Quote: Staffs FC "For sure we're worse that's what I said. However I'm not sure we're that much worse in performance. Take the Challenge cup run. The only good performance in that run was the outstanding defeat of Warrington which Holdsworth orchestrated. Even though we won away at Catalans the performance there was rubbish - we were hugely lucky that Catalans were worse. Other than that we beat the mighty North Wales Crusaders and Wakefield at home. Wakefield went on to beat us at home in the league shortly afterwards.
In the league Wakey away thankfully saw the emergence of Shaul in a game we looked set to lose - which we did manage to do the year before. Widnes away was a shambles as was Bradford. The list of poor performances under Gentle goes on. The point I'm making is that those who hold Gentle up as the yard stick have short memories. His team embarrassed the club twice on the big stages but for some that seems to be OK because he's better than Radford. Lots of coaches are better than Radford so what ?'"
You said 'a bit worse'. Nine points worse at the halfway point is more than 'a bit worse', whatever subjective judgements you wish to make about performances.
And Gentle is not being held up as the yardstick, he's being held up as the man who made us the 6th best team in the competition for two seasons running. Not brilliant, but not terrible either. However many poor performances you want to cite, there's no doubt that he had achieved a level of consistency we hadn't enjoyed for a long time prior to his tenure, and which we certainly haven't enjoyed since. That's not to say we were particularly consistent under Gentle, but there's no arguing that we were more consistent than we had been under Agar, and than we have been under Radford.
Gentle's time in charge was far from perfect, there's no question about that, but there were many positives as well. We obviously disagree on the reasons for some of the more embarrassing performances, but it seems likely to me that the players took exception to something he said or did and responded with poor attitudes and substandard performances.
As for your final question, I'd have thought the answer to that was obvious. 'Lots of coaches' weren't the man sacked in order that Radford could replace them. It doesn't make the poor results 'OK', but it does seem a little senseless to replace a coach who was making some progress with one who has retarded that progress back to Agaresque levels.
