How old is Royce Simmons? He seems to have been around for ever.

Fifty, I believe.

A mere child.

A truly bizarre appointment if true. His coaching record is simply awful.

I agree. Although we're not really losing him, we're getting rid of him

It would have been interesting to see what he could have built if he'd been given less shaky foundations to start with

It's another random name every weel, last weeks was Betts, next week probably Baloo!

You'll be happy though, he's not Potter

A 41% win rate?

No thanks

I've always been one of Mick's biggest supporters on here.

Although that perhaps tells a story in itself

41%.

Jeez can we not persuade Mick to stay!

As Penrith coach, his only head coach position.

To be honest, after looking up his details he hasn't been around nearly as long as I thought ... I think I must have confused him with someone else.

And what's our ranking for leaking points?

Latest i heard was that you were in talks with Brian Smith.

5th (6 points more conceded than 4th placed Hull). We've conceded 4 and a bit points more each game than the best defensive team (Wigan), 3 and a bit more than Wire (2nd best defence).

We have the third best points difference, 30 points behind Wire in second. I reckon we'll end up pipping them to 2nd on points difference.

Given the amount of disruption to the team and the number of kids we've had to play, especially out wide where points are often conceded, a tremendous effort so far.

Don't agree.I have never been so bored at Saints games under Potter.I am at the stage where I have to "push" myself to make the 25 mile journey to home games -I never thought I would be in that mindset.

Don't be ridiculous, we should be [izilling[/i teams who aren't in the top four!

Oh and it's a good job Potter is going, he doesn't smile enough, doesn't look good in sunglasses and doesn't have a ghost written column in the Star. All far more important than him successfully integrating a team full of youngsters into a side whilst still challenging for honours...

I was pleased to read Mr Potter's comments on this point in this week's RL press. He agrees with me, it seems. Most of the credit for our young players must go to Mike Rush and the junior coaches for the young talent coming through as all that was going on before he arrived here. As he says, he gives them the confidence to play at SL level. I'm very happy to give him credit for that, but everything else was done before he turned up. And I sure that previous coaches would have done similarly had we endured the injury crises of the last two seasons under them.

We do seem to leak more points than we used to, that's for sure, which wouldn't be that much of a problem to me if we didn't have knock out games coming up where bad defensive habits/sloppy defence/whatever anyone wants to call it will undermine our chances of winning. I am concerned that we haven't managed to conquer the urge to let in a try just before halftime/full time. That seems to have been haunting us on and off all season.

We're significantly behind Wigan in points difference and we need to close the gap on Wire, which means getting defensively smarter, if we are going to have a chance of pipping them to second (assuming we win and they lose as appropriate!). It would be nice to have home playoff games, is all I'm thinking about really.

Royce Simmonds was only young when he was head coach of Penrith. Since then his gone away to learn off the best. If Eamon thinks he is the rught man for the job then so be it. Tim Sheens rates him very highly, as he appointed him assistant coach for the National team.

Yeah, scoring more tries than anyone else in the competition sure does get tiresome.

I agree, have trust in Big Mac

The new ground and keeping fans updated, Millward leaving and of course Long?? - what was the attendance on Friday? when did you last see any serious marketing to improve crowds?

Millward didn't - he signed no mark journeymen from the lower leagues when we were really stretched (both at Saints and at Wigan). We also conceded more points per game and scored less points per game towards the end of his reign than we do now. Yet on a couple of occasions you (and others) have said they'd rather have him back than keep Potter, which I find odd.

I fear there's a huge slice of "grass is always greener" amongst Saints fans at the moment, and I hope it doesn't all blow up in our faces with someone like Royce Simmons.

What about Millward and Long? Both clearly the right decisions.

He isnt building the new stadium, Langtree are responsible for press releases etc, Millward and Long?????? the best decisions he probably has made is getting shut of them, and as for crowds, we're about 3rd/4th in the attendance leagues this year with our stadium, thats brilliant