An interesting 20 minute TotalRL interview with Darryl Powell has popped up on YouTube:

[urlhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arYHx_kFW2Y&t=89s[/url

Really good watch that. Nice to see some questions that were a bit different from the norm.

As a player, a prime Darryl Powell would have been a quality edition to any squad, back in his day.

Nice interview. It's interesting that he talks about wanting us to be more ruthless and really go for the kill in games, because we have tailed off a few times this season when having a big lead. Leeds - 30-0 up at half time, then two tries apiece in the second half. Huddersfield and Leigh - they both scored the last two tries of the game. Cas - 38-0 up after an hour then we didn't score again in the last 20 minutes. Some might say 'so what, we're winning', but it's good that even when things are going well, he's keeping us grounded and focusing on areas in which we can improve.

I like the fact that he’s improved every club he’s gone to by changing the culture. I don’t know if he’ll be lucky enough to be the one to finally get us over the SL trophy line, but if not I’d like to think he’ll be the guy who put us in the position to finally do it, with a good culture, a spine of young quality players and a sprinkling of home grown academy stars. Similar to what he did at Leeds before Smith took over.

its a fair point, i quite like the idea that we've potentially got a few more gears to go through.
when we hit our stride in 2011 a lot of teams were beat before we stepped on the field, id like to get somwhere near that, but with some tough challenges thrown in

Agreed FMC, but as we are The Wire there are bound to be bumps along the way!

I’m not too bothered about bumps along the way. Recent history of SL suggests flat track bullies come unstuck at the final hurdle (maybe Saints were the exception last year). I like the way we’re significantly stronger than other teams, but I’d rather win it from 2nd or 3rd with a plucky victory than smash every team but come unstuck on the big day again.

At least the journey itself is entertaining with Powell’s style of play. In 2018-2019 we made three finals and won one, but were pretty dour to watch week in week out.

Yes, that's very important - and was key for me when I was looking to recruit or considering a new job offer.

Was the culture good when TS took over, or was it just that we were short on confidence?
I know he had a few run-ins early on with some players (like Rauhihi, and Briers) and he soon got his message across, but he probably was aided by having some decent senior players like Morley who had the right attitude.
If there wasn't a massive culture change, then clearly not only did we play crap footy for a few years after that (with a few exceptions like the CC final), the culture and issues of cliques developing and players becoming too big for their boots did.

Interesting how things change. Hill was there for the good and the bad, so did he get affected / moulded by the culture change?

I think TS and DP are two very different coaches. With a team of stars TS has proven that he can work his magic, although a solitary grand final win may give others an argument against that. He certainly had us playing some outstanding rugby though.

Powell on the other hand seems to be able to pick some fairly random players, rejects and misfits and turn them into a well-oiled machine, batting well above their weight. Looking at this squad before the season started, there was only really Williams, Clark and Vaughan who fans of high-ranking clubs would like to see in their team. Compare that to the star-studded line ups during our ‘glory’ period (stands by for incoming from Saints / Wigan fans) and this team looks distinctly average on paper. No one expected us to be undefeated and six points clear of the clubs fighting for 4th place.

Re: Hill. I don’t for one minute doubt his quality and commitment, nor do I think he was one of the ‘problem’ children, but I’ll make a guess and say he was set in the mould of the wrong mindset, and Powell knew his leaders had to have the key ingredient Hill was missing. Would he have been transformed under Powell? Probably, but not at the cost of his salary and two-year deal. It may well have been that Hill’s money was spent on Vaughan, and as good as Hill is I just can’t see him having the same impact.

Regarding club culture, it's interesting looking back at that classic post-match interview Jake Mamo did in 2021, where he talks about being a member of the Positive Reinforcement Crew, along with Tom Lineham, Matt Davis, Joe Philbin and Rob Mulhern. I know it all seemed a bit jokey, but it does make me wonder if there was already some disgruntlement among the squad at that point, which the PRC was trying to challenge. Or maybe I'm just reading too much into it. Either way, there was definitely not much evidence of a PRC in 2022!

I’m not so sure it was gripes from the PRC, just that Powell doesn’t do cliques. Nor does he want senior players treated any differently from those below them, business interests or not. It’s clear from the introductory video at the end of 2021 that he wants a one-for-all and all-for-one attitude. Remember the ‘next available seat’ policy at lunch that he borrowed from Graham Murray? And the quotes about humility from the All Blacks book? Leaving work early because you’re a senior player, getting off a coach early instead of sharing the blame with the whole team on the way back from a heavy defeat, pushing back against a new style of training. And so on. You can see on the pitch just how excited the players are now compared to the last few years.

I hope this is something that stays with us long after Powell moves on, engrained in the mind of our good core of academy graduates coming through.

No, I wasn't suggesting that the PRC had gripes - just that in 2021 they were maybe trying to create a more positive atmosphere because certain other members of the squad already had negativity creeping in at that point. But anyway, it's water under the bridge now, because the spirit in the current side is there for all to see, thankfully.

Let's not get too carried away. It's easy to look like a happy camp when you have won 6 on the bounce. The real test for this new found spirit is when we lose a couple of matches, in particular if we take a bit of a heavy loss, and we'll soon see the character of the squad (& probably goes for our spectators too, who showed last season they can soon get on the team's back given half a chance).

Yes, that's a fair point. Spirit is best shown in adversity, so let's see what happens when that time comes. In the meantime, let's hope we all manage to stay aboard the happy train a while longer yet!

I think we can see a difference already. Would last season’s team come back against Salford? Dug in against Huddersfield? I very much doubt it. How we respond to defeat will show us a lot though

Good point Captain, I too can see a different energy. ,

Whilst I agree with others that we are looking at a small sample, (pardon the expression) and some might say that the real 'testy' teams are yet to be played, but last season's team wouldn't have been coming from behind like they have done this.

I always hark back to the Kipling quote UR…not the one about how good his cakes are.

DSM

We both know fans are extremely fickle.
If we lose a couple of games - especially heavily - there will be calls for 'Powell out'.
I can hear it now.....

Some of the small things are telling...

Ratchford celebrating a call going our way like we'd scored a try (he is really energised this year) was an example from last week.

But last year and the year before I always found it frustrating that when a player made a mistake you got all the players giving 'pats on the back' to the guy who made the error - almost the same as if he'd scored a try.
I always thought that was over done.
Clearly you'd want to show support and say 'never mind' or 'put it behind you' but more than that doesn't do it for me.
I thought the good bit about Ratch was he fluffed the 'easy' conversion, then when he scored the nest one he shook his arms in the air to celebrate and laughed.

I'm not sure you know. People can tolerate a few losses if the effort in the players in there and it's clear we are building in the right direction and have some good results already in the bag.

That's different from last season where we lost 10 in 12 games at one point, and having near 40 points put on us by Wakefield at home. In my opinion fans were perfectly justified in calling that out as unacceptable, because it was.

A lot of fans on here were quite patient and adopted a position of "let's give Powell the benefit of the doubt, but if this crap continues into next season he should be replaced". It hasn't continued and he remains in place.

Absolutely.
To add…
It was clear before 2022 kicked off we were going to struggle with 1 prop (at any one time.).
The first win vs an 11/12 man Leeds team for 2/3s the game was the evidence.
I left that game already knowing we were going to be fighting relegation.

Few are going to start saying sack DP after 2 defeats like Fez1 says. It’s fortunate we’re playing Hull this week and not Catalan, as we are probably at our weakest we’ve been since last season.

I expect us to beat Hull, but I also expect a closer game than I’d like. I don’t see another performance like we did against Cas coming.

W71
Many of the posters on facethingy and instatok ARE fickle in my view.
There are less on here, but they do exist - again in my view.

When the team wins they are quiet.
When the team loses a couple of games then often there is unwarranted criticism of the team, the coach, the board or a member of the coaching staff.
I've no problem with criticsm that has a sound argument behind it.
I find you do tend to get knee jerk soundbites on other sites with little behind them - hence I tend to scan only briefly and very rarely comment.

Fortunately things are positive at the moment for us - long may it continue.

Ah yes, Facebook is a madhouse and I have no idea what instatok is as I'm 51. Anyone who cannot tolerate a likely loss at Catalans next week is a crank.

The team in 2022 deserved all it got from the terraces and on here, and all those public appeals for the "fans to get behind us" started to grate. The fans always cheered the team on to the field. The fans were never the problem in 2022. The playing group was toxic at that time.

I actually fancy us for that, yes Catalan won 5 but I just don’t think they that special and they got found out by a poor Leeds team.