I agree with you to an extent. When its been announced that a current coach is leaving at the end of the season, I think once you confirm his successor the existing coach loses a little bit of authority in the dressing room. Even if everybody says they are going to deal with it professionally, players can't help but start to switch mentally towards the new coach, will I be part of his plans etc.

The case where it is a serious issue is recruitment and retaining players but that's not so much a problem when your key players are all on contract anyway. 10 years ago it bit Warrington on the backside badly when we delayed over replacing Darryl Van de Velde, Darryl had signed most of the squad to contracts that expired in 2001 along with his own, so that if he left it gave a new coach flexibility to choose who he wanted to stay - makes sense from Darryl that. The problem was when Darryl announced that he was leaving to go home, a number of our better players were in the position where they needed to decide on their future (Nutley, Kohe-Love, Hunte) plus others like Langer, Nikau were leaving anyway. I remember Doug Hoyle saying we were going to make an appointment who the fans would be very happy indeed with, and we were supposed to be getting Neil Kelly who had done well with Widnes, then Widnes won the NFP Grand Final and he signed a new contract with them. So we had this big rigmarole with various names in the frame, Shaun Edwards was supposedly interviewed but he didn't want to relocate from London and we wanted him to live locally, then Billy McGinty, John Monie were linked with the job and in the end we jumped for Steve Anderson and David Plange, by which time most of our squad had signed deals elsewhere and we ended up behind the game for recruitment in 2002 and had a crap squad that nearly got relegated.

Do we even know that the deal hasn't been done and the players and staff already know.

If it is Wane and Scully, what better time and place to announce it than Friday night - just to get the Saints fans mad?!! Wane, Scully and IL would make a great pre or post match interview for Sky!

Or are they saving the announcement till the Big one!

You're right, IL's recruitment has been less than perfect. But we are SL Champions, so he must be doing something right!

Waney's just got a brand new Merc according to form, so he can't be doing that badly. Think the contract IL wants for Wane is incentive based. A small rise in basic pay but huge bonuses based on results. Seems like good business practise to me. If Waney wins the grand final in his first season like madge did, then he'll be able to write his own ticket. If he doesn't come upto scratch and has to drop back to being a number 2, then nothings lost.

Wouldn't say he blew £130,000 on Gleeson. Gleesons performance in the grand final alone was worth the transfer fee. We got Deacon for nowt and IMO he was a very shrewd signing. Think were we've come unstuck a bit this year is down to the fact that madge has decided to leave, nothing IL could have done about that, assuming he made sure that salary wasn't a factor.

The only criticism I'd have is that as soon as Madge said he was going, he should have gone straight away.

Carmont was certainly a good signing, and a fantastic value for money one at that. It is a bit patchy otherwise, but who gets it right all the time?

I for one am very happy with the way Leneghan has done business since he took over. We are reigning champions ffs, what more do you people want?

Why would it get Saints fans mad? If, as expected, Scully goes to Wigan as Wane's assistant the majority of Saints fans would wish him well. He owes us nothing.

I agree, but there will be a few idiots who would boo him.

Strange though, Hanley was always applauded onto the field at Central Park even when he was Saints coach.

I'd like to see Lenegan appoint a new COO. I'm guessing at present the workload is being shared amongst himself, Simon Collinson and the other directors at the club. Perhaps the appointment of a COO would speed up and help some of the on going issues at the club. We must be the only club in SL and possibly in professional top level sport in the UK, who doesn't have a COO.

All this bad recruitment and we still won the superleague

Exactly...everyone that needs to know will know what is going to happen next year. Every target and agent will be aware of our coaching set up next year as will all our players.

The media and fans dont, that will be all.

IL done ok so far. Some excellent some good some indiferent signings. Next year IL must sort our right position with a class player as Joel and Marsh have simply not got the wow factor in that position. I am also worried about IL and SW insisting on using the academy players that are not good enough for Wigan at Super League level.

So just to clarify when the signings go wrong its the Chairman's fault and when they go right its the coach who is to thank?

Not sure it works like that at any rugby league club, both at any club should and do take responsibility for the recruitment, and lets face it we won SL without "Madges good signatures", but it is an interesting philosophy. Wrong....but interesting.

And I wonder whose idea it was to persevere with our own home grown younger players rather than bring in 30+ year old antipodeans?

If it is a successful idea it is clearly the outgoing coaches.

what you also seem to be forgetting is when lenagan first came in his hands were tied with contracts from the previous chariman..... i dont think phelps was anything other than a stop gap. was he worth the spot on the quota probably not but who else at the time was available for the money he would have been on??

id say carmont has been an exellent signing, deacon has been more than good for us imo, he gives us some much needed experience last season, spin it all you want but it wasnt 130k blown on gleeson.. i think some wigan fans are underestimating what he brought to the team and imo the person were missing the most from last season squad.

as for roberts.. he didnt even have a pre season with us when he first came over(think it was an op to his hand/thumb) so he was always playing catch up.... up till his injury he was red hot and the best player in superleague by a mile!

on the whole im happy with lengans recruitment

You were surprised that Hanley was applauded at Central Park?

The greatest rugby player in most of our living memories?

Not Simon Moran's.

I was comparing the situation to Scully when he goes to Wigan.

You mean 'IF' he goes to Wigan. I'm not too sure this rumour holds much to be honest.

No I mean when. It will happen.

How good are Scully's coaching credentials?

Serious question, by the way. Has he been impressing in that capacity?

I honestly don't know, but he is heavily involved in youth / schools sports systems.