So.

Anyone still think it was right to keep Smith until the end of the season seeing what Holbrook has done with Saints?

What an unholy mess we've put ourselves in.

Keep on happy-clappin' folks...

When Saints sacked Cunningham, they put themselves in a position where due to the lack of established credible names they had to take a punt on a lower grade coach from Australia.

We are in the same position now which is what you probably refer to as an unholy mess.

Holbrook has done well and transformed Saints in the second half of the season but its easy to say this in hindsight - early season when Smith's critics were calling for him to be sacked, who honestly was saying we should appoint Holbrook? How many had actually heard of him before Saints appointed him? It was mostly people calling for Michael Monaghan or Brett Hodgson or Geoff Toovey.

Warrington may end up with an appointment that matches or surpasses Holbrook's achievements, we won't know till next season.

We were fooked by early May.
Even Tony Smith's mum could see the writing was on the wall.
We did nowt.

On Holbrook.
He's took a side that was in freefall, to within 30 seconds of the GF. I only hope our new incumbent can do better

It was merely new ideas that invigorated them along with barba coming into form.

Will his plan for the future play out can and will saints get the players he wants ? Too early to say if their choice on coach is the right one but it's quite clear the timing was right.

The question should be had we made a change would be be in the middle8s or super8s ? Even if it was a case of monagahan n briers stepping in probably be in super8s

His post match interview was sign of class guy. Smith would have still be reeling off the excuses by now.

I do too because he would get a lot of stick from our fans if they went out like Saints did tonight. People would be saying is this any better than Smith if we have a coach that can't get us to the next level?

As for Castleford and Daryl Powell....Mark Percival missing kicks is the sole reason we haven't got multiple threads asking is Powell the biggest bottler coach of all time.

Last season we won LLS and made both finals and many on here deemed it an unsuccessful season. Saints get to a semi and Holbrook is the Messiah?

Was going to say that aswell,anyway that game was a credit to the sport,really enjoyed that, just a shame someone had to lose.

I think the belief was that with the talent of players at his disposal Smith should have done better, Saints will regard a semi as good in the context of what they have.

No it clearly wasnt.
but lets not blow Smoke up Holbrook's backside just yet.

the thing that kept Smith in a job was that he believed (and was factually right) that we were just a couple of wins away from getting into the top 8. I guess he had also persuaded the owners/board that this was a reality. When in fact we were truly awful.

Saints were in the same position when they sacked Cunningham.Their owner clearly didnt hold the same view that just another win or two would get them across the line and then after that hope for the best....

they saw a lame horse and shot it. We saw a lame horse and let it try and walk it off.

have Saints turned into the world beaters of past years under Holbrook? No they are just average instead of rubbish they finished 6th with just two losses less than us.

They then somehow climbed from 6th to 4th in the super 8's due largely to the dead rubber nature of some of the games. had it been knock out rugby their season would have been long over.

they won their first game of the super 8's against out of sight Cas. They then lost to all the big clubs Hull Leeds and Wigan they then scrapped a win over Wakey and then beat the two clubs with nothing to play for Hudds and salford.

Had saints got to the final it would have owed more to an astoundingly bad league structure than anything Holbrook has done. I didnt see all the game tonight but it seems to me If James Roby is in the team saints stand half a chance even if Big bird from Sesame st was coaching them.

they were really quite clueless in attack on numerous occasions and even in golden point plodded it up quite poorly.

He has some work to do......

A touch harsh, sc.
Had Cas lost tonight because Percival had his kicking boots on, instead of his wife's stilettos, I wouldn't call Powell a bottler. Let's not forget,Cas are new to this last 4 malarkey at the end of the season, SAINTS ARE BATTLE HARDENED.
That counts for a lot.
When they beat Wakey in the last seconds, a few weeks back, I said I wouldn't put it past them going all the way to the GF. Bar a brain fart from a Saints defender, and crap kicking, they'd be there.

Powell has turned his coaching career around in a couple of years. A bottler? No.He'll get better from tonight's experiences.

Would. I have him at the HJ, though????

No. I think the bloke's as big a bumhole, as his fellow Yarkshiremon, James Lowes

Or the 3rd outcome.

Lets think positive Wires71 we wouldn't want the Smith loyalists to be back on here saying "I told you so" would we.

I've jumped in with both feet already this month and regretted it, so I'm holding off here.

Not sure what you mean by this one?

Following the Wires71 test, Holbrook has failed and Saints will show they are willing to accept mediocrity if they don't sack him and get someone new in the off-season.

Been said earlier, catch up.

Give over. Maybe if he has 8 seasons and still comes up short. Not that Saints would allow that length of time to elapse due to inherent winning culture.

I am sometimes staggered at peoples inability to follow a simple, cogent, argument at times. Please tell me you can tell the difference between 8 years and 6 months.

Just part of the general abuse of Smith now that he has gone. The re writing of history on here could put the former Eastern Bloc to shame.

Where is the re-writing?
Most people are making factual comments. It would be hard to disagree that the squad has been left in a mess and we had a woeful season.

Perhaps people need counselling to accept that fact he's gone and not only that he wanted to go!

^^^THIS^^^

Of course I'm not claiming Holbrook as their messiah. I'm saying he took a bottom four team to the top four in half a season and transformed the way they play. They are invigorated and will almost certainly compete next year at the top. You could even argue that he's done more with them performance-wise than Smith did with us in his first season (despite the cup win). That's not a dig at Smith just a point I'm using.

Holbrook didn't fail to win anything after 5 years of decline, and for those using the argument of 'Saints only did well because of the league structure' well you could say the same about us last year. We were not the best team before the split (Hull were top) and the league was even less competitive last year than it is this year. And our cup run came after easy games against lower opposition, as opposed to Hull who did it the hard way.

I'm not a Smith hater, but I rue the decision to not follow Saints example when it was clear we had bottomed out after the first half of the season and would not recover....

People don't like hearing perceived negativity even if it's the reality. Same in all walks of life. People will avoid it like the plague.

Someone posted yesterday that perhaps Moran is guilty of being too loyal and too friend-like to our head coaches. I think that's accurate and could well be a blind weakness of his. I just hope he's learned from his mistakes next time around.

We need to be ruthless as a club in our quest for success. If the top down culture isn't "only the best will do", then we'll never change our mentality.

Smith has gone now, had he gone mid season we may or may not have been in a better position. We will never know. You can not simply extrapolate what happened at Saints and conclude that the same would've happened to us even if Holbrook was our coach. I now await a cogent counter view.

Of course not. I guess I didn't put my point across correctly:

Had we acted earlier I believe we may have been in a better position to recruit a new coach and rebuild the squad for 2018.

We didn't act. We look to be struggling to get the coach we want. We have lost players. We have not recruited players. We don't even know which players our new coach will want. I believe the failure to act at the time has cost us at least one whole season (201icon_cool.gif.

The best we can hope for is a reintroduction of licensing at the end of next season so our future is assured.

All fair points, but again its guesswork. We don't KNOW what's happening with player recruitment, just because there are no announcements doesn't mean they aren't sorted. Had Smith gone mid season who knows who the new coach would've been. I don't think it was unreasonable to believe that there may be more coaches willing to move at the end of the season than the middle, but that is also a guess.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing but the argument is pointless on both sides as we are where we are regardless. Let's all just hope Steve Price can attract some quality players and quickly get them to gel.