It just shows how bad a club Wakefield have become when supporters of the club don't expect to win a game in the first 6 or 7 games of the season. Bojo is not alone in thinking like this because we have become programed into thinking loss after loss is ok because there will be a win on the horizon to celebrate. Chester is like the managers we have come across in our working lives, a nice bloke but are not very good at what they do and eventually they get moved to another position in the company. Chester needs to go now because burying our heads in the sand and waiting for that next win is not what supporters of our great club deserve.

Sorry, Jonh but you can't know that yet. If Williams was a midfield general he never showed it in his first stint. Unless my memory is playing tricks the only midfield general we had was Liam Finn.

Think that was the trouble Do not think we saw the best of Williams because of Finn .As far as the Coach was concerd Finn had to play .Interesting to note, though Williams did not start a lot of games he kicked four 20 40 to Finns none in the season he was hear

I'm happy to give Chester until half-way through the season or 12 games in. If we're still in the relegation zone then, he has to go. If the problem is the coach we'll survive, if it's the players, we're stuffed anyway.
Clearly, the team is underperforming this year, but it's not 2015 when we were not even close and often 4+ scores behind by half-time. We have been competitive for long periods of the game against top opposition and playing some quality entertaining RL in patches. I don't put too much weight on them being 'understrength' because our main area of underperformance is in the forwards and all 3 teams so far have had top quality packs. Would you really expect to beat Leeds, Wigan and Saints away from BV? Some fans seem to have an agenda and the cherry-picked 19% win rate is used as ammunition against CC.
A lot depends on whether you accept that the last two seasons were very special circumstances. The reality is that over his tenure he has 42% win rate, even over the last 2 seasons it was 33% when things were going wrong. The last 5 games of last season we had 60% win rate (see how easy it is to cherry-pick results). For a budget club, that's not too bad. Expectations have risen, and rightly so. Obviously, it's a results driven business and losing is always disappointing for fans. Top quality sportsmen are consistent over a long period, we can't yet afford grade A players and so we rely on the stars aligning for a run of wins. The club as a whole is in the strongest position I have ever experienced in my living memory and it's still going in the right direction. Until we have facilities that can generate additional income rather than costing a fortune, we'll have to be patient.
The hangover from 2020 and reduced funding means we have a very skinny squad, as do many teams, but it means we'll survive financially. Winning and losing are habits.
So, for me, he has until the beginning of July (Salford Away) to turn things around.

I think that’s fair Lino clearly needs more time but as I said before from what I have seen of him in the NRL he was a strike half not really an organiser.

I admit thought that is from limited viewing.

Williams was inconsistent for us and Finn was playing some great rugby at the time. It was always who worked best with Miller who was the only incumbent half more or less guaranteed a shirt.

Williams was a fantastic midfield general one week then out of the team, never really getting a run apart from towards the end of the season where he was very good in my opinion in that role.

He also played very well at Canberra when given a chance in his first season. He couldn’t get a game last year over Williams and Wighton, which is no real criticism as both were playing out of their skin, but was awarded the captaincy in the last game to mark his attitude, he was also outstanding in that game too.

He is clearly very well thought of by the Canberra coaching staff as this year he is normally in the coaching box or sat with Ricky Stewart. Not sure if he has retired and taken the step into coaching or what to be honest.

For me he was the one that got away in this off season just passed but at the end of the day he didn’t want to come.

I genuinely hope Lino does come good in that organising role but despite what the club said when they signed him, for me it’s not his natural game.

That's why with no new personnel on board you have to try different things with what you've got, especially when things aren't working with the tried and tested...anything to try and inject some new momentum/impetus and to keep the opposition coaches wondering how we'll play, instead of using the same game plan against us they've been able to use for the last 2 or 3 years cos we've been so predictable

I get all that you are saying ,but that is leaving it very late for some other coach to come in and try and crack the whip and try and keep us up .By the time you suggest if we’re in the dog poo do you really think the players are suddenly going to turn it around ,I think more a downward spiral to oblivion.Things need to be in place well before mid season if indeed we don’t start picking wins up .Can’t see any coach touching us with a barge pole with relegation looming fast on the horizon and then charged with keeping us up ,too little too late IMO .I truly hope it doesn’t get to that conclusion, but unless the players kick on and the coach can motivate them ,I see no other ending .

Sorry Vasty but I don't agree on this one. Williams stats when he was here speak for themselves, and especially given that in most games he was coming off the bench. Would be interesting to see how many try assists he would have been part of if he played more of a starting role, something we will never know now, sadly.

I think in the whole 2017 season Miller and Williams only started together once or maybe twice

You say williams was inconsistent but was he not leading our try assists in what was a fairly successful season

I think people underestimate the problems we must have in recruiting players. What do have to offer? Unlikely to win anything and play and train in poor surroundings. It's well known that players at the bigger clubs play for less money than they could command elsewhere but stay because they'll win something and play in finals.

We're the opposite, I imagine, where we have to pay over the odds because we have to pay for the fact that we offer nothing to a player other than money. The new stadium may have an impact on that, because the surroundings will be better. So, we can demand this and demand that, but that means getting a player who is worth what they'll demand to play for us.

People talk about Gigot. Does anyone think that when the offer he came in, he raised a glass of vino in celebration and started looking excitedly for places to visit nearby? No. He'll have said, 'Make it worth my while," and when that happened, he'll have sulked all the way to the plane (and the pitch).

For me, the next six games are a good indicator. Saints will beat all teams. We were poor against Catalans but reasonable against Leeds. Lino needs to find his place as leader after a career of playing second-fiddle., but he might.

Cant disagree with any of that.
However, the measure of a good coach, is to gain the maximum performance the players that he has and have a strategy for competing in and winning games and I dont think that we're even close.
Apart from TJ, is there any player that is hitting 7/10 from their performances this season ?
Accepting that Lino is still finding his way, our attack, despite having had the ball for long periods in most games, has been woeful, absolutely woeful.
So inept have we been with ball in hand that, once we go 2 scores behind, the game is effectively over, as we haven't got 3 tries in us, certainly not with Johnstone sidelined and we have been nilled in 3 or 4 halves this season.

If that's the case they should start introducing the young lads get Harry in

Just to clarify my criteria: If I were the boss

I'd be making it clear what is the minimum requirement and what the deadline is.
The club is still in a very vulnerable position and cannot afford to be relegated as its continued existence would still be under threat.

The bottom line would be that after we've played Salford in round 12 at the start of July we must be more than 2 points above the relegation place.

This could have a number of possible scenarios, for example:

1. If by round 7 or 8 (Hull KR and Huddersfield at home) we have still not won and the other teams in the 'race' have already won 3 games, then it would not be mathematically possible to be in the position above by round 12 and CC should be replaced immediately,

2. We pick up 3 or 4 wins (or more) in the next 9 games and are comfortably above A.N.other club who have yet to post a win (or maybe just one), = carry on to the season's end.

3. We are 2 points above Salford (who are bottom) going into that game, if we win he's safe (for now) but lose and he's got to go.

If he survives this deadline, he gets to the end of the season and his position is reviewed again. If we finish in the bottom 3, then we need a change of coach in the off season. His continued survival depends on the relative performance of other clubs as well as Trinity, but unfortunately ATM the only goal is survival.

From this position, we would only need to win as many games as the bottom club (or one less) in the last 13 games to survive. Whilst this might not save his job we wouldn't be relegated.

As for a replacement, I guess we've already got 2 internal candidates who may want to rise to the challenge. SL jobs are a scarce commodity, even for basket case clubs, i wouldn't be surprised to receive a number of applications. It's a shot to nothing really.

I Get all that coco and I see where you are coming from ,but what worries me if and when the crowds can come back in full ,just how many are going to turn up to watch .I’ve said plenty of times it’s not about the winning it’s the manner of the losses that’s very worrying.This rugby we are serving up is just about tolerable for a die hard like metro watch , but much harder to swallow if your one of the many turn up if their winning or floating fans .I’m sure mr Carter needs every penny after this horrendous 12 months of scraping by .Hopefully we avoid the dreaded ,but if the team don’t put some quality performances in soon people will just just not bother chipping in their hard earned coin to watch and that will have serious percussions later down the track with not only retaining quality but also signing quality players, as we simply won’t have the money to improve ,and that for me is a downwards spiral we can ill afford to get into .We are in the entertainment game and we simply aren’t serving entertainment up at this present time .

Someone was asking what Chester's record is for signings and whether that was one of his weaknesses? (can't find it now - if it was you let me know) I suspect maybe they had a point. Here's a list of signings during his reign:

[iStarting point, 2016 squad[/i (mostly inherited from Brian Smith)
1 Ben Jones-Bishop
2 Tom Johnstone
3 Bill Tupou
4 Ashley Gibson
5 Richard Owen
6 Jacob Miller
7 Liam Finn
8 Nick Scruton
9 Scott Moore
10 Anthony England
11 Mickael Simon
12 Danny Kirmond
13 Anthony Tupou
14 Reece Lyne
15 Jordan Tansey
16 Tinirau Arona
17 Matty Ashurst
18 Joe Arundel
19 Jon Molloy
20 Michael Sio
21 Max Jowitt
22 Jordan Crowther
23 Scott Anderson
24 Stuart Howarth
25 Craig Hall
26 Chris Annakin
27 Anthony Walker
28 Andy Yates
29 Sean Morris
30 Ben Shulver
31 Jason Walton
32 James Batchelor
33 Frazer Morris
34 Judah Mazzive
35 David Fifita
36 Bradley Moules
37 Liam Senior
38 Ben Harrison

[iThis included new players:[/i
Ben Jones-Bishop
Anthony Tupou
Tinirau Arona
Liam Finn
Sean Morris
Ben Shulver
Jason Walton
Liam Senior
Ben Harrison

2017 & maybe signings for 2018 he had John Kear as Director of Rugby, 2019-21 are his own signings.

[i2017[/i
Scott Grix
Kyle Wood
Mitch Allgood
Keegan Hirst
Mason Caton-Brown
Dean Hadley
Adam Walker
James Hasson
Tyler Randell

[i2018[/i
Justin Horo
Pauli Pauli 
Jordan Baldwinson
Ryan Hampshire
Luke Hooley
Lee Kershaw 
Lewis Wray
Christian Ackroyd

[i2019[/i
 Danny Brough
 Craig Kopczak
 George King
Ben Reynolds*
Titus Gwaze
Jack Croft
Yusuf Aydin
Mason Caton-Brown*
Junior Sa'u*
Kelepi Tanginoa
Morgan Escare
Chris Green
Adam Tangata
Ryan Atkins

[i2020[/i
Alex Walker
Joe Westerman
Jay Pitts
Josh Wood
Brad Walker
Connor Bailey
Ollie Greensmith
Romain Navarette
Liam Kay
Tony Gigot
Innes Senior
Eddie Battye

[i2021
[/iMason Lino
Harry Bowes
Dane Windrow
Sam Eseh
Patrick O’Donovan
Eddie Battye*

I'm still optimistic that this squad can perform better and produce the wins we need.
We've got 3 more tough rounds before crowds are allowed back. If we could pick up a win from those it would be a bonus.

Round 4: 22-25 April
Hull FC A
Round 5: 29 April – 2 May
Catalans Dragons H
Round 6: 13-15 May
Leeds Rhinos A

Then, when crowds are back, we have 6 home games from the next 8 fixtures




The first home game against HKR is now huge, win that and fans will have short memories and we could get on a roll. Win 3 or 4 or those and we're back on track. Lose against HKR and it could/should be new coach time.

Round 7: 20-23 May (Restricted numbers allowed)
Hull Kingston Rovers H
Round 8: 27-30 May
Huddersfield Giants H
Round 9: 10-13 June
Warrington Wolves A
Round 10: 17-20 June
Castleford Tigers H
Round 11: 24-25 June (Restrictions planned to be lifted)
Wigan Warriors H
Round 12: 1-2 July
Salford Red Devils A
Round 13: 4-5 July
Leigh Centurions H
Round 14: 9-11 July
St Helens H

Yes, and this, despite most of his appearances coming off the bench.

I think it was only when Miller had that injury did he start, alongside Finn.

Co Co the fullback admire your optimisum .But with the squad we have got ,and the poor football we play on the pitch can not see us winning 4 matches all season.. We are way behind all other S L clubs in the basics of playing 80 mins of good rugby . Hope you are right time will tell

did anyone else see CC on the Coaching Manual on sky where he was asked about what type/standard of players we were offered and he replied that...and I'm paraphrasing here so don't slaughter me if I've slightly misquoted/misunderstood..he sees players in 3 classes/categories that come to SL with class A being top and C bottom and that we get offered the top end class Cs that the club then tries to improve to top end class B/lower end class A, plus we take the occasional punt on a player. He gave the example of Keegan who we took a gamble on and made him into a reasonable SL player.

I was a bit concerned about this phrase of 'being offered' players rather than which players do we target but it may explain why a lot of our players are of a similar quality and when signed don't particularly strengthen or improve the team more than increase our overall squad depth...as well as explaining why not one of us can agree on what is our best team - you only have to look at the selections for tomorrow in the Hull thread to see that.

You don't seem to have any idea where Trinity stands in the food chain if you don't get what Chester is saying. Ourselves and to a lesser extent Salford, HKR, and Leigh are the last clubs most players want to end up at.

Of course, we get offered lesser players, you can target any player you want but the fact that most won't touch us with a barge pole then what's the point. It may smash your beliefs but we get offered the scraps at all levels and have done for decades. Only occasionally do we get to target a player, usually midseason for obvious reasons, Tanginoa was probably the last of these but it doesn't happen often.

No money, no facilities, and above all no recent history of success, can please tell me how we can target top players in those circumstances?

Exactly. I really don't understand why people think we can just go out and get a French, Sezer, Reynolds type player.
They aren't coming here. We get Lino, who I think will be one of those moves up a level but isn't on anyone else's radar and we needed to search for them.

Agar said exactly the same in his interview.

So what your saying that our squad is basically full of no hopers who won’t get a gig anywhere else,wonder what the players must think of his assumption , and what a cracking motivational speech days before we meet hull not. Smacks of a coach that’s given up to me and passing the book onto the players instead of looking at his own shortfalls. No one has ever said to my recollection that we were brimming with the creme de le creme of the rugby world , but anyone with any rugby sense can see we are massively under performing, and the buck stops with the coaching no matter who we put out on the park . If that is chesters assessment of the players then we may all pack up and stop watching this season and get ready for the championship where we have a chance of winning a few

Not sure where you get the idea I don't understand our position from...our position hasn't changed much throughout our history as we've always played second fiddle to the wealthier clubs around us, such as Leeds and Shudds, you only have to read publications documenting our history to see that.

Where I was coming from wasn't the fact that we shop at Aldi cos we can't afford Waitress but more the fact that we appear to be waiting to be offered the scraps rather than being proactive about targeting what we need, who's is available that fits that need and approaching them to see if we can agree a deal.

We may do that and I may be wrong but that was my understanding of what CC said on that programme and it as that understanding that I was questioning.

If you read previous posts of mine you'll see that I was suggesting we went for Dec Patton last year as a way of filling our need for a half back with a decent kicking and short kicking game, something we woefully lack, which is more in line with the market for lesser players you mention and completely supports my idea of where we stand in the food chain.

Waitrose not waitressicon_smile.gif

No, it's reality, if you don't get that then you're supporting the wrong team.

Baffles me how people refuse to accept the obvious, if you've only got X amount of money then you can only afford to buy players of a certain ability.

I'll put it this way, can you afford an Aston Martin or any luxury car of your choice? No? So why is that then?