Stone has got to go.

Im in this process of getting a banner made reading "Stone Out, Thewlis Out" for the Catalan game.

Its juts like the Giants to announce some "Breaking News" this week now. Aaron Murphy signing 3 year deal, thinking its what the fans want to hear.

Bottom line is for all those deluded fans on here. WE ARE A POOR TEAM and we have been for a while now, simple fact.

We keep signing the same players up longer term but question is HOW ARE WE GOING TO IMPROVE with these players ???

By the end of this season we will be in the same situation as when Stone took over, bottom 4 fighting for relegation.

If Murphy, Wakeman, Symonds and Hinchliffe get new deals - im done with my season ticket renewals for next season.

We need to try offload if not both but definitely one of Gaskell and Rankin.

STONES RECRUITMENT so far:

Wakeman - DIRE
Walne - CROCK and was a Crock last season too at Salford.
Mamo - Excellent last season, poor this season - jury still out on him.
Roche - Signed from Championship, loaned to league 1 - how will he improve playing at a worse standard?

Were losing fans due to the worst attacking rugby by any SL side in the last decade.

Club is in a massive hole, we need to get Stone and others OUT of this club.

couldn't agree more but think you should keep Stone

lets hope we get a response from the players like we did when we lost to swinton last season.

To be fair i think the re-signing of the majority of players we have recently has been good and has been for the best players. Ikahihifo and Roberts are both players i'm glad we have got for longer. The massive mistake is Brough. He has been great for us (just like McGuire was for Leeds), but nothing is going to change at the club until the Brough era is over.. and now we have at least a year and a half left of it. I still admire Brough's enthusiasm and effort, and he really does give 100% every game , but it's just not working in regards to our attacking play. We have no creativity near the line at all.

I'm pretty sure while we maintain his contract (although i would hope the extension is a big downgrade to his salary) we cannot afford to bring in the type of halfback that could change our style of play near the line, and even if we did, would Brough accept him calling the majority of the shots? Please Toronto/Toulouse do us a favour and offer some money for him so we can start to build a new halfback partnership and style of play! I have nothing against Danny personally and he is without doubt the best player i have seen in a Claret and Gold jersey, but as they say, 'every dog has his day', and and to continue the canine analogy, 'you can't teach an old dog new tricks!'

I take all the points you make here and i agree with your sentiments, What i don't understand is why you think if Brough went ( something i wouldn't be against particularly ) We would somehow be able to start and become a good side. I have watched the game for well over 60 years and the last 30 of them watching Huddersfield. We have had more fresh starts and new coaches than i can remember and we are still the same poor side with the exception of a couple of seasons under Brown.

We get good players in who turn out to be poor for us, we get rid of them and they play well for Wakey or whoever. When brown was here we had 7 or 8 player in the England squad or the Knights we now have Jerry, Thats the result of Andersons style of coaching and since he went we have not improved dramatically, but we won the hubcap so people were happy, but look what we fell to in a season and we are still bumping along the bottom.

Super league is changing with Toronto and others knocking on the door We are fiddling while Rome burns. I do take your points but i would say there is a lot more than Brough that's wrong with the giants.

I thought at one time a spell in the champs might be what we need to regroup, But now i think it would be a disaster with new clubs coming on stream. I truly don't think there is anyone at the club who is capable of sorting it out. We need some of the sort of spirit they have at Wakey and Cas, look how well they go with a lot less money than the Giants.

And ridding of brough might improve Sirius- you only have to look at how he speaks to his fellow teammates. They surely can’t be happy with that.

brough mouthing off at gaskell's poor kick

moments earlier brough knocked on and no one said a thing

unbelievable

hes not even captain

I am not suggesting that getting rid of Brough would be some miracle cure to what ails us, but what i am saying is that i don't see things changing (even if we had a change of coach) while he is still with us. We are locked into a style of play that revolves around his kicking game, and when that fails, we really have no alternative. I would also say that during the reign of both Tony Smith and Nathan Brown we were the opposite of what you suggested in terms of player progression. We turned average players or ones with potential into better ones. Smith inherited a team rock bottom and slowly made almost every player play better (or appear to).

I agree with you 100% that the decline started when Anderson took over. Like it takes time for bad sides/bad coaching/bad management to be turned around, it also takes time for a good side with good coaching and good management to deteriorate. Anderson inherited a team that still had lots of good aspects and was able to maintain and nurture that for a year before the rot started to set in. There has been a steady decline since he took over until now that has not yet been arrested.

I started watching Fartown when Murphy took over, and it was my great pleasure to see us slowly improve from lowly third division sleeping giants, to reach a point where we were a genuine top 4 side with title ambitions. Sadly, we didn't take the final step and become a club that actually won things. Can we do that again? The chances are very slim. Teams like Leeds , Warrington etc with much larger spectator bases have always the chance to rebuild because they have the money available from gate receipts to do so, they can afford to make mistakes and have the resources to go at it again.

However, we can't just throw the towel in and say we wont ever rise again, Wakefield have shown that with enough perseverance and management of slim resources you can eventually come good. We need to be smarter, more efficient and more ruthless with our decision making to make what we can from limited resources. Giving Brough another year is just bad business, we are prolonging the inevitable. The only reason to give a player of his age that extension would be if everything was going well with the current setup... it isn't. We need to be brave enough to make hard emotive decisions regarding players, coaches and management staff if the club is to survive in the top division of whatever format is agreed upon for the next few years.

Where i do feel the club is getting it right is with the development of youngsters, we have improved the number of homegrown products making the first team substantially over the last decade, and that is our best hope for sustaining superleague rugby in the town.

the club are doing some things right in terms of deals for ikahihifo and roberts tying them down long term and building for the future but in recent years i think some bad decisions have been made on players leaving/coming... thewlis has been central to that too, its not just stone... thorman aswell cant be just left out of the discussions either he has some questions to answer

I agree with you about the development of youngsters, I would be happy to see a lot more money spent on the right coach and a lot less on expensive quick fit players , A good coach can get the best out of players and we have our share of talent if it's brought on right.

Murphy would have been banned from the sidelines on Thursday night, the air would have been blue with his reaction to that effort and Brough would have got it just the same as the rest. I remember getting promoted to the second division and Murphy asking for money for two players which he guaranteed would put us in the top flight. The club declined and got rid of him, I suspect something similar occurred with Tony Smith, but that's just a suspicion.
Anyway the bottom line to all this is they are shambolic and they show no sign of making any changes.

Stone has said thewlis has no input into WHO is signed- only on the contracts based on the finances available on the cap. Not sure how Thorman is to blame- he is an assistant not an associate coach. Stone has the final say.
I’ve questioned whether stone is doing a good job for a long time- Well all those saying give him a chance it’s not his fault, are keeping very very quiet now. I get it takes time to make improvements- but I’ve yet to see one that he’s made. There’s not one recruitment he’s made that has proven better, and not one of our players has improved under him other than leeming.
As for the youngsters- that’s little to do with Stones’ input other than his willingness to give them a go. That’s all down to Andy kelly and largely Thorman who coached these lads for three years in the 19’s.

Signing Brough just shows poor planning to me. Where was/is the succession plan for him? Are we waiting til Isaac Farrell is ready? Our recruitment just seems incredibly shotgun and continuously leaves us saddled with average ageing players. Half Backs are obviously not the easiest to pick up, but I just don't see succession planning at all across the team.

isaac farrell wont make super league.

brough i suppose they just think he can still operate at this level, which he can but we wont improve but then again neither is super league as a whole.

can we afford to go out and buy a quality half back? ikahihifo and roberts will have improved their wages with their new deals... takes a chunk of the cap

That's something that always surprises me a bit People shouting for players to be resigned on better deals to stop other clubs supposedly signing them, Always improving their wages , always on the back of another season of mediocrity , God knows what they would want if they ever showed even a sign of winning anything.

do you suggest we lose ikahihifo and roberts then?

I’d say yes if it meant paying inflated wages to them weakened the rest of the squad.

Isn't that how it works for every club? It's a salary capped sport. Your best players will always get paid larger wages. Seb was our only player to make the dream team last year therefore deserves a better wage.

I suppose the main question is which positions on do you want your highest paid players? It would seem that 1,6,7 and 9 are the most influential players on a pitch.

A large portion of our cap surely goes to Jerry and Leroy who are neither those positions. Then you have the new deals to Seb and Roberts...

Youll find a huge portion of our cap goes to Hinchliffe, Murphy, Symonds, Wakeman and Mamo - all of who contribute very little for me this season....Wakeman and Symonds contribute absolutely nothing at all.

Losing Hinchy, Wakeman, Symonds and Murphy should allow us to strengthen massively.

Would I take Hardaker if he became available for next season? 100%

Yeah you're talking 400-450k there, that's 3/4 top class players that could come in, if we have any pulling power left.

who knows what we are paying them to say they are inflated... ? im sure they will have had improved deals though which is fair as seb made the dream team and was a stand our performer and roberts impressed in the world cup and is progressing ...well maybe he was and stopped on this seasons showings but not his fault not being used correctly.

would say brough WAS our highest paid player, dont know what the new deal is.

cudjoe and mcgillvary signed theirs a few years back... imagine us trying to sign mcgillvary now!

hinchcliffe will be up there with the top earners coming iver with his rep from the nrl... hope he goes and that will free up some space along with mamo who could also poss leave but not sure on that one.

good to hear ferguson is looking to stay at the club he has been our best player so far this season

I'm not suggesting we get rid of any particular player brearley, I'm suggesting we could pay our so called top 5 players a fortune and we would still be the same poor side we are now. I would far sooner pay a lot of money for a proven top coach and lets go with home grown or at least English players . 12 months ago we couldn't wait to get Mamo , now we can't wait for him to go, I wonder what some of our players are on per game because they don't play often.

Never mind our “top” players some of our “steady away” players are knocking on 100k.
Our kids are paid peanuts.

sack them all

just play the u 19's

How'd you know all this? Where can I find this information as I'd be really interested.