Warrington-a poor season

[RP London]

43 minutes ago, Dave T said:

There have been a few worrying signs for me. He appears to be quite old school and listening to him talking appears to be a bit of a throwback rather than a modern, progressive man, but that is a perception based on limited interviews etc. 

But I think the biggest issue is that there appear to be an element of gaslighting going on. For a few years now people have talked about a poor culture at Warrington, and it seems to be solely based on the fact that we have lost a few Grand Finals.

Over the last decade, Saints have won 4 SL titles, Wigan 3 and Leeds 3. We've lost in 4 finals, in great, close finals.

Our average league position in the last 10 years is beaten only by Wigan and Saints IIRC. 

Similarly in the Cup, we've played in 6 of the last 14 finals, winning 4 of them. 

Those things don't suggest a huge culture issue at the club. Sure, it is disappointing we have never been able to make that final step to truly compete with Saints, Wigan and Leeds, but these are all the giants of RL. 

I really don't understand this position that huge changes were needed - surely building on what we already had was the way?

I dont disagree with you but i also get that with a new coach can come new philosophies that players just cant/wont buy into and therefore you move them on. Happens at many clubs in many sports. So i'm ok with a rebuild. But i totally agree the manner of this rebuild seems very strange, why not add to the team and move some on and gradually change it..

That said the way they have played this year has been atrocious and I just cannot get my head around why.

[RP London]

14 minutes ago, Chrispmartha said:

Powell has come in like a bulldozer and the thing is, as good as a coach he might be he isn’t the guy to do it IMO, Wire have a bit of a record of failing at the final hurdle and they’ve brought in a coach who has pretty much failed at the final hurdle throughout his career.

funnily enough I said the exact same thing to some mates when he was appointed.. I like Powell but this stood out for me.

15 minutes ago, Chrispmartha said:

I watched a feature on YouTube before the season started and it was him taking his first session, it was boring, uninspiring and pretty much saying you e been getting everything wrong and im going to come in and change everything, which came across as a red flag to me. Compare that with the feature on Rohan Smith on sky when he joined Leeds and it was the total opposite 

Think i saw the same thing, he was basically saying that he was coming in with a vision and that people needed to buy into it etc... he can be a bit monotoned at times and it didnt come across that well to be honest. It almost struck me like Brian Clough walking into Leeds saying "put your medals in a draw"... (not that there are that many medals to put in a draw but you get the idea!)

[Oxford]

As there are only two criteria that seem to matter to most: being there or thereabouts or winning it SL should be made up of about six clubs and so the money share would be enormous, there'd be no need for a forum, the geographical footprint would be minute, travel costs might be a bit high and the repeat fixtures would go on forever.

Sounds like a recipe conjured up by Bill Fallowfield that might be into practice under him at the Giants!

[Chrispmartha]

I also didn’t realise Ryan Sheridan was a defence coach until seeing that.

Sheridan was a great attacking halfback, maybe that’s why Wires defence has been shocking?

[Saint Toppy]

53 minutes ago, Chrispmartha said:

Wire IMO didn’t need wholesale changes and surgery they have been competing at the top for a few years now and I think they just needed the right coach to come in and tweak things a bit like Peet at Wigan.

Time will tell whether it works out for Wire or not but Powell's approach is a complete contracts to Peet & Wigan and previously Holbrook & Saints.

Both inherited teams with good quality players but for whatever reason just weren't performing to their best. Both only made minor tweaks to the squads they had, but fundamentally changed the teams playing style and both saw pretty dramatic improvements (and in Holbrook's case set the platform for the current period of dominance).

IMO Powell has got this wrong and such a drastic change is unlikely to see them reap the rewards quick enough for the Wire fans or the Board. In the long run it may well help but I suspect it will come too late for Powell 

[Dave T]

3 minutes ago, Saint Toppy said:

Time will tell whether it works out for Wire or not but Powell's approach is a complete contracts to Peet & Wigan and previously Holbrook & Saints.

Both inherited teams with good quality players but for whatever reason just weren't performing to their best. Both only made minor tweaks to the squads they had, but fundamentally changed the teams playing style and both saw pretty dramatic improvements (and in Holbrook's case set the platform for the current period of dominance).

IMO Powell has got this wrong and such a drastic change is unlikely to see them reap the rewards quick enough for the Wire fans or the Board. In the long run it may well help but I suspect it will come too late for Powell 

Yes, this is my issue. He is doing something that is very rarely done, or very rarely needed. 

And the outcomes so far is an absolute dogs dinner. 

[Dave T]

50 minutes ago, RP London said:

I dont disagree with you but i also get that with a new coach can come new philosophies that players just cant/wont buy into and therefore you move them on. Happens at many clubs in many sports. So i'm ok with a rebuild. But i totally agree the manner of this rebuild seems very strange, why not add to the team and move some on and gradually change it..

That said the way they have played this year has been atrocious and I just cannot get my head around why.

I'm just not so sure about that reason. It seems to be a bit of an excuse that maybe we hang on to to give him benefit of the doubt. 

But I haven't really seen a coach be so destructive with a team before for such negative results. 

[Dave T]

1 hour ago, Chrispmartha said:

Actually there has been and it was actually Powell that did it in 2002 at Leeds.

But the problem with that example is he couldn’t manage to get that team across that final hurdle and it took Tony Smith coming in to achieve it.

How much of a rebuild did he do in Leeds? He took over a top 4 team and left a top 4 team. Its normal for coaches to turn round some players, but I can't recall many, if any complete overhauls at the top end of the table. 

I think it's more normal at the lower end where clubs are struggling. 

[Red Willow]

As a fan for me it is about whether I can see what changes a coach made and whether long term they will benefit. Short term pain for long term gain. 

It is hard to see the overall plan but I don't watch Wire every week

[Oxford]

3 minutes ago, Dave T said:

How much of a rebuild did he do in Leeds? He took over a top 4 team and left a top 4 team. Its normal for coaches to turn round some players, but I can't recall many, if any complete overhauls at the top end of the table. 

I think it's more normal at the lower end where clubs are struggling. 

If the players were not happy with the rebuild or the new coaching or both you'll get a poor season. If they're not included in the new build the likelihood is they'll play poorly. If the want to leave but find it difficult to get a new contract anywhere they'll be poorly motivated.

I won't even go there with the "lower end" & "struggling"

[Oxford]

3 minutes ago, Red Willow said:

As a fan for me it is about whether I can see what changes a coach made and whether long term they will benefit. Short term pain for long term gain. 

It is hard to see the overall plan but I don't watch Wire every week

It depends on who you support to some extent and whether you expect things as a given or you're grateful for what you get.

 

[Chrispmartha]

11 minutes ago, Dave T said:

How much of a rebuild did he do in Leeds? He took over a top 4 team and left a top 4 team. Its normal for coaches to turn round some players, but I can't recall many, if any complete overhauls at the top end of the table. 

I think it's more normal at the lower end where clubs are struggling. 

He got rid of a lot of players, including your defence coach

Although in fairness he dod it in the off season, he didn’t start shifting players out mid season. Powell was also lucky that he had a set of young players coming through that it was a no brainier to build the team around them.

kevin Sinfield

Rob Burrow

Danny Mcguire

Chev Walker

Ryan Bailey

Richie Mathers

Matt Diskin

JJB

Danny Ward

is not a bad building block

[muckymunksy]

The NRL plodder number 22 as got to Powell's worst signing since James Green. 

[Chris Taylor]

1 hour ago, Chrispmartha said:

I also didn’t realise Ryan Sheridan was a defence coach until seeing that.

Sheridan was a great attacking halfback, maybe that’s why Wires defence has been shocking?

Shez has always been a defensive coach, even back when he was at Featherstone.

If there's one coach who I think will get it right at Warrington, it's Daryl and his coaching staff. It will fall into place, just sorting out the weeds. He will see it daily - nobody here does. 

[RP London]

39 minutes ago, Dave T said:

I'm just not so sure about that reason. It seems to be a bit of an excuse that maybe we hang on to to give him benefit of the doubt. 

But I haven't really seen a coach be so destructive with a team before for such negative results. 

we havent really got much choice in the matter on that front I dont think.. he has made such a massive set of changes we have to give him the benefit of the doubt otherwise why let him bring in so many players next year..

[Chrispmartha]

2 minutes ago, Chris Taylor said:

Shez has always been a defensive coach, even back when he was at Featherstone.

If there's one coach who I think will get it right at Warrington, it's Daryl and his coaching staff. It will fall into place, just sorting out the weeds. He will see it daily - nobody here does. 

He seems to have planted the weeds though, I think that’s the point. Did Wire need to go so far backwards to go a bit forwards?

[Chris Taylor]

1 hour ago, Chrispmartha said:

He seems to have planted the weeds though, I think that’s the point. Did Wire need to go so far backwards to go a bit forwards?

Quite possibly. There was obviously issues when Steve Price was there. 

I know it might not seem like it at the moment, but Daryl has a fantastic record in turning teams round and building team spirt at the teams he's been at. 

The only doubt I have is of him winning finals.

[Chrispmartha]

8 minutes ago, Chris Taylor said:

Quite possibly. There was obviously issues when Steve Price was there. 

I know it might not seem like it at the moment, but Daryl has a fantastic record in turning teams round and building team spirt at the teams he's been at. 

The only doubt I have is of him winning finals.

The problem is, winning finals is what Wire were missing.

[Dave T]

1 hour ago, Oxford said:

If the players were not happy with the rebuild or the new coaching or both you'll get a poor season. If they're not included in the new build the likelihood is they'll play poorly. If the want to leave but find it difficult to get a new contract anywhere they'll be poorly motivated.

I won't even go there with the "lower end" & "struggling"

You're very sensitive at times you Salford fans

It's hardly controversial to group teams, there is a league table that allows us to judge this. 

The teams hanging around the bottom half of the table regularly often have more rebuilds, staff and player personnel changes. It's not offensive to acknowledge that. It is common sense, when a team has a poor year, they usually make plenty of changes to try and improve. 

[Desert Skipper]

1 hour ago, Chrispmartha said:

He got rid of a lot of players, including your defence coach

Although in fairness he dod it in the off season, he didn’t start shifting players out mid season. Powell was also lucky that he had a set of young players coming through that it was a no brainier to build the team around them.

kevin Sinfield

Rob Burrow

Danny Mcguire

Chev Walker

Ryan Bailey

Richie Mathers

Matt Diskin

JJB

Danny Ward

is not a bad building block

There’s an excellent crop of youth coming through at Warrington. Anyone involved in academy and scholarship RL will tell you that. That’s why I’m not so disheartened by this season. I reckon Powell himself knows he’s probably tried to change too much too soon, but the end result would have been the same - older, underperforming stars on their way out, and youth development on the way in, supported by a few senior players with the right attitude.

Powell’s record suggests he’s the right man for the revolution, but I guess we’ll see whether he carries it off by the results in 2023. It’s interesting that the board appear to be firmly backing Powell and the youth, rather than listening to disgruntled fans and ex-players. There’s probably a lot more to it than we know about.

 

Edited July 19, 2022 by Desert Skipper

[Oxford]

34 minutes ago, Dave T said:

You're very sensitive at times you Salford fans

It's hardly controversial to group teams, there is a league table that allows us to judge this. 

The teams hanging around the bottom half of the table regularly often have more rebuilds, staff and player personnel changes. It's not offensive to acknowledge that. It is common sense, when a team has a poor year, they usually make plenty of changes to try and improve. 

It seems we're doomed to misunderstand and misread each other to the end of time Dave.

 

[Desert Skipper]

1 hour ago, Chris Taylor said:

The only doubt I have is of him winning finals.

You could be right, but if that’s true I’m hoping he’ll have put a legacy in place with a young, high quality and exciting team ready for a Smith type character to come in and take the final step to GF victory (and continued success). After all, that is what happened at Leeds.

Edited July 19, 2022 by Desert Skipper

[Chrispmartha]

31 minutes ago, Desert Skipper said:

You could be right, but if that’s true I’m hoping he’ll have put a legacy in place with a young, high quality and exciting team ready for a Smith type character to come in and take the final step to GF victory (and continued success). After all, that is what happened at Leeds.

It did happen at leeds but in fairness that crop of youngsters all coming through together at the same time is very very rare, not saying the Warrington young guys aren’t good players but the young guys at leeds in 2003 were the spine of a very successful side for over 12 years.

[Dave T]

3 hours ago, RP London said:

we havent really got much choice in the matter on that front I dont think.. he has made such a massive set of changes we have to give him the benefit of the doubt otherwise why let him bring in so many players next year..

Aye, I agree, he now has to back up what he has started. 

[Dave T]

2 hours ago, Chris Taylor said:

Quite possibly. There was obviously issues when Steve Price was there. 

I know it might not seem like it at the moment, but Daryl has a fantastic record in turning teams round and building team spirt at the teams he's been at. 

The only doubt I have is of him winning finals.

Under Steve Price we were boring as sin and the club, rightly imho made the decision to move him on. But any issues should not be overstated. Tweaks were needed to take us to the next level, as is the normal approach.