Being a young, academy product, hungry prop. Named on the bench for a local rivalry.

You watch one of the senior props go off with a HIA. You hear he's not coming back on. The team start to drop off, you think to yourself "I'm on here"

And then you turn and look at our coach, he's not interested in using 4 subs tonight, even with a man out. He'd rather let you sit in your full kit and watch a game for 80 mins.

Chin up Whitehead

Imagine ... if we all decided to start a new thread every time we had a bit of a thought about basically the same subject.

Seems to be one of DP’s idiosyncrasies- Ask Lucas Green.

The one that has me scratching my head is Luke Thomas - made a couple of appearances during “the run” (anyone remember that?) and, to my eyes, looked very promising. Now he struggles to get 18th man. I’m sure someone closer to the inner sanctum can shed some light on that.

Then of course there’s the mystery of how our academy and reserve sides function without a stand off. They must do because when the first team need one we’ll try anyone who can count to 6 rather than play 6…If Georgie fails another fitness test who’s next? I do recall DP’s interview saying Big Sam has good hands…

Perhaps it would be good to put a few more "passionate about the badge " kids out against Wakey & see how they do, It is beginning to appear that a hoped for win against Wakefield could be the zenith of the season.

Kind of a depressing thought is that. But it’s what our season as currently come down to, stories of players wanting out, the latest being Nicholson and we get no encouragement from the club other than Karl planning the next silly stunt to get the young fans in because all us older fans are near deaths door anyway

yeh all a bit depressing. So give the players that want to play for the club the town the shirt this season can’t get any worse can it ?

I think he's toast if he loses to Wakefield. He was never going if he lost to Saints and Wigan but the downward trajectory and losing against both Wakey and Cas would arguably be too much for the board to stomach.

In that, he's already shown a bit of a "meh" attitude to Green, Thomas and Whitehead so he's not going to trust them to save his job.

When was the last time we sacked a coach? Lowes 2009? It's not the Warrington way

Yep ... not the Warrington way. The coach gets changed at the end of his contract or he decides to go. But when he "decides" to go is of course open to discussion.
This isn't a new problem. I can remember individuals, bleating on about Tony Smith's selections, after match chats etc. many years ago. He is generally thought of as our best ever coach but lots thought they knew much better & wanted him sacked & kept twisting the knife. The trouble is you never know ... you might even find the next man not to your liking and let's face it ... that is very likely to happen. Those who say we couldn't possibly do worse are plain mad & don't know their sport as clubs can spiral downwards as well as improve.
I'd guess Powell will be here for another year and we may have to lump it ... but I've been wrong many times before.

I'm not in the Powell out campaign. I don't think he is going to turn it around but I can no longer summon the energy to get animated. It's more a consigned "sigh".

But as a challenge to your logic - plenty of Saints individuals "bleated on" about Cunningham in 2017. I bet they regret sacking him and wished they had honoured his contract. I mean they went on a spiral of only winning 1 WCC, 4 GF, 1CC and 3 LLS in the 6 years since he was sacked. You should have seen the coaches they got in afterwards. Mind you they probably had some visionaries on Red Vee at the time saying keep Cunningham, give him to the end of his contract to turn it around! I bet they wished they had listened to such wisdom.

I don't know how many times we need to discuss the Tony Smith departure - by his own words he had had enough and the team that Cullen built, and the superstars, had long since gone. He stayed about 2 years too long. We were stagnating and anyone could see that.

Powell had been perfectly happy giving 19/20 year olds game time - see Thewlis & Wrench who regularly got game time ahead of Lineham and Minikin (even though everyone was sure Minikin would be first pick because Powell brought him in).

If Whitehead (who isn’t a prop, but could have done a job at 13), Thomas & Green aren’t getting the same amount of game time, I’m sure he has his reasons. But he has shown he isn’t afraid to play young players if he thinks they are good enough and ready.

Riley Dean is ready enough to play for Castleford though and we are playing everyone and anyone at half.

OK he hasn't won a game since he went there on 13th June (to be fair he's played 2) but neither have we (played 5).

Of course you can sack someone and then appoint someone who has success. The trouble is there are no certainties in coaching but I'm sure you know that.

He clearly thinks he isn’t good enough as he’s had the odd chance here, and Powell has never seemed particularly impressed. I had a read on the Cas forum and a few there weren’t particularly impressed with what they saw either…

It’s a shame Hayes has been injured, would have been good to maybe get him a couple of games.

It's clear that this squad doesn't have the collective ability to compete in the playoffs, never mind win a GF. The revolving door approach to playing staff we witnessed last year, for a "root and branch" change of culture has left us no better off. I still don't trust DP to get it right, as it's his team, we are still not creative enough opportunities to score, players are being picked week in week out when they don't merit the shirt (just one part of his team selection that baffles me), and so many times we don't make full use of our bench.

I'm sure the Cas fans aren't inpressed with most of their team, they are in the bottom two for gods sake.

Point is doesn't matter is its Longstaff, Dean, Thewliss Wrench, Hayes or ANO - if you are going to pick them, drop them, shunt them round, ship them out on loan, bring them back and not play them and publically criticise them they are unlikely to prosper, are they?

But when he signed they probably thought young kid coming in with much to prove, generally positive. Not sure how he got on today, but so far the reviews on him haven’t been positive, which I can understand. Aside from a nice try against Wigan(?) I haven’t seen anything to suggest he is better than O’Brien or Patton at a similar age. I’m not saying Powell gets it right all the time - far from it and I don’t see the harm in giving Whitehead 15 mins last night for example. But I think he gives the kids a shot more than any Wire manager I can remember for a looong time.

The argument to keep with the incumbent out of fear that the next could be worse is not the most resounding endorsement I have heard. In any case the broad discussion seems to have moved from the generally supportive backing of "give him time" to a polarised "it could be worse" / "who replaces " and "get rid now".

The only certainty in Warrington coaching is that its going to be 69 years and counting at the end of the season.

It's time to roll the dice, last season was only ever going to be acceptable if it meant that this seasons team would be challengers and it just isn't. Powell and his coachjng stagg just aren't capable of turning this mess around.

This explains why we've been in a very challenging rut for some time now.

I suppose an argument to that is that as a youngster, unless you are exceptional in say a Sculthorpe or Shaun Edwards type of way, then you are going to expect to be shunted about and for it to take a while to become a 'regular'?

None of the names you mention have ever put together a consistent run of 5 or 6 good SL level performances - Thewlis, probably the best from your list, still shows signs of being a rookie at times.

Admittedly, the progress of these lads will always be erratic as long as the senior players continue to underperform. It's always a bit of a catch 22, in that young players will develop quicker in a confident, winning side, than in a side on a run like we have been.

Wrench has shown more in 5 games he’s played in than Matautia has in 2 years.

Do you really think so?... I think he looks like he has a lot of potential and in the right environment I think he can kick on to be a good SL player, but I think it's still a big ask to be relying on him - there has to be a balance of not exposing these lads and expecting too much from them too quickly.

Like I say, in a side that's performing better, then I can see an argument for him being in the side regularly, but presently, there is a risk of him being dragged down as the side misfires. Whether we like to admit it or not, a couple of errors and this forum and the terraces would soon be on his back.

That's true, and the piece I quoted from on Dodds said the same thing - Saints fans were on his back demanding he be dropped.

But the Saints coaching team stood firm
They backed him, they put an arm round his shoulder
They protected him

Us? Slag Dean off in a press conference and drop Wrench/Thewliss for Minikin at the first opportunity.

And at the same time describe the "performances" of Dudson and Matautia as class, and deem them updroppable despite damning stats.

It takes some balls from the coach to make brave decisions - and therein lies the problem generally.

Yeah he has pace, good hands, a quick turn of foot and he’s only going to get better. I genuinely cannot recall one game in the time he’s been here where Matautia has stood out. Everytime I watch him his handling is poor, he doesn’t assist or create, he doesn’t score tries, has no pace, he’s lazy in defence. I think he’s genuinely one of the worst players we have signed in the SL era.

Not me, there has to be a realisation, the same with Thewlis and Dean that these players are still young and still learning and they’ll be mistakes and a lack of inexperience along the way. You cannot however use that same arguement for ‘one of the leaders’ Matautia when he charges out the line or goes for the wrong defender like he did on Friday night to gift Wigan a couple of tries.

If I had the choice between wrench matautia it would be wrench all year long..agree the young uns will make mistakes but some of the more experienced members of our team are making more..