All this talk of 'Agar Out' Got me thinking about what actualy makes a good Coach so I thought I'd list the SL era Coaches and see what peoples thoughts on each were.


Andy Kelly - June 1997 to May 2000
Took a mid table Championship team and turned them into Table toppers and Grand Final Winners whilst playing some of the best RL seen at Belle Vue in a long time. Insisted upon a strong Junior set up and brought in Harbin to oversee a system that produced Brough, Ellis, Westwood, Feather, Mason, Snitch etc.
Assembled a SL team under circumstance that makes this years pre season look like utopia and stayed up while sending the message that Wakefield weren't just making up the numbers. A few memorable moments like the win over St Helens at Oakwell and some great characters like the March twins were introduced to Trinity fans. Second SL season was undermined by the Pearman saga yet controversially left the club with a played 7, Lost 4, Won 3 record which included our last away victory over Leeds Rhinos.

Tony Kemp - May 2000 to October 2000
Took over Kelly's squad but struggled to achieve any kind of form throughout a troubled season, lost many of the players due to non payment of salaries while others stayed but went through the motions. Gained enough wins to avoid relegation while under extremely testing conditions for any Coach.

John Harbin - October 2000 to November 2001
Pulled together a scratch squad of honest toilers and tradesmen who formed a team which connected with the supporters because of their 100% efforts even in defeat. Harbin continued the work hed started in the youth system under Kelly by promoting some of that team to the senior team. Harbin had a great style of self promotion which endeared him to the fans and helped to hide the worst losing streak in the clubs history, however we avoided relegation in the final seconds of the season and that was success given the circumstances.

Peter Roe - November 2001 to July 2002
Hard to see anything positive in Roe's stint at Wakefield other than we survived both him and relegation. Failed to move the club or the team forward. The team played dour unimaginitive Rugby which rarely, if ever, produced anything the fans could get excited about.

Shane McNally - & Adrian Vowles - August 2002 to September 2003
Shane McNally - October 2003 to June 2005
I've put these two eras together. After a few years of struggle we finally started to assert ourselves within SL, we assembled a team that had big personalities like Solomona, Domic and Korkidas. The Coach(s) mixed new arrivals and Juniors to produce a team which would eventually put Trinity in the play offs and we were unlucky not to go to the semi final. We played a brand of exciting and expansive rugby that saw some great tries and notable scalps taken, we were a SL team probably for the first time. Some poor decisions about resigning players and bad luck with injuries made the following season an anti climax and the departure of McNally.

Tony Smith - June 2005 to July 2006
What's to say, an unmitigated disaster which all but relegated the club whilst we had the best squad we've ever had during our SL existence. Left the club mid season with only a mathmatical chance of survival.

John Kear - July 2006 to September 2011
The popular choice to replace Smith and wrote his name into Wakefield Trinity folklore by pulling the team together and performing an amazing Houdini act which culminated in the Million pound game against Castleford. Continued to progress the team in the following season by reaching the play offs and beating Hull in another memorable TV game.
He was the very respectable and public face of Wakefield Trinity during the clubs saddest and emotionally testing time ever after the losses of Ken Hurst, Don Fox, David Topliss and the tragedys of Adam Watene and Leon Walker.
Despite the many good things John did at 1st team level his disregard of the Youth set up set the club back in that regard which is even more regrettable given the quality of some of our young players at the time who won their Grand Final inspire of John and because of the quality of Tony Drury and his Coaching team.
Testing financial times saw him produce typically dogged displays from a scratch squad of players but two seasons of dour Rugby League saw him fall from favour and after almost 6 years his contract was not renewed.

Richard Agar - September 2011 to Present
Has assembled one team in the face of adversity and reached the play offs with the longest winning run in our SL history. Further adversity has forced him to rebuild another team from scratch and with little money and the jury is out on that team at the moment.
The youth system has been reinvigorated under Agar with a greater importance given to our ability to produce our own players.

That last part is a good argument to keep Agar.

There has been an away win at Leeds more recently. Late Luke George try, if I remember correctly. Was it 2008?

Good summary, personally felt Andy Kelly was hard done by.

We have beaten them twice since 2000 at Headingley

2005 we won 44-28
2007 we won 23-16

Beg pardon, I had read somewhere that the 2000 win was our last there.

That was the last time Leeds lost the opening game of the season!!!

Kear gets my vote, for "the great escape" and his utterly dignified manner in
great adversity.
Also, the squad that was assembled in his last season was put together on the threads of a shoe sting.
Finally, the thing with Kear was that you got the impression that when the chips were down and all hope was gone, he could still get that bit extra from his players .

Mr Agar at the moment, seems to have dropped into the same category as
Tony (Casper) Smith and we all know how that ended.

Perhaps we need to line up JK for the last 6 games of this season.

With regard to the John Kear era, I thought the Million Pound Game was 2006, we then made the play offs in 2009, not the season after the Million Pound Game. Or am I wrong?

I remember end of season play offs 2004 beat Hull at Hull, then lost at Wigan.

2006 Million Pound Game.

2008 made the Challenge Cup Semi-Final.

2009 lost at home to Catalans in the first round of the play offs.

2012 made the play offs again, losing at Leeds.

They are the key moments for me in the last decade.

Good analysis and perspective of our coaches though. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

I bought a Leeds home ticket from a charity auction at the end of '99, but I had left for Indonesia before the season started, so I gave the tickets so two mates.
They were sat in the posh seats in the centre of the North Stand and, when the result was decided with 10 minutes to go, they took off their winter coats to proudly reveal their Wakefield shirts. They got some good looks.


14 years ago

Thanks
It was more about the achievements than the timeline which I just wrote from memory

Kelly was rubbish.

No problem. Sometimes I'm too pedantic for my own good

I'd have Kear back tomorrow if we could. Brilliant man-manager and these players wouldn't roll over and die like the last 2 game if he was coach. Also, they're the best times I can remember being a trin fan. The Hull FC away playoff game is still probably my favourite Wakey game.

Wasn't that Hull FC play off game McRae's last match as FC coach. With Kear as his assistant?

My memory could possibly be failing me but I always thought it was Kear, though I would have been quite young so forgive me.

Wish I was quite so young at the time



When that match was played I was on a flight back from Shanghai. Then on the drive home from the airport my taxi driver let slip that Wakey had won. I still enjoyed watching my recording of the match though

It was 2004, Shane McNally was the coach for that game.

Shane McNally was coach.
Great win at Hull followed by unlucky defeat at Wigan.
Then again it all went pear shaped the following season!

the best coach for me in the sl era would be andy kelly, the club back with the big boys no expectations and put a side together to shock the big boys. il always remember wire away think we was getting beat easy at half time then 2nd half just blew them away then the walking under the stand after game and the noise under there. from taking a side from the lower division and managing to survive and i think im right in saying without any sky money straight away was a fantastic achievment.

the year we got to the play offs and beat hull away under mcnally was fantastic we packed the stand at hull and showed how much potential the club had, that was some night. we got robbed blind at wigan. that was the fittest group of players iv seeen at bv geoff evans got them right, we were blowing teams away in the last 20 mins.

looking back at kears days and i suppose compared to agar he was a genius tactically but for me imo it was some of the most dour stuff iv ever seen, saying that most of the sl these days is dour with the flair and individuality taken out of it.

Ill go with all of that, always thought AK was very harshly treated, and would still have him back.

IIRC Geoff Evans went to Huddersfield, is he still their conditioner ?

We had Wigan well on the rack that match, had Andy Farral not played we would have beaten them, Farral was amazing in that match for wigan

John Kear would get my vote every time, would welcome him back to wakey tomoz

Coach I had most affinity with... Andy Kelly

Coach who had best results..... John Kear

Coach who's team played most entertaining rugby.... Shane McNally

Shudds have recognised Andy Kelly's value - he's their new Head of Youth.