In all honesty we don't really know the cause of the decline this year. Is it Tony Smith wishing he wasn't here or player discontent ,of which there must have been plenty simmering in the dressing room over the last few seasons. Chris Hicks being displaced in favour of Joel M., Wood & Higham seeing their haciendas, Ben Harrison being airbrushed from the player squad the shabby treatment of Carvell who was as good if not better than most of our current forwards.Players reportedly not seeing eye to eye with the manager . We probably won't know the cause for a few weeks ,if ever ,but we can only give the new coach a clean slate & judge on what differences have come about in 2018.

I think this is one thing us fans, or converted supporters, can all agree on.

We all want the Wire to be successful, we may disagree on the methods, but at heart we want the same thing.

You have both enjoyed his post match interview dross this year then?

My comments were around the fact that JH gave a very honest interview pay match interview in defeat, without coming out with all the external variables ref, training was good, allowed an off week etc which contributed to defeat.

I don't think anyone has. By class I thought you were inferring to his actions and comments towards opposition teams and their players. Which I think he's always been very good at.

Yes he gets repetitive in his after match comments, but worth remembering just because that is what he is communicating externally, doesn't mean he's saying the same to his players when he gets them in on Monday morning.

I actually thought Smith was usually very fair to the opposition in post match.

To be clear, my original post on this thread was praising the post match actions of JH. I was very impressed with the manner in which he took the defeat. A lot of other coaches both in league and other sorts could learn from this guy

Been very impressed with him. In 6 months he's taken Saints from 10th to *should be* Grand Finalists if Percival could kick. Interested to see what he'll be like with a full pre season under his belt.

Were they 10th or 7th? I read back the report of him signing last week, they said 7th, but I guess they could have dropped a few places by the time he arrived in the UK - seem to remember there being a bit of a delay...?

Yes he's done well. I think most Saints fans will be pleased with him given their improvement, given we've not been in the same comp for 2 months I'm not sure whether their style of play has improved, I know they faced much criticism of that under Cunningham.