap limit, not sure if this includes Mr Hickey (who im told we having to pay off) and still we persist with exactly the same coaching team, before the first game we are told we not yet firing and have some way to go before we are up to speed.

I have been on a number of coaching course over the years, where I see coaches who are qualified to the hilt, but have never managed or controlled a squad of players, technically brilliant and clever sharp and can set up coaching sessions all day long, could they manage a team and the day to day issues of managing players 99per cent of them...no, can they change tat-tics mid game as a game changes....no, can they talk to players...no, can they motivate....

Players play for managers who can get the best out of them, and who they believe in. Good managers learn and then know what makes a group of players tick, it has to be two way thing. Players will play for managers they respect and understand both on and off the pitch, I would suggest it would take a truly exceptional manager/coach at Mr Powells age and top level experience age to win over and mould an ever changing mediocre squad with all the problems that have gone on the last three years.

Mr Powell as I understand, never played the game other than at uni, has managed South London Storm, and the U20s, then went on to being an assistant to Mac. I think we understand that you don't need to have played the game at the top level to be a good coach/manager, but there aren't many exceptions to this rule.

Has he really the experience, with all due respect I'm guessing no, is that his fault no, have the senior players let him down, not sure. Just a thought, were has he got his player management skills from, who does he turn to for advice.

I would imagine its a tough and lonely job when you are learning your trade in such a high level job, Super league is full of people with far more playing and management experience that will never get anywhere near the top job and managing a super league club.

On what we know, what did we really expect from him, Given his experience and what he has had to work with.

Do hate it when we play Warrington

London v St Helens.....2011.......18 Point loss, 2010, 12 point loss
Wire v london....2011....... 76 point loss, 2010, 58 point loss.......

Sorry....but 2 losses from 2 games that we had little chance of winning is hardly "sac mac" territory......if we beat the teams like Widnes, Salford, HKA and Wakefield, that we should beat, we will have more points than at any time as Quins RL........
Last year we doubled the champs and did the other GF lot away.......was that the coach too?

July...that's when you sharpen the axe.......

GF 2 losses against "better teams" is acceptable- its the points conceded that is the worry to me. 30+ and 50

Rob should have always had someone working with him with experience as a Director of Rugby to bring him through, but then you look at Salford and the Director of Rugby Simm keeps appointing Coaches, never seems to let them breath and walk themselves and then sacks them while he stays?

I agree.....losing to Saints and Wire isn't embarrasing, they will be in the top 4 come seasons end.....the bad thing is the inability to stop tries going in. We aren't improving within defence, I hope that once the players realise they all speak the same language they can then communicate with eachother and work out some defensive structure.

We need a good show against Hull on Sunday.....this is vital....it's our first Sky match and we need to attract new supporters to the team. If we ship in 9 tries against them, then all the marketing etc is blown.

Dont get defensive, i'm merely pointing out facts, you have actually answered the question. The problem is not about how we perform against the big teams, obviously we want to do well, but the strange thing is players and supporters are usually up for big games, and need very little motivation on and off the field.

The problems come in the run of the mill games, as you suggest last year Crusaders, this Widnes, Salford, HKR and Wakefield, these have to be the focus, get the mindset right for these and you are halfway there. Its being able to motivate and organise players to beat teams like this that gets you moving up the table, they are your rivals, the big team wins are terrific but are a bonus. No good beating the good ones and then losing to the team three places below you, because you got it wrong tactically or they are still up in the clouds from last weeks win,

Its about doing the basics correctly, and for 80mins that wins games, being consistant and making yourself hard to beat, Its still two points for a win whether you beat Wigan Saints or Warrington or Widnes, Salford Wakefield.

To be fair you defended better than the last couple of times you came here

DEFENCE OR LACK OF IT !!!!
This is the major factor that brought about our defeat yesterday.
Having travelled up for the game yesterday, myself & the other away-day supporters were pleased with the way Bronocs started the game.
We competed well, showing some good moves going forward & seemed to be surprising Warrington. I've no complaints with our early performance.
After 25 minutes, we just seemed to run out of steam & only got back into the game in the last few minutes of the first half with Robertsons try & I was pleased that the team were still up for giving Wire a game & was looking forward to a competetive second half.
Unfortunately, this did not materialise.
Missed tackles, dropped ball, silly penalties & an inability to complete our set of six absolutely killed us.
We will not be the last team to have fifty points put past us by a Warrington team this season but I hope we have learnt from this experience & work ourselves to the hilt in training to improve the defence, otherwise I will have a disappointing day out at Hull next weekend.
There were a bunch of Manly supporters who came up to watch the match who enjoyed the first half but were amazed that we failed to compete in the second half & said we ought to rip in to the fitness coach, as our players, especially Kafusi looked unfit. (Their view as neutral supporters )
Highlight of the day, watching Kafusi dump Adrian Morley on his backside in a thumping tackle.

84 points conceded in 2 games……it`s hard to be anything but depressed. Everyone seems to have latched on to the `5 games in scenario` when suddenly everything is going to be ok and overnight we become world beaters, let`s hope Salford buy in to this also.

OK we had some late arrivals and the squad were not all together until early Jan, but that is not true of everyone and on paper we have some quality signings who should be showing their class, but judging by the radio commentary Rodney seems to have forgotten how to catch a ball since he played in the NRL Grand Final and the same old defensive frailties were very much evident. As positive as the BBC commentary team tried to be, after 20-25 mins (when Kaufusi went off) we had used up our best efforts and reverted to type.

If we are to come good `x` amount of games into the season we should expect to see improvement week on week, whereas Sundays thrashing is a big step backwards from what looked a promising effort against Saints. It`s all very well RP making the same old statements about recognising problem areas (i.e. defence) but nothing seems to change. Carry on like this and we will ship 150-200 points by the time we meet Salford and it will be a bitter blow to any efforts to build crowds. I know, I know it was Warrington, but we have got to do a whole lot better than this or the season will be over before we have even got started.

There's been some geniunely interesting and insightful comments made on this thread in the last few pages - welcome to the board wisezola. You've raised some issues around Powell's experience and background that I think are valid, but looking at it another way, 'everyone has to start somewhere' and he is the same person who was presumably able to motivate his players in early victories over the likes of Leeds and Saints last season. So it could be argued both ways.

'progress' is a nebulous after two games IMO. There were encouraging signs last week, and yesterday less so. As has been said, we were never going to win these two. Hull next week a much better indicator of 'progress'.

It feels very odd being the one telling everyone to stop being negative

What makes a good coach-I suspect there isnt a one fits all criteria.

McRea, McGuire, Kear were all teachers at some point- Does a coach need "industry" experience to understand and be able to work with people

Bellamy, McGuire etc all did a long appreticeships working under top coaches

Playing experience- do you need it?

I have questioned from Day 1 if RP can buck that trend in that he hasnt worked in industry, hasnt played the game and has only worked under Mac-Does he really have a chance? I hope so but wonder.

OK `progress` over a 2 week period may be pushing it, but given the change/improvement in players compared to the last season, can you honestly say that RP was able to improve matters last season or whether there is any noticable difference in the defensive qualities that RP has been able to instill in his new charges?

I always thought that RP was a poor choice and I have no faith in his abilities as a coach.

Regarding fitness, a few seasons back we had a reputation for being a 40 - 60 minute side and Bill Pedan was brought in to raise fitness levels, he managed to do that even if we were crap on the pitch. We now seem to have deteriated and at present can only compete for 20 - 30 mins, which does not bode well.

We have a new fitness guru who has worked under John Lang for 15 years!!! arent all things Aus in this game great

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ue7Ub7U ... ideo_title Some quality tries from Wire. The speed and width they use is tremendous The young lad on the Broncos wing was targetted

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ue7Ub7U ... ideo_title Some quality tries from Wire. The speed and width they use is tremendous The young lad on the Broncos wing was targetted