I think it's a bit of an odd one from Wakey's POV to announce it so early when there is so long to go this year and it doesn't exactly scream confidence at the coach they've just appointed. Although you can almost write the script now - Chester keeps Wakey up at the death again, gets sacked 3 games into the new season and Kear becomes the defacto head coach again.

As for Kear himself, I can understand why he's done it, it'll be more money for less work to begin with and there aren't many clubs in the country that can't learn something from the situations he's found himself in. Would have loved Kear at the Bulls, but don't know what it is there is just something I can't put my finger on that tells me he wouldn't quite be a good fit.

I think Kear is an excellent motivator and he's been around the game, seemingly forever. Much as I've got a lot of respect for the guy, I'm not totally sure about him as a day-in-day-out coach, to be honest.

He seems to need something, or somebody to rail against to get the best out of him and his teams, and that simply doesn't work on a day to day basis. Some decision from the authorities or a slight from an opponent that he can work into an, "everyone hates us, but we don't care", mentality and he's in his element and he'll do wonders. It just doesn't work over an 8 month season though.

He reminds me a little of Darryl Van de Velde the old Cas [and Wire coach, who may well have been JK's coach when he was a player down Weldon Lane - both are well regarded and produced some fine teams, playing good rugby but, at the end of the day, never actually won very much.

what he said

I think JK & his perm had both left Cas just before DV2 started.

I posted at the time I would have taken a shot at Morrison ahead of Lowes, still stand by it, if we don't retain Jimmy for 2017 for whatever reason and assuming the given that we wont bring in a proven top rate coach from the NRL, then I think we should appoint Glenn if he's still available (he'll get a bigger gig than Dewsbury before too long I suspect.)

Hopefully though Jimmy will make this thread look daft as he leads us to automatic promotion in the middle 8's!.....#holds breath#....

> Jimmy will make this thread look daft as he leads us to automatic promotion in the middle 8's!

Whereupon we become a bigger gig than Dewsbury.

I couldn't remember JK with hair, so I took a look at some photos - ye gods! Is it the same bloke?

He looked like Zippy with a perm wig, now he just looks like Zippy.

Taxi for Lowes.

I'll put some towards it. What about Rowley or Haggerty who will probably get his team further in the cup than us!!

After last season and making the MPG I thought Lowes had just about done enough to deserve another shot this year on the proviso that he developed the team and learnt from his mistakes. So far we've looked no better than last year and the same problems keep on recurring. Not sticking to the game plan, unable to close a game down despite leading going into the final minutes etc.

I think we can all accept the odd blip and despite being FT there will always be occasions when a part time team edge it. But have we looked the business for the full 80 so far this year?

I suspect the next couple of games might be crucial for the team and Lowes. Facing two quality sides who we will be competing for the top 4 with we simply have to see some performances. Personally I've lost confidence in Lowes and would like to see a replacement brought in sooner rather than later to give a new coach chance to actual make his mark.

I think if look deeper into us getting into the middle 8's how much was that down to Lowes? Were we really that good?

Shefifeld - Comfortable victory at home, but we were playing against a part time team.
Wakefield - game over after 20 mins
Salford - Best performance of the season. Fair play
Widnes - Hammered by 50+points. Decent first 40 but completely fell away as thing got tough (sound familiar)
Hull KR - Awful performance and Hull KR were there for the taking that day. Dire selections in Chev Walker and Mendieka cost us.
Leigh - A good win but i think Leigh were completely gone by that stage. they had just lost to Fax and were more or less out of the 8s even if they had beaten us.
Fax - another humiliation

Wakey - MPG - Our coach completely panicked with strange tactics and he was completely out coached by BS. His use of the bench was horrendous that day and lost us the game (Not Danny Addy missing a conversion as we could have still lost as our players were out on their feet from playing virtually the whole game) throw in humiliating losses to Fax, Sheffield Featherstone and Leigh. In fact how many games last year were we sensational? Not many.

Ask yourself this simple question. Based on James Lowes' general demeanour and attitude, would you want to work under him and bust your gut for the bloke?

First of all, the Challenge Cup. Who cares? We ain't gonna win it so we would be better getting horsed out straight away rather than playing more "meaningless" games. Bodies are better being saved for the important stuff at the end of the season IMO.

That said.....

Lowes is beginning to make McNamara look like some sort of genius now. He is arrogant and confrontational, skills that made him a wonderful player but hinder him in the coaching capacity. He also appears to be too stubborn, and, ultimately, clueless. It is time that he was "relieved of his duties" before he takes us backwards even further and get someone else in (Morrison/Kear/Smith etc.) who will be able to get more out of the team and motivate them better than Lowes is able to do.

And this has to be done sooner rather than later because if we do not go up this year, then we won't be back in SL until there is some more changes to the P/R system we currently have in place.

10 games perhaps? Then see where we are....

"I can't question the desire of the players", I'm sorry Jimmy if you think this is the case you must be on a different planet to most of our supporters. The only real desire I have seen this season was in the last 15 minutes against Leigh.

Yeah, agree with all that

We keep hearing people say 'His job was to get us to the MPG and he did that... so he gets a free pass'

Sorry, but we stumbled into the MPG on the back of some woeful performances at the back end of the season, and then in the Super 8s. If Leigh hadn't totally imploded, we'd not have been there at all - and its unlikely that Leigh will do that again this year.

More worryingly, we simply don't seem to have learned anything from last year. We're still putting in those patchy, unconvincing performances, filled with mistakes, tactical ineptitude and unconvincing defence. We got past Swinton and Whitehaven OK, but how did we do against reasonably decent teams?

Featherstone: unconvincing win
Leigh: fortunate draw after Leigh ran out of steam, on the back of purple patch
Batley: blew it, lucky to get a draw
Dewsbury - lost

It all points to the overall feeling that we've 'settled' at a Championship level. I think we'll do well to get past London on Thursday, and I've little to no expectation that we'll beat Halifax on Easter Monday.

Could leave the club today I'm hearing

I think we will get battered by Fax on Monday and that is IF we can beat London.

Thinking the same we have stumbled and luckily eaten team but we havent had a good performance throughout a game yet which is a worry, the only silver lining is that we arent playing very well but seem to be able not to lose.

Id rather we put in a great defensive shift and then have a mad 20mins or so where we blow the other team away, but as our defence leaks tries like a seive i wont hold my breath.

Was thinking the same for last year how man good full match performances did we put in, i can only think of several, Leigh draw, win vs Leigh in 8's, salford 8's, Fax at bash and Wakefield in mpg (with a good squad selection we could have wont that game) fair enough some might say "well Leigh ran the league but came unstuck in the 8's if they hadn't been naive when going up against some teams and shut up shot instead of throwing the ball around they would have won more and not fallen away.

Interesting. Do you have a source for this?

Yeah where's this come from? My week just got a whole lot better if true!

If this is a wind up it is in poor taste. If not it`s best news in ages.

Making this up would be like promising a kid a new bike for christmas then giving them a lump of coal and a slap in the face. Seriously bad taste.
Fingers crossed its true, we can only hope!

According to Mick Gledhill on Twitter there is the usual Monday press conference within the next hour, I guess we'd find out then. That said, I'd be surprised if it was true - I'd expect they'll give him the Easter fixtures at least if there was truth in it. If we're 0/2 from those, I'd expect huge pressure then.

I'm crossing everything