[url=http://www.thenational.ae/sport/rugby/henry-paul-rubbishes-talk-of-bradford-switch-and-is-more-than-happy-to-be-at-jebel-ali-dragonsHenry Paul laughs off Bradford link[/url

[iPaul is "hoping and wishing" the new Bradford venture is a success, but labelled talk of him being involved "a bit of a joke".
"I don’t know where it has come from," said Paul, whose Dragons side have a break from the West Asia Premiership this weekend.[/i
[i
"I had a chat with Bradford Bulls about three years ago, before I took up a school job, so I don’t know where this has come from.
"I know it has had quite a bit of coverage but I am not paying much attention to that. It is a bit of a joke. I haven’t got anything to say because I have not talked to anyone.

"My brother was chief exec. Other than hoping and wishing they had a team there, I have no idea where this story has come from about me coaching them."[/i

Someone somewhere got a lot of social media mileage out of this rumour.....

Tremendous news for you guys, that's a genuine reason for hope, and I know you haven't had many recently! Good luck for the future, hope to see you back in SL in a few years time.

Thanks Geoff.Will see you next week when you get here.Safe flight over.All the best.

So to recap:

Not Brain McLennan then.

Standard of “people in the know” has really slipped lately

Assistant coach. Nailed on.

Wow, amazing appointment. NRL officiating turned him into the angriest looking coach ever...wonder what he'll make of Championship refs?

Bringing Beaver as his assistant?

nah bring beaver as a player. even at 108yrs old, or whatever he is these days, he'd still rip it up in championship

That was one of my thoughts. Heath for a pack leader would be nice to reinforce the Manly connection

I predict that under Toovey we'll show more fight and an organized game plan than we did for big chunks of 2016. Really want to see a mean defence, the main disappointment for me under Rohan was that with his background as a defensive coach in the NRL, ours didn't show any consistent signs of improvement

There was a healthy discussion of Beaver v Tooves amongst Manly fans in the time leading up to Toovey getting the gig. The general consensus (as I recall, at least) was that everyone liked Beaver. And that therefore he was completely unsuitable. They wanted an ex-player (as they always do), but above all they wanted a 2@. And frankly, so do I.

How long till he starts making an impact then? 3-4 games?

For what its worth in my opinion one of the Best coaches in the NRL.Best of luck for next season.

Maybe 6-10. He needs to look at the remaining players, find their best position. Evaluate attitudes especially after the 'honeymoon' period is over. Also needs to see what they are like against varying levels of opposition. Hopefully after this, press on. Should stay up though.

Fingers crossed we stay up. Hopefully we can start winning before 10 games. If not we are up the steam without a paddle.

Going by the new coaches passionate temperament. Someone could have a quiet word about the RFL fines.

Otherwise he might be paying the RFL back £50k all on his own.

It's going to have to be quicker than that with a -12 start. Granted there will be a bedding in process but as I see it we have a friendly against kr on the 5th and then a relegation 4 pointer against Rochdale

Great appointment - Blackpool Hotels to sell out

Swiftly followed by relegation 4 pointers against Swinton
and Toulouse.
Realy wish those 3games were further diwn the line and we started off against HKR Fev and London. Going to be really hard to get things going for the 1st mornth or two and playing the teams we are realistically competeing against is far from ideal .

Apologies if this has already been posted elsewhere: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzHx8NAOiKQ

Apologies if this has already been posted elsewhere: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzHx8NAOiKQ

2 of the best coaches in the country Sheens and Toovey ...in the Championship. Excellent.

A sort of parallel. He like Mick Potter was a first class NRL Player, unlike Mick has got a good NRL cv as Coach , like Mick at West Tigers suffered a lot from political infighting by a dysfunctional board!

Part of his problem though is similar to Nobby he was too loyal to his older senior players which as a group a few should have been moved on, hence Manley not being the force they once were! (that was a problem inherited by Mick at Tigers from Tim Sheens tenure)

Is known to burst blood vessels at perceived and real poor decision making by the Officials and is not shy despite swinging fines at letting them know via the Media, so it will be of interest to see how he copes with the CL level of reffing (that said perhaps F A and the other RAB sponsors put their sponsorship money towards the Geoff Toovey swear box fund as I'm sure it will needed

As I see it, we've swapped one very good coach for another, but until we see who, if anyone, is being brought into the squad, we're still relegation fodder, imo.

It's still early days of course, the new guys have only just arrived and it will take some time to get people in, so I tend to go with Raging Bull; we could have done with these 'four pointers' further down the track. However they are where they are, so we'll need to get stuck in.

I am pleased we have early games against relegation fodder. We should be looking to get maximum points against these teams and begin to effectively click in time for the more competitive teams.
In addition we might have clearance for overseas signings by then in addition to quality super league loans.
We can afford to lose only 2/3 games in the campaign to give us a chance of qualifying for the play offs.
Aim for the top. Nothing is impossible.