It’s called having a bit of light hearted humour on a Tuesday afternoon.

FWIW I rate Powell. I think it’s a good appointment and I’m looking forward to seeing what he can do with a better squad and resources.

If he brings Trueman with him I’ll be elated.

Perhaps we also need some refreshment to our scouting set up to provide the calibre of player that Powell can improve & get the best out of instead of signing our usual overrated journeymen.

Now official.

Be interesting to see if he brings his own team in, or we go again with Henderson, Briers et al

Is this really (I mean, really) not going to happen until next year? It's going to be very strange for both coaches, but particularly Powell as the season progresses and both teams go through ups and downs.

IMO he will bring in his own team... which I think is good for the club. Briers is quite rightly a Wire legend... but he needs to move on. (Maybe coming back in 5 - 10 years as a head coach).

If nothing else he should get us playing in a way where you won't feel conned out of your hard-earned.

Actually he'd get more credit from me for keeping much of the same set up IF he judges it to be up to standard and he delivers.

I don't think any of us know what role/scope/influence Hendo and Briers have with SP.
Similarly for the rest of the back room staff.

I've no problem if he brings one or two new faces in in the backroom if he judges they wil add value.

Hendo did well at London before coming here and I think he'd be disappointed at not having been given a shot as head coach. Possibly that was the original intention when he joined but even though we've won trophy under SP I think we've gone backwards since the last year of TS.
Therefore with all the investment that's gone in I can understand why they wanted a proven pair of hands.

Hendo could end up as head coach of Cas! Who knows.

For me Briers needs to eventually go elsewhere to prove himself (similar to Cull) if he wants to be head coach.

I'm a lot happier than I was before the Powell appointment was announced.

I think we need to allow Powell to decide on his backroom really, hopefully he will want to work with Briers and Henderson but he needs to be backed to be successful and that includes the backroom staff IMO.

Henderson may well want to move on to become a head coach elsewhere, Anderson could possibly be promoted to first team as well. I certainly don't hold any of the current coaching staff outside of Steve Price accountable for our poor performances and I wouldn't be heralding them as the reasons we win trophies if we pick up silverwear, the buck stops with the head man.

I can assure you this hasn’t been the case at Cas since 2017.
For the last few seasons our style has been pretty basic and pretty easy to nullify. In 2017 we had naturally attack-minded players in Hardaker, Gale, Benny Roberts and McShane. Even our props could offer a ball-handling threat.
In 2018, 2019 and 2020 we were pretty predictable and easy to defend. Shut down our left-edge and we offered very little. This year looks a bit more positive with Evalds at full-back, but we’re still not offering much attacking threat.

Ouch. Hit us when we’re down.

Sounds very familiar

2014 Challenge Cup final - dismal.
2014 - one win to finish top and we were awful.
2014 play-offs - hammered both games.
2015 - didn’t make the play-offs.
2016 - didn’t make the play-offs.
2017 Grand Final - say no more.
2018 SL final elimination play-off - nilled.
2019 SL semi-final elimination play-off - nilled.
2020 - abysmal. 2 wins from 11 games after the re-start. If the season hadn’t been so disrupted, I think some might have been calling for Powell to go.

We have been dire in big games. Arguably, the only one we have won was the 2017 SL semi-final and we were lucky then - St Helens scored more tries and if they had kicked any of the (fairly easy) conversions we would have lost.

Having said that, I don’t think we would have been in those games without Powell.

The only finals we'd have made in that time without Powell would have been the MPG.

Was the cup quarter or semi in 2014 not a big game ? The playoff win over Warrington 2019 ?

The amount of players who've left in his tenure and he's kept us consistent and in and around the top 5 every year (bar last year's joke season), losing Chase, Carney, Clark, Solomona, hardaker, Gale etc.

Not sure what your game is or if you blanked out years 2002-2013 and what it was like watching Cas pre Powell...

I said quite clearly that I’m not sure we would have made those games without Powell.
The cup semi in 2014 was against a very weak Widnes team who had an easy ride to the semi.

Sally pretty much summed up my thoughts.

Wane and McDermott have the trophies, but they inherited the 'system' that was already built at those clubs. Powell on the other hand, has a pedigree of improving every club he's coached at. And he's done it with limited resources with players who wouldn't otherwise be looked at by 'big' clubs.

I also have no problem with him bringing along his coaching team, no matter what demeanour they may display. My only remaining wish is that he manages to lure Trueman along to build our future team around.

We have some great young stars in the making at Warrington, and Powell is the perfect man to get that missing link going. Riley alongside Trueman, Ashton, Thewlis, King and Roebuck in the backs and Butler, Robson, Longstaff, Doro learning from the likes of Cooper, D Clark (hopefully) and Philbin. What's not to like? And an entertaining brand of rugby to boot...

This is the most positive I've felt as a Wire fan since about 2013.

On the negative side i now have to keep an eye on the results of 2 coaches this season and panic at every defeat for 2 teams!

Assuming that this has been under discussion for some time and Price already jumped before the season started, you have to wonder why it wasn’t in place 3 weeks ago before the season started. Admittedly it would have us with no preseason with Powell but I would have preferred that to a season with Price.

Price is just ‘kin awful

Should make our game with Cas, on 22 May, at HJ, with some fans back in, a bit spicy !

When Cas beat us and the fans end up cheering Powell's name? Probably will be a very awkward night for Price.

In other news today Wane announced an England squad minus Trueman who has been superb so far; so maybe there's a little clue that even allowing for his reputation for promoting youth, Wane has a conservative side.

Powell probably ticks more boxes than Wane EXCEPT the big game wins. But as has been mentioned, so did TS with a team that was streets ahead of most. Powell will probably have as much to prove as the players, to shed himself of the nice on the eye but no threat tag, so he'll be fully motivated.

And finally, I hope Powell doesn't bring Trueman with him - I hope he turns Riley Dean into his equal.

Great post, you have summed up my views entirely, except that I would like to see Riley Dean playing alongside Truman, as Warrington`s long term halfbacks.

No smoke without fire at Cas


Trueman will be coming too.


Not bothered about Trueman because players come and go and we've done fine cos we've still had Powell. From October we won't and I really do fear for us. Nothing lasts forever. Think I hoped he would leave for the national side eventually. I'm absolutely sure he will win plenty with you in 3 years. Though I really do think your pack needs some work.

I'd probably say it's your best chance to keep clark too.

^^^ THIS ^^^

I wonder how much influence Powell will have on the below list of out of contract players and if any will get a second chance


Greg Inglis, Tom Lineham, Toby King, Blake Austin, Chris Hill, Jason Clark, Jake Mamo, Sitaleki Akauola, Danny Walker, Samy Kibula, Matty Ashton, Nathan Roebuck, Riley Dean, Eribe Doro

King is a cert unless he's got.NRL aspirations

For me I'd go Mamo, Roebuck, Dean, Walker, Ashton

Maybes - Austin (pending if he gets his mojo back) & Akoala (shoot me, I've got a soft spot for the big fella and frankly don't value Price's opinion on him too much). Though if the latter hardly plays this year for anyone, I'll concede it's then likely too big a gamble

There have been previous rumours that Powell wanted to bring Lineham and Mamo to Cas at various points.