That Hull KR team would have been trounced by every SL club bar Wakefield last night.
Yet another damming result. The lack of weight going forward and the lack of defensive organisation sickens me.
Quite simply this team is playing worse than that of Steve Anderson’s era.

We have a 2 win cushion and points favoured on Wakey, we’ve six games to go…we’ve four games if things stay as they are to be more but for mathematics safe.
I’m no longer looking Wire wins, as I can see any coming, I’m looking at a Wakefields fixtures to see how hard it is for them to catch us up.

By the way, we can compare 2/3 of a season against Smith and Price.

Smith after 20 games - 11 Wins (23-22 Average Score)
Price after 20 games - 13 Wins (23-18 Average Score)
Powell after 20 games - 7 Wins (20-24 Average Score)

I do agree that he should get another season, provided we stay up. Since he will have no excuses next season as it will be near enough his full imprint.

But you can definitely compare his time to others.

Great stats because Price and Smith were also doing a complete overhaul of culture and players.

How many times are people going to state that complete overhaul was not needed to change the culture and remove the "bad apples" (how many are now actually convinced there were bad apples now)
He'll. I don't even think we needed a culture change. It ment butchering the club.
I'm pretty sure that we just wanted a few tweaks here and there to move us onto the next level. To dove us the drive to succeed.

Now we are in a relegation dog fight. And that's rhe cold hard truth. No more butchering. No more playoff talk. This is serious. this is as close to 2002 as relegation dog fights go.

I don't care about overhauls gazwire. I care about this club and not being relegated over something that in all fairness. Didn't need to happen to such a extent.
I ask again. Who bins off and forces out the top try scorer of the club this season. (And possibly the whole of superleague at that point) mid season? It was funny at the time. Not so much now.

There is a change needed now. And you seem the only one blind enough to back the coach. I myself backed Powell. Friday was enough and the tipping point.

You really are deluded and a sandwich short of a picnic

It's not just Powell who identified the need for culture change, the board have brought him in and backed him to do it on the back of underachievement. The fans have expressed this too and the constant decline has manifested into declining attendances.

You've written that I'm the only one [ublind[/u enough to back him. Yet on another thread it is clearly apparent that people are split on keeping Powell 50/50 so far. Thanks for providing everyone with a great example of your idiocy. .

No wonder the quotation and use of statistics is so rank on here with observations such as yours.

Smith did overhaul the culture, he moved on Gleeson and put a rocket up Briers, turned his career around. He also worked with “bad apples” Matt King and Michael Monaghan which enabled them to become superb players for the club and well respected professionals.

Some coaches can work influence positive behavioural change, Smith did this really effectively. Powell has gone with the baby/bath water approach.

The player turnaround under Smith was not as radical as under Powell.

I do agree though that Powell has made mistakes and has probably gone in too harsh on some. That said though, if certain players aren't willing to accept change, then he hasn't got much choice.

You say he turned around King and Monaghan - they were hardly long standing stalwarts at the club. Powell is having to shift a whole bunch of stalwarts who've been central to the complacency problem. I don't see it as an entirely fair comparison but it is a good one.

Perhaps Smith was more positive. Perhaps those players were more malleable - it's hard to know.

Also, when Smith took over, we hadn't won anything, so expectations were lower - he hardly had a smooth ride either at first but we had a great CC run and win so there was a quicker turnaround. (I seem to remember).

I’m a huge Smith fan, but it’s worth noting that Smith had the benefit of inheriting a team of great players in their prime. I think any good coach could have turned that squad into winners, not to take anything away from Smith of course who did an amazing job from 2009-2013.

The Warrington squad at the start of 2022 had one good half back in his prime, and one very good forward at the end of his career, so it’s a bit difficult to compare. If Smith had left HKR to join us with our 2022 squad, I think we’d be having similar threads and asking why we brought him back. We’d probably be safe from relegation but looking non-starters for competing for trophies at any point soon. It’s not like our squad was significantly stronger than HKR’s this season.

If Powell can’t arrest the decline by next season, I wouldn’t be averse to bringing Smith back in some capacity, as we will have a fairly decent squad by then. We might fare better by scouting the NRL assistants though, as much as I was against this at the end of Price’s reign.

Not sure on either of the last two posts. Smith walked into a club that were perennial underachievers, and turned them into winners. Without a pre-season, without wielding the axe, without causing mass unrest. He came in, united the group and coached them to be a successful team.

The 2009 squad was a decent squad, but not exactly full of stars. A few headline players (Morley, Monaghan and Westwood at the time) with a number of players who were staring down the barrel of wasting a career (Briers, Clarke) and some old pro’s that were once good players but could have easily been moved on without too much unrest (Johnson, V Anderson, Rauhihi, Reardon)

At that time, early 2009 pre-Smith, that squad wouldn’t be at the standard of our 2021 squad. It’s just that Smith squeezed some value out out Harrison, Grix, Riley and Cooper that the squad did ok. Could at McCarty in too, but more of a cameo.

The point is, Smith took on a squad that couldn’t get the win, with a notorious culture and a number of ‘bad apples’. He got the group to work, to buy in to his philosophy and to win. I’ve not so far seen any evidence that Powell has, is or can do the same.

That’s a very fair post, Powell has adopted the different more hard fisted approach of “my way or the highway”. A certain section of society would call for that and rejoice in it, scant evidence that it’s working at the moment though. Maybe he’ll be more nuanced next season eh?

And this is the problem - you've nailed it here. And this same squad which you rate better than the 2009 squad has been rank for 6/7 years under 3 different coaches, one of whom ironically was Tony Smith - this is why we need a culture change. Whilst Powell has obviously made some mistakes, I'd rather trust Powell, than the players under a new coach, to eventually get it right once he's had sufficient time for the new squad to settle, now that the stalwart players who were unwilling to change have been moved on. There are so many ins and outs that I don't think any manager would be finding it easy. You're probably going to say 'why aren't players' like Holmes performing', and I would agree that this does seem puzzling.

If he doesn't he's gone surely?

I don't think Smith was the best at building a squad/ team but getting the best out of an under performing team I dont think there is anybody better. If Powell hasn't got a tune out of them by easter I would back Tony to come and pick us uk for the rest of the season 100%, the hard work in squad building has been done for him, I'm not sure it's right long term though.

Regarding the 2009 squad that smith inherited, that's far, far better than we have now. They were massively underperforming but very, very talented players. There are some parallels to now for sure in terms of squad and performance.

WOLVES SQUAD NUMBERS FOR 2009.

1 Stuart Reardon.

2 Paul Johnson.

3 Martin Gleeson.

4 Matt King.

5 Kevin Penny.

6 Lee Briers.

7 Michael Monaghan.

8 Adrian Morley.

9 Jon Clarke.

10 Paul Rauhihi.

11 Louis Anderson.

12 Ben Westwood.

13 Vinnie Anderson.

14 Mickey Higham.

15 Paul Wood.

16 Garreth Carvell.

17 Steve Pickersgill.

18 Mike Cooper.

19 Chris Riley.

20 Simon Grix.

21 Matty Blythe.

22 Lee Mitchell.

23 Chris Hicks.

24 Ben Harrison.

25 Chris Bridge

BarbedWire is bang on the money re: Smith. You want to talk about bad apples? The Cullen squad was an insult to professionalism, an open shop of p*** takers.

He inherited far worse problems than Powell did but he unified the dressing room with an arm around the shoulder rather than a slap in the face and the players responded.

Looking at it now, I think you're right in terms of squad quality - better in 2009.

What I will say is though, most of that talented 2009 squad weren't stalwarts, it was a relatively fresh squad. Up until now, most of our 'bad apples' have been around for longer than those players, so the entrenched culture within the squad is harder to remove imo.

Another arm round the players type coach has been been mentioned. Price and Smith fall into this category, so maybe the board thought we needed a different type of coach because it hasn't worked too well.

The elephant in the room is the lack of quality players knocking about. . Apart from Saints & Wigan ,who manage to attract the best available or get the best out of what is available , the rest of the teams are scratching around among mainly average players made up of not much better than reserve grade material or alternatively old stagers who've seen their best days but still have something to offer. The pool of competitive players is too small these days to find hidden gems for everybody & generally what comes from Oz is only here for the money or to get themselves noticed for a better gig back home.

So who do you say are/were the bad apples Gazwire? Who in the squad was holding us back with their attitude the past 6/7 years?

The other relevant factor is TS didn't replace Cullen, he replaced Lowes. There may have been some players who had a residual loyalty to Cullen but I doubt many or any had any attachment to Lowes. So when TS came in the reaction was probably positive throughout the squad.

It’s not really about who had what when, it’s about now. Can a coach get the best out of the group > Yes/No. If no, why? Fix that issue. Can the coach now get the best out of the group > Yes/No.

The issue has been fixed, the apples are good. Can the coach NOW get the best out of the group.

No. The pack is peas poor.

Spot on about the lack of quality players. That's the reason it is IMPERATIVE to employ a damn good coach.

I think the pack (bar the second row which is the real issue) did a decent job getting us downfield on Friday. That game could’ve been put to bed in the first 15/20 minutes. I found the utter cluelessness in attack mostly through Ratchford’s ponderous hands to be the main problem. Matautia and Holmes were also culpable at stopping dead any semblance of a promising move.

I don't know for sure tbh. But to have a squad full of either internationals or players who were top/topish at their clubs before signing; for them to be failing in 2 finals against lesser squads on paper; and to be knocked out in 3 1st round encounters to even lesser teams on paper: there is something consistently amiss.

I think the 2009 squad had players enjoying a few too many pints and having a good time. The problem seems to be different with this squad - it's as if they're happy to earn a good wage and reach retirement. I think it's easier to change the first (drinking) culture with some encouragement but harder to ask, in effect, semi-retired players to return to full commitment. I also think that our players, being so long in the tooth, are more stubborn and resistant to change and its been extremely fractious.

It's a really tricky one and well brought up by Barbed Wire.