Watson - I just think it's really impressive taking that side to two finals in a row with such a lack of resources. Massive gulf in quality on paper between that Salford side and the Wire and Catalans sides they turned over. Only two big games granted but that's how it is this season and our system is all about winning the big knockout games anyway.

I tend to think what should you expect v what was achieved when looking at a coach

Wigan I expected to go as far as they faced Saints. Therefore under achieved in the CC, and at least achieved as expected in the SL. Beating Saints in the GF would be overachieving in SL IMO but we haven't done that yet.

Leeds finished about where they would have expected. I don't think they would expect a trophy, so overacheived.

Salford with all the players they lost and financial issues I had down as in a relegation battle. Making a final is well over achieving this year IMO. Of course don't know whether they would have been dragged into the relegation battle if Toronto had stayed in and a full season been played.

I’m reserving judgement on Watson and waiting to see what he does with Hudds. Rumours are Ken Davies is willing to invest further in the team, he has a decent starting squad and a youth system to develop.

There’s no doubt he did very well with Salford last year, as previously mentioned they won 2 games to make the CC final. Time will tell, I think it is a good move and a step up for him. Next up will either be Wigan/St Helens/ Warrington/Leeds or a championship club.

It may be slightly controversial but I don’t see how Lam wins it at all. Other than 6wks at the end we’ve been average to alright at best. I’m glad he’s won it, don’t get me wrong, but struggling to understand how.

I wouldn’t have chosen Watson either, he’s done well with what he has but it’s not been a particularly grand season in the SL for Salford.

To be totally honest I’m not 100% sure who does deserve it. No team or coach has been particularly outstanding so on that basis I’d lean slightly towards Agar who seems to have turned Leeds around and building a stable base for a re emergence.

Not sure about this. Leeds ended up mid-table and won the Challenge Cup after winning only three games.

Let's not forget that Wigan didn't play any games at the DW post lock down 1. I've no arguments about the decision, yes we've had a strong end to the season but thats what SW aimed for every year,last season we ran out of steam.

Are you ignoring the fact that we went into lockdown in 1st place? That means over the whole course of the season, from start to finish, he's been the best coach and therefore rightly coach of the year.

I know what you're saying but finishing top doesn't necessarily make you the best coach. If he had been in charge at Hull KR do you think they would have finished top?

That could be said of any coach. Would any coach have finished top coaching HKR? Would he have improved them? Well, he's improved us over the course of the season so it would be a reasonable assumption to say he would although, clearly, there's no way to say definitively.

Coaches are judged alongside the teams they're coaching. There's no other way to do it. In the same way as Woolf is generally thought to have taken Saints backwards this year, regardless of any possible GF win, Lam is thought to have taken us forward from 4th placed also-rans to finishing top and in the Grand Final.

The finishing top pre lockdown was in direct response to 100% Warrior only giving credit for the last 6 weeks. That wasn't the case. No coach performed better either pre or post lockdown.

I thought we finished 2nd in the table? We also lost in the elimination playoff, which puts us 3rd.

Technically we were the champs when Lam took over too.

No.

We were distinctly average then. Hence why I said “6wks at the end”. Just because we were top then doesn’t mean we were good. We weren’t. We were all over the place during games, see sawing between playing well and poorly over 80mins. It was discussed in depth on here after most games with the general feeling of “we were alright and did just enough. Something to build on”.

My thoughts exactly, but we did the same thing under Wane.

Performances would go from good to bad to awful (see Widnes in 2016) but then we flicked a switch and usually came good at the end.

Usually I would say that us finishing top or top two is the least we expect and achieving that isnt necessarily a success compared to Salford making a final or this Leeds team winning a comp for example, but given the hurdles this season of being on the road, midweek fixtures, losing players, fixtures changing at short notice etc etc to finish top should be applauded.

Fans will say that this year carries an asterisk, but you can also argue that this season has been the toughest to win given the issues above.

Yes, you're right. I was just thinking losing semi finalists but from 2nd (and let's be honest, no hopers) to 1st and potential GF winners is still a big improvement.

We were champs before he took over but that has no relevance to this year's coach of the year. If he'd won it last year that would be relevant or if it was coach of the last 2 years it would but it's only coach of the year.

Again, that's not relevant. It's a comparative award (i.e. comparing to other coaches) so it doesn't matter if we weren't as good as at the back end of the year. It only matters that we were better than everyone else at that time which first place suggests we were.

Waney won it after we'd played some terrible stuff early in the year. I'm struggling to see a difference.

Right so the relevance only applies if it suits your argument? You can go back to last season to justify it, but that's where we stop and you can't to any further back.

Hypothetically a coach could take a team from 1st to 10th in year one and then 10th to 5th in year two. That still looks like a net loss to me.

If you admit there's no one with a great case and Lam finished top it seems a bit silly to say you don't get it at all

We've beaten Saints, Wire twice, Catalans away, Leeds and Hull three times. That's all the playoff teams, we only lost to Saints when we played kids and Leeds in the Cup which isn't relevant. Even if you include the cup Leeds have been very up and down and Watson finished 9th.

As for including 2018 and 2019 I don't think its fair to say we were champions when he took over and judge against that because we lost our best two players and he was in a weird caretaker position. This year I think it's fair to judge as he is the coach and we signed French and Hastings and we've finished top and made the Grand Final.

Don't get me wrong, I was surprised he won it and I'm not entirely convinced but these last 5 weeks have been very good and he's definitely got a case to be coach of the year.

Because it's the coach of the YEAR. How far do you want to go back? You compare any improvement against the baseline you started from in the year you're judging. Surely that's just common sense?

As for your hypothetical, if he'd taken his team from 1st to 10th he would (presumably) be the worst coach that year. It would have no bearing on whether he was eligible to win it the following year. If that were the case all coaches would have to be judged against their best ever year and Waney couldn't win it ever again after his double winning year, for example. In your example it would indeed be a net loss over 2 years but we are not talking about 'coach of the biennium', we're talking about 'coach of the year'.