Never a truer word mate and its becoming more important every year. Just look at the league table this week. Most of the teams at the top have several players in the first team that have come through their youth set ups and the lower down you go the less home grown are in the team. London probably being the exception. I can see the other side of the argument though for this being a one off situation.

You say that, but with even less troops, they beat Leeds. Surely that shows they were no easy beats.
It was a good chance because we had a good go at them.

I understand your point but with the side we had and home advantage against a side with makeshift halves and half a pack.
We should have beaten them.
Saints are a team with a winners mentality, no matter what team they put out.
We are a team that shows the name too much respect and not the players that we play against.

I really think this thread has been done to death . I'm as puzzled as anyone by last weekends team selection but those on the park surely had a responsibility to react positively to being picked to play.
RA isn't going anywhere and in my eyes isn't totally to blame in any case for our up and down form. You can only play the cards you have been dealt. The team against St. Helens was ok as far as team selection is concerned and we should have beaten them but I believe some indifferent refereeing stuffed us that day.
I want to see some real teamwork with all the players battling for each other.
I'm convinced the talent is at the club and am pleased with all the imports although I think Ryan is a centre not a second row!

Ryan is too slow for centre... Played second row for Paramatta.

I agree, the thread has been done to death, but I predict a part 4 next time we lose by more than 10 points to a big club or just lose to a middle table team.
Ryan is effective at centre but he isn't the long term solution.

Ryan is a second row IMO.

Not my long term choice or even first choice, just how I see him at the moment. He may be more effective in the second row if he bulks up a bit.

This. Centre in an emergency only.

I think the bloke has got better each game he's played. Not sure he's a centre but he's doing it for the team by playing there.

Me too, especially in this survival situation. You can set your watch by the fact that we'll put in 2 decent performances against Leeds followed by a stinker against Cas. His whole motivational and planning tactics are flawed. Not only that losing these kind of games are real crowd killers, they demoralise your fan base like no other. No doubt thats knocked a fair few hundred of the Leeds gate. I suppose it gives some on here a chance to get on their high horse about the "apathetic Wakefield public".

While were on the subject of Agar, is he the only coach in the world of professional Rugby League that believes an hooker is an 80 minutes player?

No - Nathan Brown and Craig Bellamy seem to agree with him.

I guess it depends on the hooker in question; McShane is clearly better when he's spelled.

I'm not in the Agar out camp. I dont know him greatly but when I've spoken to him, he's a nice guy. As far as whether he's a good coach or go on to be a good coach I think the jury is still out. I like things he has done & I certainly would question some of his decisions. But I would probably do that with all coaches. I don't like the football style sacking coaches at the drop of a hat policy. They need time. That's not to say I won't pull my hair out at an Agar decision as I will. We all will. He's our coach, we aren't flush with money for replacements & He's still a young coach & I really hope he goes on to achieve here at Wakefield.

As far as Hull KR. I didn't go so cannot comment on individual performances. If his tactical decisions work he's a genius & if there wrong he's a numpty. He said in his interview he doesn't think the coaching team could assess if they were right due to how poor everyone applied themselves. I'm not going to be too critical of that.

What I am going to be critical of is the players. I say this often but you can have a bad game on the ball but you should never have a bad game off it. Effort, energy, enthusiasm, work rate, application etc. From speaking to people who went, looking at the stats and looking at the scoreline it was embarrassing. You can't hide from that and they have a chance to make amends for it this week. I fully support the players and we have a good team here at the Wildcats. Far better than we could have imagined.

We have seen they have all the attributes as they have displayed them in different games. What we need is consistency, wiseness and several leaders when the going gets tough. Every team has momentum in a game. We need leaders to stand up to teams when there on the front foot, wiseness & patience to complete sets with a good kick chase. Then when we do get good ball get it to our strike players often in good room & look at repeat set options to apply pressure.

I was disappointed with the Hull KR scoreline and the team. I'm sure they were disappointed in themselves. I've seen enough to know the players are better than that. For the fans, coach, board and themselves show us what your capable of at Leeds. I fully back you all & know your good enough but ask the 17 players picked v Leeds.. Have you got what it takes??

Player reaction wanted.....

There are a lot of people who speak positively of Agar, in that he is very knowledgable about the game.
Maybe this is his problem, he is over analysing in his coaching methods.
Some people have already mentioned that we as a team need to keep it simple and do the basics right, cos more times than not this is what wins matches.
Not breaking everything down and searching with a fine comb.

I've seen a lot of coaches come and go while watching Trinity and they have all had this kind of criticism from some fans.

Not from pre-appointment day they haven't.
Regarding criticsm during their tenure I can only think of Tony Dean who had anywhere near the amount of stick Agar gets from such a wide range of fans.

To talk to he certainly does come across as very knowledgeable and reassuring. He reminds me of others like Millward and Cullen. They seem to be able to get lucrative tv and coaching contracts despite very average coaching records. For me you can only judge a coach by his results and resources, not what comes out of his mouth.

Think Tony Dean was on a hiding to nothing when he was in charge.
Just before RA was appointed, we were at the beginning of a new dawn of optimism.
He was not everyone's cup of tea when he was appointed but fans were prepared to give him a chance to win them over.
For me he has not done anything to win me over in the last two and a bit years.
Cas last year were a mess, Powell came in and turned them around pretty quickly.
In the off season I looked at the players they had signed and didn't see anything that would lead them to be in the position they are at the moment.
Man for man, I don't think their team is better than ours, but he has them playing as a team.
He has got a system that works and is sticking to it, even when he experiments with his line up like at London, it didn't seem to disrupt the pattern of how they played.
I would say that he has also picked a settled 17 for the majority of the games that have been played.

Millward may not be liked but is this an average coaching record?
2000 World Club Challenge Lost
2001 Wolrd Club Challenge Won
2000 Grand Final Win
2002 Grand Final Win
2001 Challenge Cup Win
2002 Challenge Cup Lost
2004 Challenge Cup Win
2001 Super League Coach of the Year

Cullen has done alright but I like him on telly more.

I completely disagree with the fans giving him chance statement
The Hull fans came on in numbers to moan about him and some have kept hold of that and bring it up at every loss. Those same fans forget when we play well. Even after beating that same Hull side that were going to do so much better without him.

Comparing to Cas is unfair. Powell has had a settled side for much longer than Agar. Our scrum half arrived days before the first game. Our current SO arrived days before game 2. No pre season for Anderson, Ryan, Scruton, Godinet, Sammut, Siejka, all key players in the first 17 except maybe Siejka and he will be in the long run.
They haven't had money issues to unsettle players either.
So poor comparison in my opinion

I'd also say that Smith's criticism was in many ways deserved on results but he took over as care taker and shouldn't have been promoted in the first place.

But as an example, the great David Topliss was criticised by many when things weren't going right. People forget now but he wasn't praised for his youth development particularly. He was good there is no doubt in my mind, as player coach and man, but he didn't have social media to deal with in his day so who knows what some of the crazies on here would be saying.

Like I said there coaching record compared to the resources available. Most SL coaches would of achieved that success with the team he inherited and the resources he had. His record was appalling at Wigan and even worse at North Queensland and Cas.

Cullen had the biggest spending budget in all of Super League. The wires underperformed by a long way. The sharp turn around in fortunes when the new coach come along sort of proves that. Same for Millward at Cas.

Our overseas May not have been here for preseason but Powell took over a team last year and started to turn them around, in theory he was starting from scratch.
Some of the fans probably swayed by the Hull fans but he was appointed and I for one was not impressed by his coaching record but was happy to see how it went.
Maybe if we had been a bit like Cas and played the players we already had instead of shipping them out on loan or paying them off. The money troubles may not have weight so heavy.

Agar will never shake off the stigma of getting rid of Andy Ellis.
His loyalty to Washbrooke is now becoming an issue.

Unfortunately that is the wrong way round. Without shipping those players the money troubles would have overshadowed everything and we wouldn't have a team to moan about.

There is no doubt Powell has done a great job. I don't mean to imply any different. But the circumstances are different.
Personally, I think Cas will slow down as the season goes on and we will pick up. I think they'll still be ahead and I think we'll have some bumps along the way but I still say we will get better with time through the season.
I've never changed my view on that and I hope i don't have to in future.

As ever, a very good post!

I pose this question though,
What makes a good coach?




If Agar had us winning most of our games, competing through to CC semis and finals and being tipped as possible Grand Fianalists, then that would be great but . . . What if all of that was built on sand and long term was unsustainable possibly leading to financial ruin.

What if Agar had us bumping along at or near the bottom of the League, losing to a Championship team in the CC and never troubling the play offs yet. . . He instigated systems within the club that within the next 5 or 6 years, saw a pathway for our young players through to SL, what if that system produced 5 or 6 players a year who had the genuine potential to become Internationals and World Class.

Thirdly what if Agar had us mid table, capable of the odd surprise and maybe reaching the early stages of the play offs and later stages of the cup without ever really looking likely winners of either. At thee same time he created a youth system that wasn't embarrassing, passed the RFL criteria but almost never produced a player of any great potential.

Which is the better Coach

I'll add, I don't know which (if any) Agar is.

Which is the better coach