Ok, that's good to know.

So Brian McDermott or Brian Noble were the reason for the success of their GF winning sides then, which is odd, because their records since would suggest otherwise?

Pointless asking a question you already know the answer to. Why bother having a coach then? Do you think City would still win the league with Sam Allardyce in charge? I don’t. Right place right time for some coaches/managers admittedly, but some know when best to leave alone.

The City example is an interesting one. At the moment, there seems to be a growing consensus that Pep is the greatest coach of all time, on the basis that he takes the dominant club in each league he's managed and wins trophies.

In reality, you can't ever judge his real ability until he takes an underachieving and financially restricted club and wins trophies with them. Until then, he will always be behind the achievements of Alex Ferguson, or even Mourinhio.

Of the two mentioned, Sinfield debuted in 1997 and JJB in 1999, before DP coached Leeds in 2001. For balance, Danny McGuire and Rob Burrow did debut under DP at Leeds.

What annoys me is that Thewlis has been moved to the wing to accommodate Dufty, and Riley Dean hasn't had a fair chance to show what he can do. Wrench is only playing centre because of Matautia playing in the halves. Otherwise, he'd also be on the wing, or one of him and Thewlis either on the bench or not even in the 17. DP appears to have no trust in our talent that has come through from our academy, but trusted Holmes (for a season), and Matautia for 2 seasons, when they were quite frankly not good enough.

I've already said that I'm not debating the back in the day of other clubs, it's the issues at our club, today, that are relevant.

Goodness me, we aren't basking them to crack the enigma code or rid the oceans of plastic - we're asking them to move up quickly in a line.

I don't think the likes of Morgan Smithies are going to get headhunted by NASA but they seem able to understand.

Being a coach at the top isn’t necessarily coaching, more about managing and creating a plan.

If you watch the Smith teams of 2011/12, it’s overtly clear that the players were instructed to offload on opportunity. They were directed to pressure the kicker and try and charge down. These are obvious traits instilled by the coaches to get the best out of the players available.

If you look at the South’s team that had the 4 Burgess boys in, they had a completely different approach. There was no such push for offloads, they saw the strengths being big men running hard and playing the ball as fast as possible, no messing around.

Wane’s teams are similar. Boring to a point, as the forwards don’t do much with the ball, but suffocate you in defence. The wingers pick up the slack and do the donkey work coming away from the line. Then it’s all about shape, running the right line and the pivots waiting for the defence to guess wrong, rather than them guess right.

The problem that we’ve seen last season and parts of this, particularly in defence, is that we’re not doing the same thing. Look at Minikin for the first try on Friday. We have the numbers right, but he shoots out for no reason, with the rest holding a straight line. Same with a number of examples early in the season with Matautia and Drinkwater doing polar opposites.

These are things within the gift of a coach. It’s not as simple player doing something wrong as with a dropped ball, they are just doing something different. If everyone did what Minikin did on Friday and shot out of the line and took a man, they wouldn’t score. Human error is unavoidable, but their is evidence to suggest that the players either don’t know the plan, aren’t following the plan or struggle when under fatigue/under pressure to recall that muscle memory to get it right, which boils down to preparedness.

Was thinking this on Sunday when Green was only 18th man and Russell got the bench spot.

Some interesting points raised here.

Why do people think we won 8 on the bounce at the start of the season under Powell?
Fair enough to berate him and the team after the last 2 performances in particular but it does make me wonder why things have changed so much.
I don't think it's down to one single factor such as Makaele leaving.

Reading some old posts, I noticed that one of the things that attracted some people to Powell was he was not afraid to blood youngsters, so were they wrong or has DP changed.

Favourites - this always makes me roll my eyes.
This charge has been laid at every Wire coach (and I suspect every coach of every club) since I started watching - even TS who was one of our most successful coaches ever.
However it does seem that DP thinks the way out of our current predicament is to play seasoned professionals at the expense of 'young blood'. It seems he's not seen enough from Riley to give him a fair crack of the whip. Would we be better with Riley in the halves? I honestly don't know.
Would it be fair to Riley? Not sure, but if he has a Wire future he has to step up at some time.

Going back to the central point - do coaches make a difference - yes they should - and in numerous ways. If you've got a decent team, it's about man management, tactics and trying to improve individual and group performances by that 1-2%.

I’ve come to find slot meters unwavering support of powell hilarious and his post on pep sums up the type of person we’re dealing with

If you think my support of Powell is unwavering, then you haven't been reading my posts correctly.

(As for Pep, it's purely a personal opinion, but if you think winning trophies with the sides he has managed is a better achievement than what Ferguson and Mourinho have done, then fair enough, but I think you're wrong).

He’s trying to save face after I’ve been telling him for weeks we’re absolutely shocking and that Powell should go. He said it was all fine though because we was top. We’ll be out the top 6 in 3 weeks time maybe then he’ll see the light.

Weren’t you trying to justify how it might not be powells fault our linespeed is absolute tosh by doing the basics? Wouldn’t you say the basics of a side aiming to win silverware is making sure our defenders are running up and meeting the attackers head on set after set? Because I certainly would.

Pep has spent less than United in city’s period of dominance and they can’t get anywhere near city. Everyone will see how good pep is when he eventually leaves and the standards drop

Yes, of course the standards will drop, they will have had all the trophies took off them and hopefully relegated... #115

I think you and I both know that won’t happen, assuming you’re a United fan I can see why you’re clinging onto it, United had the treble and three in a row on English clubs and City wiped them both out in a month. Must sting.

'Trying to save face'??... my stance on Powell as always been quite clear - we finish in the play offs this season and he will get a third season. Presently, we are 2nd, whether we finish top 6 is up in the air (as it is for most sides right now).

You guys call yourselves supporters, but let's face it, you're all just waiting for him to be sacked so you can all say you told us so. Bit sad that you only become vocal when you smell the blood of someone who you decided to turn against at the earliest opportunity.

I genuinely hope we finish top 6 and he stays on merely to boil more of your knee jerking p!ss ....

Wow won’t have a word of negativity against the Wire but it’s ok for football.

Christ, please don't insult me that much....

Yeah, everybody has had a run of bad form this year and most have had a run of good results. Think how bad Hull looked a while back and Leeds losing to Wakey. Or Wigan only winning one out of five before today.

16 games gone, we've lost 5.

Genuine question. Do you believe we will win a GF under Powell this season or perhaps in 2024?

I personally hope he does, but deep down I don't really believe it.

For the avoidance of doubt I'm not calling for his head unless the Top 6 is in serious doubt.

This season, almost definitely not. I think it's always been a 3 year plan.

As for next season, who honestly knows - I've learnt not to get my hopes up (the pessimist is never disappointed, as Sophie Ellis Bextor once sang - she must be a Wire fan too

), but if we didn't I'd probably be as vocal as anyone on here to say he'd have to leave.

He's an Everton fan which explains the clear acceptance of mediocrity.

As an Everton fan I know about how pointless and damaging it is sacking managers at the whim of moron fans who their pants everytime they have a few bad results, or believe they have a manager who isn't good enough for their club...

The coach is important but just as important to a successful team is the type of leaders within the team and the relationship that the coach has with those players.
Take Melbourne as an example. You can see the type of relationship that Bellamy had with Cameron Smith when Smith overtook Bellamy's try scoring record. Bellamy speaks very highly of Smith and Smith made sure that standards were maintained across the playing group.
Take Saint Helens. Roby is that leader and commands the respect because of who he is, how he conducts himself and what he has achieved. As well as being the best hooker in the comp for 15 years he is a great leader. If saints had not had Roby for the last 4 years I doubt they would have 4 in a row (maybe 2 in that time)

We all know the leaders at Wigan and Leeds when they had success.

I get the feeling that Powell thought that McGuire was going to be that leader. Somebody that would not accept others not giving 100%

but that fell to pieces in that friendly against Leigh.

We have signed some fantastic players like Clark and Williams but even Williams has admitted that he is not a natural leader.
If Powell is here for a while then he needs to identify a leader(s)within the group and start to build that relationship. Talk to them, listen to their ideas and concerns and start to build leaders who will not accept stands dropping.

I know people still have doubts but I would be leaning on Danny Walker as one of those players to lead on the field. If he is not at the point quite yet to lead he will be in the future.

Very good points. I agree that leaders on the field are huge and identifying them is a big part of the coaches job. Again I will bang on about Ratchford and Matautia who are not only NOT leadership material but poor ability wise as well - those are poor choices by the coach. Ratchford even managed to talk Powell out of dropping him at one point last season - that's just weak. Powell also brought Holmes along to be a leader - he was more interested in his campervan and playing wise was dreadful. So on a crucial aspect of coaching - identifying leadership - Powell is failing miserably.