Seems to have got himself involved in an RL reality TV program down under, glad to see the enthusiasm hasn't dimmed:
[urlhttp://m.nrl.com/nrl-rookie-testing-begins/tabid/10874/newsid/87378/default.aspx[/url

Undecided about Joey. Rob Powell has a similar CV to that of Joeys as outlined in the link i.e. Malta and Broncos

What else has he done?

Think that on reflection he did us a favour. It was a bit of a mess in the beginning, Hendo was dropped in it, but he came through.
I am much happier with him in charge.

You could have replaced Grima with a cabbage and it would have been improvement.

Luckily for us we did not.
But I do agree with you We were lucky that Hendo was in position and it was easy for David Hughes to just promote him.
Still, we could have had Tony Rea back again or even Rob Powell!

You do him a disservice. Granted he brought a couple of jokers over, but he also brought in Mathers, Garside, Harrison, Wes, Hellewell, Barthau ..... and Hendo. He was engaging and honest, and ok, his coaching cred may be questioned but at the time he was a breath of fresh air. And as has been pointed out, we now have a great replacement.

Ah but Jim not happy unless he is having a personal dig.

I think what we forget is joey was brought in as an assistant to TR probably at the request of TR so blaming DH a bit harsh. When TR walked we were stuck, so giving Joey a shot to me seemed a sensible idea, as it was it didn't work out.
I do recall most folk on here having a go at another rookie coach we had saying he had no idea, that fella seems to be doing ok at leeds

That Rookie coach achieved very little at Harlequins for whatever reasons I can't comment

Mac inherited a champion side at leeds with the core of the players at there peaks, lets not forget that.

Wasn't Joey brought in as part of a succession plan?

Agreed, overly harsh criticism.

Strange isn't it, that this new-ish Jim Pooley chap is getting to sound more and more like gutterfax, as time goes on?

Maybe he's a tribute act?

He looked likeness going to burst into tears at every press conference and as for his legacy......we're not going to make the middle 8 with one of only 3 full time squads.....maybe I was being overly harsh to cabbages.

Thought it a all DH fault not joey grimas make yr mind up

Utter tosh. Joe Grima did one thing that was very important, he re-engaged with the fans. He also got the players to re-engage with the fans.
After years of being marginalised that was something that needed to happen. The club lost it's way when the paying public started to feel like they were a bit of a nuisance.

Utter Tosh?
Joe Grima didn't re-engage the fans because he thought it was the right thing to do. He re-engaged the fans because he was utterly and totally out of his depth. This "I'm a man of the people" façade went on for 12 months+ and cost us a realistic chance of a shot at the million pound game, as well as Hughes a considerable amount of cash. He surrounded himself with friends, became "mates' with the fans whilst scrambling around like a lost lamb and royally buggered 2015 as a season!

BTW, I am not disagreeing about the destruction of the relationship we fans had up to about 2007/08 with the club, but that being destroyed coincided with the employment of non RL background CEO's, the departure of Lenegan and the sole tenure of "you know who" as the clubs owner.

It is far easier to engage with the few fans we have left now.....I'm pretty sure DH will be on first name terms with every ST holder at the club and that's pretty unique in professional sports

Yes, utter tosh. I've no idea whether he would have been a good or a bad coach, because he wasn't in the job long enough. But whether good or bad I doubt that had anything to do with his engagement with the fans. Other coaches have been out of their depth and chose to hide away, he didn't. The change in the attitude of the players toward the fans is plain for all to see, and started with him. I choose to thank him for that as it is important.

Given where we were at the start of the season, the million pound game was always a long shot. Some people think that a full time squad guarantees success in this division, it doesn't and a few players got a shock when they found out how physical part time packs can be.

And "you know who" isn't the man who stopped the rot on that front, Grima is.

Given how seldom he is in the bar I doubt that very much.

Let's just agree to disagree on how and why this re-engagement happened.


I was guilty of saying we'd only play 4 toigh games this year before the 8's and I was wrong....happy to admit it. Problem is, the players AND THE COACH have no excuses for it.....he was out of his depth.


I'd actually put it down to Steve Devonshire myself.....the level of 2-way dialogue since he's been back is the best since the 2007 season.


Come on. There's only a handful of you



You've probably heard it already, but the story of how the final disengagement between players and fans happened was when Powell asked Mackay if the players could be excused going into the bar after games and after asking Hughes, permission was given.
Hughes employed MacKay and Powell.........the prosecution rests M'lud!

Jim, of course the one game you came to last year makes you perfectly placed to judge how the fans who actually go to games view the match day experience and clubs engagement with the fans.

It is far easier to engage with or to FEEL engaged with when you are dealing with miniscule numbers. London Broncos have gone from being the hosts at a full on banquet to becoming one of the 5 contestants on come dine with me.....and as for engagement with the fans, I hear the coach to Halifax was Rammed Full....







engagement is the club putting on the coach and arranging for multiple drop off points enabling fans from all over the city to get home at a reasonable hour. I think the fans themselves were possibly the last people to book and to fill a full sized away coach for fans with paying fans, but the club can't even give it away.....but they've engaged the clique on here, that's for sure



As for the Hive and the Match Day Experience, I believe the Hive is a perfect little ground for the little club we have become, but that will never change my opinion and that held by the thousands of stay away fans, that the fact we are now such a little club is down to the utter mismanagement under the reign of David Hughes. I enjoyed the game day experience, especially as my daughter drove me there, but if it were a fortnightly trek via Public Transport, I have to say I'd probably pick and choose the games I went to if I Still lived in London so long as the club weren't in SL.

By the way, your patronising tone in regards "actually attend" games does you no favours. Helen Keller could tell you that we have an average of 650, about half of last years and about 15% of the average we had when Hughes took sole control of the club, that we are now playing 2nd tier, sorry, mid table 2nd tier Rugby League and that there are very strong murmurings that we will once again be moving to a new "home' at the end of this year....she would neither need to be there, nor would she have to have use of her eye's, ears or vocal cords to understand that the smaller the fan base, the more engaged they feel.

Good to hear the confirmation that despite all your wittering about fan numbers you you self have just said that if you were in London you would pick and choose and be a part time supporter, I will throw you the question back that you asked me, if we dropped another tier would you bother.
By the way the coach went to keighley

As with the Championship games and if the Hive was still "home" to the club and I were still leaving in West Ealing or Brentford, then yep, I'd bother on a game by game basis if we were in the 3rd tier. Why, do you think we'd average 650 down on the next peg?

The problem is that if you're not a die hard ST holder, then in the eyes of the clique on here, you're a fair-weather fan. There are literally over 1,100 more people who 6 years ago bought Season Tickets to the Harlequins Rugby League Club season and they were accompanied by another 2,000 who walked up on the day. Do you regard these people as fair-weather now that they have shown by their actions that the club isn't worth supporting? Do they have to attend every game and get on every away coach before their opinions are listened to?

Here's a novel idea. Rather than changing our name, back office staff, playing staff, coach, home ground, administration offices, training facilities or Shirt colours....why don't we try the one thing that we haven't changed. Can you guess what that is?





Ah....so that's why it was empty then....nothing to do with the "engaging" club not listening to their "engaged" supporters regarding drop offs in Town on the way home, but the extra 14 miles

Fair weather fan is a term you have decided on, no one else. You conveniently forget you asked me the question first suggesting that I would walk away, I was merely asking your opinion. Please explain clique! If you mean posters on here then your part of it, or is the clique only those that have a different opinion to you?
You know many years ago when I used to go to a lot of away games by coach, this was in a reasonable sized northern town, funny enough there was one pick up and one drop off point, the coach company didn't do door to door. On to the modern age, I would be gobsmacked if the coaches that came from leigh or Bradford went door to door.
Back to joey, yep in my opinion as far as fans engagement is concerned his approach attitude did help it seemed the whole club had a change of thinking. As a coach you are right he didn't get the performance out of the players, does it bother me that he looked passionate at every post match interview, at least he showed some passion, we used to complain how lifeless TR seemed.

Don't think anyone expects door to door but London would have been nice and then maybe there would have been more than 10 on it.