I haven,t RED too much into that

No.

it must have been the dye getting in their eyes and could not see properly. poor old whinos.

Poor attitude from Leeds from the kickoff. Sts the opposite - the players really had to come out firing to show why they wanted Simmons out. They did that and fair play to them.

Anyone who believes Simmons wasn't the issue is delusional at best. If Royce was still in charge, we'd have never played like that, no.way on earth. We'd have had Lomax and Gaskell in the halves, Makinson on the wing, Meli in the centres, Wheeler in the 20s, TP at prop, Wilkin at Second Row, Clough at Loose, and the final piece - Hohaia on the bench, with no size in the other three subs.

I don't think kc and rush have coached the team to play that way, I just think they've removed the over cautious tactics of Simmons. I don't think we'd see so many offloads all year as tonight, and not once the "lomax, gaskell, wellens" move, which was so obvious, and desperately showed wello's pace up!

Somebody said our only tactic of five drives and see how far gaskell can hoof it was all we had.

Anyone criticising the decisions to remove Royce has gone strangely quiet. One swallow doesn't make a summer, but I'm 100% sure, we'd have never played like that tonight under Simmons [size=50(ref Paul Shorpe)[/size

Great win by Saints, who made some massive changes to their side to bring a lot more experience in. Leeds looked out of ideas, although without Maguire it's easy to see why.

Leeds play it up the middle all day and rarely went out wide on Saints, this suited Saints quite well who just played a very compact defence knowing they would rarely trouble them on the wings.

Good to see Ade playing again, have always thought he was underrated as a player, whilst not a world beater he's defo one of the 10 best wingers in the SL in my opinion.

What about those who believe that the players attitudes towards Simmons was the issue?

Saints ran and defended with more belief and commitment last night than they have all season. Those aren't things that you can coach, they're inside the player and it's up to them to make sure they deliver it every time they pull on the shirt.

If Saints are capable of backing up that performance, then the next time some of their first team squad look in the mirror I hope they see Royce Simmons standing behind them shaking his head.

But its the coach's job to get the best out of his squad of players, isn't it?

It's the player's job to put in 100% percent every day, whether you're training or playing, irrespective of who the first team coach is.

Looking at that performance last night, every single Saints player did just that.

Can you honestly say in that case that they've been doing it for the last 8 weeks?

Granted they did play with a lot to prove last night and yes they are profesional and should play there best every week but it dosn't always happen? it's upto the coach to get the best out of them and Royce was to nice for me?

If you've ever worked for a manager/supervisor that was rubbish you would know that statement to be not true.

Aye. Motivation and respect for your boss is one of the biggest "key performance indicators" there are.

So you're saying that their performances up to this weekend were deliberately poor, so that Royce was given the boot.

No.

But if a person goes to their regular job with the mindset that they aren't going to perform but instead let someone else do the work or just let the job go to rot then it is highly likely that person will eventuallly be disciplined and possibly fired.

Unfortunately, so-called professional players do not get fired for giving out very unprofessional performances, as per the senior players at Saints over the few weeks Roby was absent. And instead of disciplining the players, McManus sacked the coaching team; the same coaching team who enabled a 10 week winning run last season to get into the GF, and be in a winning position, with awful injuries and a number of off field issues to deal with.

What if half of the entire department was underperforming, workers that you know have shown a lot of quality in the past? Surely you'd have to wonder whether there was something wrong with the supervisor rather than the workers, especially if that supervisor admits on record to not knowing what his team are doing.

Nope, that's just crazy talk.

Spot on. But lets not blame the players. And for anyone saying Simmons is to blame, did you have access to the team briefs and training sessions?

No I wouldn't because I know people well. I know about gang mentality, for example.

I would meet with everyone individually and establish their perspective. There could be grievances (bruised egos being typical, especially if I was rotating the more attractive responsibilities), external pressures, misunderstandings or lack of communication on both or one side.

But he wasn't rubbish really was he? He got Saints to a GF and a CC semi despite having most of his first team squad unavailable for large parts of the season and he also put a lot of faith in the young players that have done so well in the last 12 months and to be frank they repaid him by playing like they couldn't be d. The recruits he's brought in on big money have also let him down.

Simmons was a well respected player with a good coaching record and he seemed like a good bloke. IMO the players let him down at the end.

You wouldn't even consider it a possibilty?

I would consider ALL possibilities.

Well, you do seem so open to reason.

I am.

The world has yet to hear about the person who gave 100% for every single second of their working life yet we appear to expect RL players to be outside of the norm just because they are paid to play sport. They are human beings exactly the same as you or I with hopes, dreams, habits, behaviours, motivations etc that are similar if not the same.



It doesn't matter whether you think he's rubbish or not. If as you're suggesting (and there is no evidence to support that viewpoint) the players didn't respond to his coaching then you have to consider possible reasons from both sides and not just from the coach's POV. Motivation isn't just geeing the lads up during oranges for ten minutes, it comes down to lots of things and one of these is actual development. I'm not saying this is the case (because there are a thousand other scenarios out there) but using it as a feasible example. I've worked under with bosses who are nice but have no idea what they're doing and what usually happens is that their gets demotivated, dispirited, disillusioned etc. If there's no improvement an organisation will normally make a decision to replace that person. There are times when player power should prevail but sincerely doubt that Saints haven't thought this through thoroughly. If Brown is announced as coach within the next few days (as Andy Wilson appears to be suggesting) then there's a good argument out there to say this was more pre-planned than first appeared.