He,s a rookie coach given the job 1 year earlier than planned, he,s took us top of the league with most of our pivotal creative players injured and sat in the stands. To be a multi dimensional team you need a match plan with most of your influential players available.........we could probably say we have not had that at all this season.
Luckily, superleague standard is very poor these days so 1 or 2 losses isn,t a disaster this season as there are no consistent stand out teams.

1 - Why do St Helens RFC have a rookie coach?

2 - It's a poor poor competition. Being top means you're the least crap, not the best.

3 - When we have been poor when has he given good reasons instead of Press conference clichés?

4 - What's changed the following week?

5 - How's our discipline this season?

6 - Why do players who continually underperform or commit Hari Kari (à la LMS) keep getting picked?

Never ever ever a coach fit for St Helens. I love the guy and watched him all the way through his playing career and, hats off, he was a great player. That doesn't make him a great coach and people forget that this is effectively his SECOND stint in charge; good coaches improve teams quickly and sustainably and if last night wasn't a good example of what we SHOULD have then nothing else is.

I see in the paper this morning he is saying that we got what we deserved - fair enough. He then goes on to say that, paraphrased, the players weren't up for it. Let's just re-read that:

The. Players. Weren't. Up. For. It.

That's [uHIS JOB[/u - it's not acceptable for players not to be up for it. Never. Not acceptable. No excuses. Ever. That's [uHIS JOB[/u to make sure they are, at least, UP FOR IT, every week.

The only reason we are where we are is because the comp is terrible. Nothing else.

OK, if we remove the Rookie bit, can you name a current coach in super league who is significantly better than KC. I would,t say good coaches improve teams quickly, an experienced one with player stability would be more apt. I think most fans on here would agree he is doing a reasonable job under the circumstances and the first objective of a top 4 place is almost complete.
Probably next season is the best to judge KC when we get a repetitive of errors, poor tactics etc. Its been another difficult dissruptive season so far, so personally I would give him some slack, its very unlikely that you can become a good or great coach in 20 games.

A guy last night who lost half his team pre-season and has transformed them from also rans into a very effective unit. There's one. That's the standard we should be aiming for in a coach (and I am not suggesting we should have him, simply we deserve someone of that calibre).

Every great coach was a rookie once. Cunningham has been under the wing of a few different coaches. He's been groomed for the job for years. He knows the club from top to bottom, he's not just some Aussie who thinks a game against Wigan is just another 2 points. He knows what it means to the fans.

He's got us sat on top of the league (until Leeds play) whilst missing several key players throughout the season. They're playing with heart and character, and you single out LMS, well he's been playing brilliantly imo this season.

And now we're getting the league's so poor, no wonder we're top blah blah blah. Well he's damned either way isn't he? If he wins the league, well it's because it's a crap league but if he doesn't win it then he's a crap coach.

You're being incredibly negative, mate. You simply don't like Cunningham and nothing will shift your opinion of him. I can't really have a go because if I'm honest, I was exactly the same about Brown.

Its took about 6 years for Powell to reach that Standard, time at Leeds, in the championship, and now 2 years in at Cas. Give KC half that time 3 years to see how he develops because he's come to the "coal face" a lot earlier than Powell ever did. The only real concern at the moment is our discipline that needs corrected very quickly as it breeds lack of focus, attitude and creates extra defensive demand, I,m sure the coaching team are working on it, maybe playing our strength in the forwards contributes to it.

Most of the time the heart and character has been created with good team spirit this year, I,m putting that down to KC and Longy. On the subject of LMS I,ve currently got him and Alex as Club Player of the Season so far.

Some fair points but the last not strictly true. When I see his/his influence/tactics/motivation make a significant difference to [uhow we play and it's sustained[/u, then I'd be happy to hold my hands up. I actually WANT him to do well. Thing is I don't see it happening as we are regressing to the standard we were at during the year he and Rush were in charge - sterile, one dimensional rugby. We are the first to criticise our friends over the lump for not having a Plan B - can you honestly see ours if our pack don't get on top?

With no disrespect to Cas at all, we had virtually a full team out there last night and SHOULD have won that game. Regardless of opinions on individual players we had enough COLLECTIVE nous and experience to win that game and let's not forget we were winning for most of it. Cunningham's view of why we didn't was because HIS players weren't up for it. There's more to coaching than on the field - I find that statement embarrassing and he should be ashamed to come out and say it. I have no issue if we get beat fair and square as long as we lose trying and at least being creative - we have neither when our pack can't bully others.

Hence I think I can be forgiven for assuming that this is the 'Cunningham style'.

I'd die of boredom in that time. Sorry but I don't agree - if that's the price we have to pay for a 'rookie' coach then we shouldn't have one.

KC would be in his 3rd year next season, so personally I,m expecting better control of players and tactics next year. Also would like Longy to coach our attack for next season. I can see us going forward this year compared to the Wire under Smith and Agar. Regards to Powell, I think he has had about 13 years experience in some form of coaching capacity with 6 years as a head coach.

"Die of boredom"?

I'm confused. Did several of those "wonder tries" featured on the BBC during the last few weeks happen in some other universe?

I will always be a big fan of LMS, and still hope he will finish his career back in London, but last night he did disappoint me, it was so obvious that I feel he could have been given a yellow card, he let his team mates down, and supporters, hope today he realises how stupid he was.

100% agreed Louie tried hard last night but gave away far to many penalties that crucifed us?

As for him getting his big foot in the way of Roby at the end we he knocked on????

Singling out Louie is a bit harsh, IMO. As has always been the case at Saints (especially this season) his attitude was spot on.

Yes, he made a stupid mistake. But so did Percival getting himself yellow carded for nothing! So did Roby (TWICE). So did McDonnell. So did Swift (TWICE). The entire match was one long catalog of stupid mistakes made by just about everyone.

Not seen the match yet, did we have McDonnell, Swift and Percival missing from the back line in those last 10 mins.

Effectively yes. But herein lies the nub. Even with our backline in tatters - Castleford still weren't presenting much of a threat. What we should have done is what we were doing up till half time. Four or five big drivers and put them straight back down in coffin corner.

Instead of sticking to the plan we decided to deviate toward a more expansive style. Ultimately it cost us the match.

Fortunately, this isn't a difficult problem to put right. Indeed, I'm sure the players have already put it right in their heads.

Correct, it's sad to see.

Henderson at Catalans is the worst for feigning injury. It's every single time they have to defend a second set in a row, he's down receiving treatment.

Something needs to be done!

It's a tricky one, as it's clearly a result of the new serious approach to head injuries. Basically as soon as a player stays still and holds his head the ref has to stop the game. It's difficult to know how a ref can be expected to make a distinction between genuine cases and false ones. Even when it's obviously play-acting, as in LMS's or Henderson's case, what actual hard evidence is there for the ref to point to?

Good point the wors thing would be if a player was ignored and it ended up being serious.

The players (or coaches if it's a directive coming from them) have got to get a hold of themselves and stop this shizzle! it's not something i like at all, far too association football for me

At least someone got to grips with Bailey's incessant play-acting. He's another of SL's so-called "hard men" who threw the towel in after his first encounter with Bigfoot.

The Allez rant is looking somewhat personal.

Can't fathom the KC hate. Personally I did not want him to be coach last year. I thought it was to early and he should have been tried and tested elsewhere first.

However, I can't have too many complaints about the season so far. Plenty of youngsters getting their chances to shine. He has coped remarkably well with the injuries on the roster and managed the team pretty well. I think there has been on outburst against the youngsters that I would not have approved of. But if a coach says one thing to hack you off in a year that is no bad thing. Tony Smith is a very experienced coach and he still comes out with pap every now and then.

Also when comparing coaches. TS had a team at the start of the year that was touted for top spot. So KC is hardly doing a poor job surpassing all other coaches in the league apart from maybe Brian McDermott.

Also last night the players hardly helped themselves. There were brainfarts all over that feild. That is down to individuals.

The way to fix it would be to say that :

1) anybody who goes down with a head injury, play stops and the player is removed from the field for a minimum 10 minutes - even if they subsequently get up and say they're ok.

2) anybody going down with a non-head injury, if they are not interfering with play - play on (unless it's an obvious stretcher case like a broken leg)

3) anybody going down with a non-head injury who IS interfering with play, mandatory removal from the field for 10 minutes for "treatment".

I agree that we do not want this gamesmanship in rugby league. Refs can't take risks with head injuries because they're not visible. But with all other injuries, it is very obvious if the injury is serious or not. If serious, by all means stop the game. If not, then send them to the sidelines instantly. If they refuse to go, or miraculously recover, bin them.

Whenever discussing topics such as play-acting and how to tackle such there's always the danger of over-complicating or [iover-legislating [/ithe issue.

Personally I'd be quite happy giving referees the mandate and, more importantly, the FLEXIBILITY to use their own discretion. I think this is a far more sensible solution than attempting to hack out a list of officially proscribed acts as long as your arm.

The minute this happens you've got SKY, RL pundits and the fans all scrutinising the game with a magnifying glass and backing the ref into zero-sum game of "correct" and "incorrect" responses.

Like all of us refs intuitively know what constitutes play-acting. I'm happy to simply inform them that we need to do something about it and leave it up to them to arrive at a sensible punishment for individual indiscretions. I feel they'll feel more empowered to fix the problem this way than legislating the game up the wazoo.

LMS was a loon last night. Great game going forward, but probably equalled any yardage gained with the penalties he gave away.

When other good teams have their tails up in defence, Wigan in particular, they can trap the opposition on their line with aggressive line speed, when ever we get into that groove, we've given a penalty away for offside by the end of the set. LMS is possibly the worse culprit for this. Either he's too eager getting off the line, he' to lazy to get back properly in the first place or he's too dim to realise one of the above.

I agree with you that this would be the best way of dealing with it, but I don't see that approach being adopted. The whole rationale of the new concussion rules seems to be to take human intuition out of the equation entirely in order to minimise risk. Having made that move I can't see the RFL then allowing referees to decide whether someone is putting it on or not. I think something like Roy's suggestion might be necessary if there's going to be a workable solution to the gamesmanship (or 'cheating', as we should probably call it) that's creeping in this season.