Mick Potter, coach of the year and has done a great job in difficult circumstances with Bradford this year, he deserves his chance at a big club.

Reports from Australia have Brian Smith currently in the South of France at the Catalans. Think he is lining up there especially with his son already involved there. Coaching against his brother in the SL will be interesting to watch!

And Potter has given an interview in the Sydney papers today offering his services to any Club that wants it there.

Think I'd rather stick with Rush.

Has a great record of turning clubs around, everywhere he goes he gets his clubs to the Grand Final, its just the GF he can't win.

But for Saints fans after missing out this year in the playoffs, surely you would regard a couple of years of at least getting to the GF as relative success even if you lose at Old Trafford.

The Catalan assistant coach has got the Catalan job.

Seems a bit over qualified for the Saints job.

Given that he can't win grand finals, I'd say he was perfect for the job at Saints.

Brian Smith might be able to take advantage of the fact his brother coaches Wire to have first dips on loan players that are on the fringes of our first team, it would be a win win situation to give them experience of playing in SL at Saints and also allow Saints access to some good players.

You're actually a pretty good poster when you're not trying little digs like this. Admittedly, you tend to be one of the better trolls but you'd be taken a lot more seriously if you just didn't do it.

Paul Cullen has left the Widnes Vikings... Just saying.

Is this another of those unfounded "Warrington have got an academy" rumours?

Being fair, the wolves u20s just won the grand final.

One swallow doesn't make a summer!

Obviously they have a good u20s but wheather they use them remains to he seen.

I remember when iestyn and scully were coming through, stevo predicted that the wolfs would dominate the game for years. Still waiting for it to happen.

A good academy consistently brings through 2 or 3 youngsters a year into the first team setup. Of these very few will be top class.

My point was that they will have to continue this development to see any rewards in the first team.

No it hasn't happened but I beleive smith put a system in place to develop a good youth system when he took over, maybe we will start to see the fruits of that in the coming years. That sort of thing doesn't happen over night, its 3/4 years later that the club benifits.

Only time will tell which way they will go as the likes of mozza, briers, Monaghan, Hodgson will soon need replacing.

Will they promote or buy in?

Youth setups, no matter how good or well-funded they are or how many chances in the first team their players get, are inately random, hit and miss things. You might end up getting 3 or 4 top SL players through in the space of a few years but you'll much more likely be stuck with a never ending stream of Dixhursts instead. Any team wanting to be consistently successful needs to be in the market to sign ready made quality and Wire will no doubt throw big wads around in the next few years hoovering up most of the replacements for their departing Dad's Army. Promoting from within is great and we all love to see it happen and all, but there's no point in doing the promoting unless you have anyone good enough to promote, no matter what certain annoying posters on here may think...

To be fair though,if they had'nt of sold those two then they probably would of done rather better.Got some relatives from Canado over at the moment,they hate Stevos comentary,they say he is so negative and boring to listen to,so its not just rl fans in general that think he is.

Well the news out of Sydney is that Nathan Brown has the Tigers gig, a friend said they'll announce it next week. Doesn't surprise me really. I just hope it's not too late for us to get a decent coach if the rumours are true.

Wonder if Justin Morgan would come back to the UK? I know he left for the Canberra Raiders as they're assistant & they did well this season under adverse conditions. He was interviewed for the St Helen's gig when at Rovers but stayed loyal to them. Think he'd do well here.

If this is true (and it still seems a bit of an odd choice and a top NRL club [isurely[/i must have better candidates) then another season in limbo with some makeshift coach or other wasting away our onfield talent looms... Bleedin' marvellous... Presumably there'll be a fair chunk of compensation involved if true so not all bad. If it's enough to put in a bid for Brough or Chase then I'd take it as a more than fair trade.

I've got a mate in Sydney. I've just txt him to see if he's heard anything.

Spoke to KC last Sunday and he told me that Brown will be over end of October or early November.

Would be good for us I feel. I don't think Brown would have been a good fit for us culturally.

If it's true I think you can rule out any compensation from Wests. They may need to have an advance of money from the new tv deal because they are deep in debt and will also have to give sheens a big pay off. The Wests forum seems to suggest they are still interviewing candidates.