Was he caretaker after Gregory took ill then? Forgot all about it. Thought he'd only worked as a youth coach at Wigan.

Yep, too much time away from League whilst in Union is a fair comment Red League and the inexperience showed in the Championship too. After seeing Salford in the previous two games I quickly dismissed any notions of us being on a par with them. Now it's self-evident.

With regards to Betts I'll be intrigued to see how long he gets unless he turns it around. Franchising means we don't have to be short-termist so I'm not expecting drastic to happen until about half way through the season.

Widnes have some talented players. No doubt, but your situation is somewhat similar to the one Salford found themselves in. You don't have a coach who understands how to battle against adversity. Betts has never coached a decent level and got the Widnes job on name alone, speak to anyone who has ever met him and they'll tell you he doesn't have it upstairs.

Hopefully you haven't given him a 4 and 1/2 year deal, like we gave our dead wood coach. I'd beg Cullen to take the reigns again, if it was my club. Not the best, but light years ahead of Betts.

Beggars believe that we gave Betts a 2 year coaching job after been so e in the Championship?1 year maximum and has been out of the game over 5 yrs when came to Widnes.He has no credentials and we need to recruit someone like Noble,Daryl Powell, or some aussie coach.Widnes fans are losing patience now like myself as we are not doing much in creativeness and kicking game is terrible.Defence what is that?

How can you lose patience after 3 games. I think some of you guys thought you would stroll into S.L. and just start competing straight away. It just doesn't work like that and those who thought it would are being bloody nieve.
This season will be tough. You have to bit your lip and run the season out. Aiming to be in a stronger position next year.

One thought though is I think your fancy pitch could be your undoing. You have no adverse weather affects to help even games up. It's a perfect surface for the faster stronger teams. So early season teams like saints etc.... could potentially destroy you. The affect on moral for the season could be huge. Salford have the fastest wingers in SL and some quality backs. They were able to use their speed as an advantage. Better teams will relish the surface.
What do you guys think.

So you missed the good off load to get Widnes back in the game at the time? I thought he was with Ah Van one of your stand out players.

Players will always perform better if they respect the coach, i don't mean any disrespect to either Dennis Betts or Paul Cullen but both have failed as head coaches previously.

Your own fans were questioning Dennis Betts as a head coach after some of your poor performances in the championship, thats hardly a good grounding to be a head coach in SL. Paul Cullen had a lot of huge resources available to him at Warrington including a brand new stadium and the backing of a multi millionaire businessman, he just couldn't get us to perform consistently well, our defence left a lot to be desired during that time and it looks like your fragile defence is going to be one of your biggest problems this year unless someone comes in and sorts it out.

Now compare the above to Brian Noble, he's achieved everything in the game honours wise, he's the most successful british SL coach in the game. If he speaks you listen, now if your a player what would you respect most, a team talk from Brian Noble or one from Dennis Betts ?

Its like with us at Warrington under Tony Smith, he basically got the same group of players that Paul Cullen had at his disposal with a couple of tweaks to win 2 challenge cup finals.

Steve O'Connor has took a massive gamble with Dennis Betts and Paul Cullen, personally i think its too big a gamble given there previous combined lack of experience and failure.

no, i didnt miss that. i did miss him the rest of the time though, except when he had one of several brain farts and commited defensive suicide - leaving ah van isolated and outnumbered. which was my point.

nobody was expecting to stroll in. As i have already said, its not defeat that worries me, its the manner of the defeat and obvious carry over of the same issues from last season, it does not bode well at all - regardless of the squad. yes, we came alive for 20 minutes at the end, when the game was already lost. its not being outperformed, its just not performing at all ourselves. i expect to be out performed, i dont expect the team to perform the way they have.

i think that you are all panicking a little bit too early!

yes you have injuries, but you have players to come back into your team too.

Widnes will win games this year (but i will admit, i have no widnes players in my dream team!)

Rob you are bang on with what you are saying and we all did not want Betts anyway.I know seems bad but I want all the players to turn on Betts as we need a decent coach.Yes we will still lose a lot but to see organisation and decent rugby I be happy.

To be fair we haven't won a competitive game since July and now lost 7 or 8 on the run. Patience with Betts was already wearing thin before the season started but most Widnes fans were willing to give him a chance. Now people want him out and I can understand why. Who we would bring in or who would even want to come to Widnes is another matter.

Noble is the obvious choice. Not cheap but Betts, Cullen and T O'Connor would probably go. He would appoint his own asst.
His player signings will improve the squad and his defensive nous will help reduce tries conceded.
S O'Connor will probably wait a couple of months before he makes those decisions but if you keep losing in the manner and scores that you are then he will have to act at some point early on in the season.
Best of Luck, we do need Widnes in SL. However you need to be competitive and at the moment you are not!