Smith was a busted flush for years before the board acted.

Yes indeed, the fans will just walk on by...

It appears that they did last night

Pedant mode on.

Surely it was Hugh Cornwell not Jean Jacques Burnel.

Pedant mode off.

Was that the lowest league crowd ever at the HJ ?
Wouldn't imagine KF and SM laughing at that

Would i like a new coach - Yes
Will i be calling for Price's head - No

Had we lost the cup final then we would have a case... But you cant sack a man who has just delivered a trophy.

Having said that, i dont see anything other than more lacklustre displays next season.... But he has earnt the right to be the coach at the start of next season.... like it or not.

Have we actually had a cup game with a lower crowd than that at the HJ?

Talking heads and road to nowhere would be more apt

No, JJ sang that one.

Jean Jacques and Hugh were both vocalists with the Stranglers, the former sang Something Better Change, Five Minutes, and Go Buddy Go! There's a video from '77 showing JJ singing at the Hope & Anchor on youtube.

I agree. Price has earned the right to put this right. We are a still a lot further ahead (and a trophy richer) than the club he joined. But put it right he must.

I disagree strongly with the criticism of Toby King. He is a very good defensive centre and came up with another trysaver last night (after three in the cup final). Do either of our centres get enough decent ball to work with? Absolutely not.

Therein lies the problem. I think centre and I think of attack not defence. Genuinely what/when were these trysavers at Wembley? Watched it umpteen times and don't recall them. Put him in the second row I think he'd do better there.

Continuing the musical theme, anyone know the artist and title of the tune played at half time. slightly rappy, with a funky sound.

If we are questioning coaches. What does Henderson do exactly? It is difficult to criticise the backs too much when our attacking structure and game plan are so dire. Having said that King is part of the general problem of lack of pace in the team. Lack of pace has been a problem for years and that hasn’t been addressed. Look at Mamo yesterday. He’s not the greatest player to walk the earth but he’s bar far the quickest player in the squad and his pace at least gave Cas something to worry about.

It’s difficult with Patten but Price has made a mistake. He’s nowhere near good enough and yesterday was probably his worst performance. Dean probably should have been given a try instead of Smith. He’s probably too young and raw but maybe he could have been ok with a few games under his belt.

I agree I think Toby King is a decent centre and gets some unfair criticism on here, he’s scored the same amount of tries as Goodwin and provided a lot more assists then Bryson has this season, he probably defends better than him also. There has been bigger issues to deal with other than singling out specific players, when the vast majority of the squad has underperformed recently.

The only player I have an issue with is Patton he shouldn’t be anywhere near a team challenging for a championship and thankfully that is getting sorted next season with Widdop. He’s had enough chances now and it’s the right time for the club to let him explore other avenues, RU awaits.

Patton now being linked with Sale Sharks!!

To be fair Goodwin was poor at the start before his future was sorted. It’s all well and good quoting tries scored and assists. I’d like to see the m made, breaks, tackle bust stats!!

Plus when your only tactic is hoof it to King on the last tackle he’s bound to score the odd try!

You really don’t like people daring to hold a different opinion from yours do you?
I would let Price go based on the second half of the season, however I would question LG’s criticism of Briers on the basis of how does he know what he does or doesn’t do?
So where does that leave me on your happy clapper scale?

Go on then, I'll take a wild stab in the dark at Briers' input the team, since 2013

a) coaching attacking plays
b) inputting his thoughts to Patton (well that worked well), Brown, Austin, Dean, and in the past O'Brien, Gidley, Myler etc.since his retirement
c) giving his pearls of wisdom from the touchline, while the attackmeister sits in in his crow's nest.

I await your thoughts on Briers' role in the last 6 seasons, CH.

Briers coaching achievements don't match the assistants at Leeds or Wigan, do they? Time for him to move on, I think. Probably best for all concerned. We don't owe the fella a living

I don’t get this point, he’s not taken us ‘further ahead’, just to another GF loss. The only way we can go further ahead is to WIN the damn thing. Til then we’re treading water winning the cup which we already won 3 times under Smith.

My point was that it’s All guesswork as far as assistant coaches are concerned.
Take Saints as an example, Long was assistant to Cunningham and they stank to high heaven. He was assistant to Holbrookand suddenly they are playing expansive rugby.
You criticise Briers for the lack of improvement in Patton when you have said for a long time how poor Patton is.
Why criticise Briers and not Henderson?
I’m not saying Briers is a good coach, I haven’t a clue but unless you have more to base your opinion on, I can’t see how you can make a judgement.

Lee Briers played in benefit match for Liverpool St Helens RUFC this year with Martin Gleeson, Long, Wellens, and some international players from RU. Lee outshone the rest by far. I don't think he's the type to rest on his laurels.

It's a bit harsh to describe winning the Challenge Cup as 'treading water'. It's a big achievement to win a Challenge Cup, even if the team has done it before. We went 35 years without winning one.

However I do agree with your general point. For me the statistic that illustrates it is doing a before-and-after comparison over an equivalent time period. Since Steve Price has been coach we've played 62 SL games (including playoffs/GF). If you compare those to the last 62 games under Tony Smith you get:

Price P 62 W 35 D 1 L 26 F 1510 A 1133
Smith P 62 W 38 D 3 L 21 F 1590 A 1258

The points against column looks better. You also have to take in to account the fact that 4 of those games under TS came in the 'qualifiers' against Championship teams.

However the improvement overall over that time period has been pretty small. Considering that this comparison period was the time when it was generally felt that the TS era had gone stale and we were in need of a change, it is disappointing.

It doesn't feel like we have moved forwards. I haven't gone through the St Helens record but I bet you would see a much starker contrast between the before and after periods for when Justin Holbrook took over.

If we had kept TS would anyone have been really surprised if we'd recorded the results that we got over the past two years...made a couple of finals and lost them, then got a win again at Wembley but bombed out of the playoffs. The discussion on here would have been yes TS has won Challenge Cups but he's not the man to take us to the next level and win the Grand Final, recruitment has been poor, the rugby is boring. Basically we are still having that discussion but we have changed the name TS for Steve Price.

Good post. 35 wins from 62 (56%) is an abysmal record I am afraid with the wealth of riches at his disposal.
Tony managed 152/225 (68%) over his period and that's with the bad runs in his last years.

We are going backwards with Price. What is most disappointing is everyone knows how 2020 is going to pan out if they are being honest with themselves.

Our board are rightly lauded for their investment, but their ability to foster a winning RL side and culture is sadly lacking no matter how many millions they have offshore.

To me the question is simple - Is Price the best option we can possibly take for 2020 when considering the worldwide talent pool ...?

Yes that is absolutely the question.

It involves various factors - who is available and who wants to come. Remember after TS we were linked with Michael McGuire, Des Hasler, Garth Brennan, Geoff Toovey, Dean Pay but one by one they all disappeared from the running. It may be that realistically we are not a club who is going to land an established, proven NRL coach but would be a club that an Aussie assistant would see as a good opportunity to prove themselves and build their CV before applying for jobs back home, following the well worn path of Michael McGuire, Trent Robinson and Holbrook.

But taking a shot on one of those involves risk as they are unproven and there have been a lot of Aussie assistants that came to the UK and were just average.

There's also the factor of a new coach having a new style of play, so needing time and salary cap space to bring in their own players, whereas Price has at least been building something in his own image in the last couple of years.

So it is not a slam dunk that we would be better off by making a change in this point, just like we haven't improved much since making the TS change. Tim Sheens was on the 5 live rugby league show last summer and talked about the 3 year cycle for a coach - usually first year he gets patience unless things are really bad, second year people start to expect more, and if the jury is still out on him by the start of the third year he better start well else he will be gone. That's where I think Price is, the first half of next season will be key. If we have form similar to the second half of this season and are running 7th/8th by mid season I think he will go. The tricky one will be what happens if we just basically repeat this season but without the Challenge Cup, make the playoffs but don't make an impact there. If I was CEO I'd be scouting out who would be available to take over in 2021 so if we are in that situation we can hopefully have someone good lined up, rather than just rolling the dice by sacking and seeing who is available at the time.

To put things in perspective though, if that happens and we did sack Price at the end of next year, he would still be the second most successful coach we'd had since the 1970s.

Less 'treading water'...more a pair of armbands