Agree with Biscuit and those with similar views, Agar only time will tell, assistant coaches/managers are usually not seen and not heard, this goes a lot deeper than Agar more to do with the massive change in personnel, I think Tony Smith would admit he needs time to adjust to it all.

You must be also one of the poorer sides then. Just managed to beat us at your place earlier in the season. We were in the match until the last 10 minutes or so. You were only in the match until 10 minutes before half time last Friday. You were convincingly beaten. You are admittedly two points ahead of us but we do have a game in hand. I am not saying we will finish above you but you do seem rather condescending. You obviously felt you support a top team. How the mighty have fallen. Looking at our present respective squads I believe that I know which has the most potential. It is not the mighty Wires.

And there are some on here who seriously think we are spending up to our cap...!
No way have we done so In the last 2 seasons, you only have to see you only get what you pay for.

How do we know if we are not spending to the cap if indeed that is the case?.

Spending up to the cap does not necessarily improve matters it is where you spend it that matters, although you would hope it would help. My question relating to this thread is what on earth are they practicing in training as the evidence suggests it is not attacking plays. It is all well and good for TS to advocate just playing what you see in front of you but to do that you need somebody who can improvise and guide the team around the field. With inexperienced halfs in O'Brian and now Patton they need set plays to fall back on, something we do seem to have.

Darn it ........ something we do seem to have ????..... obviously I meant "do not seem to have"

I don't think he was being condescending. We along with you are among the poorer sides in this league. We'd openly admit that. We don't think we're a top side.

I agree with the Smith and Agar apologists, lets give them 2 years in the championship ,falling gates and Gene Ormsby as club captain and part time circus performer.

You seem to have missed the point which was ....What's agar ever done? So I listed what he's done as a second in command which seems respectable to me. ...

What this wasn't was a thread where I said Warrington wolves are hot and flying high like ing majestic golden eagles soaring above the mountains with such ing beauty it would make grown men ing weep...While at the same time laughing at Hull KR.

I just said you are one of the poorer sides that's all...

wires are in fact at this present time...and you lot aren't much better. ..but over recent seasons ...The last five or so shall we say? we've been good and you haven't ...and if Willie poaching was some super coach he'd be in the nrl or at Wigan or saints.

whatever the misunderstanding it still remains agar is not our problem but recruitment and players not playing in positions they are not at.....
Oh and Roy Asotasi

Well, at least we know he's not to blame for our kicking game... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jlAeVIJfFU

Well, at least we know he's not to blame for our kicking game... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jlAeVIJfFU

Quote ="Supervegan!"Well, at least we know he's not to blame for our kicking game... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jlAeVIJfFU'" Seems to have a good relationship with the players too.....

Quote ="Supervegan!"Well, at least we know he's not to blame for our kicking game... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jlAeVIJfFU'" Seems to have a good relationship with the players too.....

Beaten by Hull KR with Willie Poching on their coaching team, I rest my case!

If Agar is our coach when Smith calls it a day then I'm off to Widnes.

The amount of injuries worry me ,it may be bad luck or it may be training and conditioning ,we are certainly not showing any signs of improved fitness

Injuries are a difficult one. No amount of training/fitness work can account for broken bones (Laithwaite, Grix & Ormsby), and Saints using Ben Evans as a giant wishbone is difficult to protect against. Hoping this has just been one of those seasons.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of Agar. But then again, he's not on my list of most hated.

BUT.
Isn't it amazing, the last derogatory post was the day before we beat Leyth.
We go on a good run of performances, and not a dickiebird. We lose a CC semi, with players plainly not interested, and a much depleted side v. Leeds, and the haters resurrect the thread. Obviously, he was on sick leave, from late June, to the day after the Cas rout.

Ah well

TS has taken the heat off Agar by becoming more visual over the last 2 months and reverted to the role of speaking to media after the game where pre summer months it was Agar.

Why should the heat be on Agar?
Smith dons a smart suit and becomes a new Tony Blair, and starts doling out media savvy soundbites, and we start looking like a RL team again. Naaaah, I don't buy it.

The scapegoating of Agar, is getting to that of Clarke (Jon)/Wainwright/ Penny (Kevin) proportions

Though it does seem to me that since Agar arrived we have lost our flair. Where is the off loading game a la Leeds? Is Agar coaching the structured approach at the expense of the expansive way we had been playing when we were winning trophies?
Just a thought.

Could it be that our expansive game is being snuffed out by opposing defences & the times when we do get the ball out it is going to ground ,into touch or not going to the correct player to make the break ?

Also, don't forget the number of times the ref has robbed us this year.

I think what we do need though,if we have the manpower,is a more aggressive defence like all the successful teams have even if we have to bend the rules like they do. An aggressive defence is a must in order to get the ball back quickly & get back on the attack. Maybe we will front up against Wigan again.

There's a direct correlation between how good results are and how often Richard Agar is mentioned on here. I can only assume he was on holiday between June 20 and July 31?

Of course, the defeat by HKR in the league, and the defeat by Leeds in the Super 8's were nothing to do with the patched up teams that we put out on both occasions. Nothing to do with the fact that in both games there were several players on the pitch that should not have been there. Stop looking for something that isn't there and get real.

I dont want to make excuses for Smith and Agar because I do think mistakes have been made in the transition from the ageing team of Briers, Monaghan, Morley, Carvell, Hodgson as follows:-
A) The moment Grix suffered his injury we should have known that we were going to be short in the back row for the best part of 12 months - Laithwaite would have been a decent back up for short injury spells in the back row but not for 12 months because if he gets injured who is his back up.
B) it was just a few weeks before the start of the season when Wood left - Other teams have brought props in mid season (Tilse and Garbutt etc) but again it was a case of we will just go with what we have got.
C) We have brought in players like Clarke and Russell that are great down the middle off a quick play the ball and I fully expected us to play more of that type of game. From the first try we scored away at Hull I was convinced that we had changed our style of play and it would be happy days but we have rarely played to our strengths but if a replacement for Wood had been found and a short term replacement for Grix then we may have been better placed to cope with injuries.

Having said all that we cannot expect Philbin, King, King, Wilde to replace the strength in the tackle of Westwood, Bridge, Atkins, Harrison and Grix. Currie is great in attack but he is no Trent Waterhouse in dominating an attacker in the tackle, Laithwaite is similar. When Waterhouse made a tackle Europe was a bit closer to America by the time the ball was played.
I was one of Coopers biggest critics back in 08/09 because he appeared just content to make a tackle and didnt put the extra effort needed to wrestle and dominate but he has proved me wrong for the last 4/5 years now.
If you watch some of the younger players when a team mate has stopped the momentum they hesitate for a split second asking themselves "do I get involved and help wrap the ball up and wrestle the player on his back or do I get back in the defensive line". Players like Harrison, Westwood, Bridge and Atkins dont even hesitate, they just get stuck in get bodies in the tackle.
Sam Wilde had less hesitation than a lot of others that have had a lot more games than him.
But it will come - Currie has had over 80 games and is still not the finished article. I am sure that all of the younger players will learn a lot from Friday. They still have a lot to learn but hopefully alongside more players with experience
It would be interesting to see how many first grade games the whole team had between them that took to the field last Friday compared to the team that took to the field in the last challenge cup final. It was a very inexperienced team that took to the field last Friday and at a guess i would say there would be about 1000 first team games worth of experience missing to the 17 players at Wembley in 2012.

Interesting you mentioned Waterhouse DDI, I think he's been missed a lot more than any of us expected.

Excellent post , explains well why the experience we've lost has been hard to replace , Brad Dwyer made a instant impact ,when replacing Higham but, I feel his inexperience is beginning to show now the pressure is on ,2 poor games on the trot ,when we could always rely on Higham for consistent performances

In Dwyer I thrust. I've lost about £100 on him so far.
Have him every week for last try scorer.

I hope he reads this post!