And he has been for several years. What are his main attributes?

That's the common mistake though, his primary remit isn't to produce a fairly successful reserves side, it's to produce players for the first team. As CS said, there's grounds to have faith simply because he's one of the few coaches to be retained, and if the likes of Crookes and Pearce thrive next season then I'll take it all back.

Yeah they ought to let him know, 'cos the way you tell it it makes him look really thick.

More likely, he was celebrating the relief of maintaining his employment amidst a massive cull.

Andy Last does a great job . Highly regarded by McRae .
He is also Black and White to the core .

A few points on this:
1. His remit won’t be to finish bottom either.
2. The reserves finished 3rd. Not too shabby for a team and structure with, according to Pearson, a lack of investment.
3. How could the team have finished 3rd if he wasn’t producing at least some players capable of debuting in SL?
Make your mind up. 2 posts ago you were saying you were “greatly concerned”.


The fact that successive regimes have highlighted Last’s potential and he’s survived a huge cull suggest his retention, particularly in the context of also now having Hay and Radford on board to support Gentle, is not as “greatly concerning” as you would like us to think. My personal view is that Agar’s refusal to give any players a debut last season was completely unacceptable and that Pearson is now talking about addressing underinvestment. These 2 factors being addressed hopefully will be enough to address, at least in part, your major concerns about Andy Last.

Make my mind up? I simply took on board what another poster had said, sorry if you have a problem with that.

It's really irrelevant where our reserves finished last year, if Last's reserve team lads make a break-through next season you'll be right about him, if they don't then I'll be right.

Is it? What if they'd finished bottom?

Agar chose to give none of them a chance in 2011. Therefore the only thing we can really judge Last on is his team performing well in that competition, finishing behind only Warrington and Wigan. I don't see the grounds to condemn Last as a major concern as you do, but obviously you're entitled to your opinion. Radford and Hay too will be involved in the youth set-up, as will McRae, so it might be hard to isolate the individual contribution and impact of Last in the way you describe.

Maybe we only finished 3rd because every other team were playing some of their U20's in the first team?

Very likely. I''m just not sharing the major concern over Last that our friend is.

Good point. Still not Last's fault, though.

Sorry if I missed the parade for our 3rd place finish in the reserves league but I couldn't care less, and I don't really believe you do either. The idea that because our reserves finished 3rd there 'must be some players capable of playing in SL' is a complete non sequitur. In the last few years, the only players we've produced for ourselves are Briscoe (who would have come through if you or I were coaching him) and Houghton, and that means Last failed at his job.

To be fair Featherstone handed Briscoe on a plate to you.