Good hire

Much rather have a young, up and coming coach, who's done well at whatever level they have coached at to date, than a bigger name who's already failed at the higher level.

When i see Dennis Betts and John Kear mentioned in this thread, my god, they would of been dreadful choices.

Im looking forward to seeing how applegarth goes, love the work he's done with your lower grades.

Where did I say that?

There is a huge difference, obvious to anyone but clearly I wasn’t talking about Wigan the club was I because that wasn’t the question.

The issue was the difference between the backgrounds of Peet and Applegarth. As far as I can see they are identical.

All centrally funded Academies are roughly the same, that’s kind of the point. The only difference is that Wigan can afford bigger signing on fees and I have no issue there I’m a capitalist.

But the structure and pathways are the same, they have to be or we wouldn’t have received central funding.

So the two coaches have almost identical CV’s, Oeet is just a year ahead. That is what we are talking about.

Where you are correct is that now as first team coaches Peet clearly has an advantage. However does anyone really think that a few years coaching at Batley or a stint at an Aussie reserve club will really make a difference? Surely if we are a club worn no budget the best guy for the job is the one who knows what we have already got and what needs adding.

If we had a big budget I’d consider Mash a poor choice but we don’t and never have had. In my experience it’s always the licol young coaches who do it for us, JK the exception.

I would imagine they will step in with the cash available to the players available, whether that's to your satisfaction only you knows, As for your last sentence I can't believe you've said that, I'm quite sure they realise exactly the quality that has left the club, and my understanding which incidentally is the same as yours is that they tried to keep them but could not compete financially with the other clubs and if their minds are made up well then please talk me into how they could keep them, If you know who is coming in and by the tone of your post you obviously do then please share your knowledge with us.

"There is only one difference, the playing budget they had in the past and will have in the foreseeable future. The rest is identical but he will ignore facts."

I guess as I said I misunderstood your point.
But being in the Wigan setup is clearly an advantage to Peet.

Either way I'm not sure why we are comparing them.
Apart from saying a coach with no head coach experience can still do well.

You did right to have a go at me ,did not know what J M had said, it is so cloak and dagger were is the link ? .Do you not agree fans will hold back on buying season tickets ( Got mine) .till they no who is been signed . M C as said We are hard up for cash at presents it feels like a no win situation

The link is on the press conference with Mash

Only because they have taken a similar journey. They may be worlds apart as coaches and people.

My only issue is that when Wigan did it, it got praised. We do it and it becomes diabolical.

That's partly the message from Wigan though.
They said he was being groomed for the job before he got it. People knew his name when they were looking for coaches.
We just sprung it on people without explaining why.

Doesn't change how good they are but that's why we get the media reaction we did.

PT so did we. Both MC and JM are on record as saying they see Applegarth as a potential future coach, MC over a year ago.

I’m guessing they expected Poching to be better and last longer but I’m fairly sure that Applegarth promotion to this seasons first team coaching set up was not Pochings. I’m not saying he had an issue with it but I’d suggest the club were installing they’re plan B.

You know what I thought about Pochings coaching ability, maybe I wasn’t alone.

Fans don’t see what those directly involved in the club do - I don’t think the club were ever truly convinced but that just my opinion.

It will be interesting to see if Applegarth just has the one assistant.

Why would they appoint Pochjngbif they weren't convinced?

I can't remember the comment about MA but I'm certain they weren't looking to this year.
Why put the prodigal son as assistant to someone you are not convinced about.

I'm absolutely backing Mark but if he has the same win rate as Willie he'll be outstanding not just good.

Oh come on PT, people in all walks of life are often promoted with reservations for many many reasons I myself got my first management gig on probation as they were not sure I was up to it (I wasn’t that time so they were right). It would be shocking management to take on someone as unproven as Poching without reservation.

You live in the real world your just being awkward. I’m hardly being controversial, it’s how life is.

Poching won six from twelve in 2021 I think. That would be enough to convince most people he deserved a chance. However I doubt any management would consider that enough to be a certainty. That I assume is why he got a one year deal



Put it another way, do you think Poching would have got the job if CC survived till the end of the season and the job opened to more applicants, I don’t.

I’m guessing the BOD know Applegarth so well they simply don’t have reservations, who knows but them.

It’s not my fault I was right about Poching all along

But you are playing both sides.
If Poching wasn't good enough, the board should have looked harder. I'm not sure why you think there would be more applicants a few weeks later. They either want it or don't.

You are trying to justify that Mark was spotted as a talent and groomed for a job and then linking tenuous points that you dont know for sure.

I've no doubt they rate him, but there was nothing I could see that showed they had a plan to make him coach all along.
He just did really well in his previous jobs and an opportunity came up.

What was M A position in the team i must have seen him play but can not remember .Thanks

Think he was a back rower

He was a back rower but not a regular in the first team.

He played second row for us when he started.
He moved to prop when he got older at other clubs.

He played about 20 games in first two seasons but to be fair he was behind Solomona, MacGillivray, Henderson, and Elima.

I thought he appeared on the scene as a prop but I see others disagree. Fair enough.
Wished I'd kept all those programmes now.

RL Project has him down as playing quite a bit of loose forward for us

[urlhttps://www.rugbyleagueproject.org/players/mark-applegarth/summary.html[/url

Yeah. I just saw program notes from 2004. Promising Loose Forward Mark Applegarth signs 3 year deal.

An utter disaster it's turning out to be.

The absolute lack of creativity, ideas, structure, awareness is mind boggling. We are so far off the pace we'd struggle in the championship.

It is time to make a change, not that I think any coach coming in would change the course of our direction (down), its more to bring some actual enjoyment back to attending matches. I genuinely now go to games not worrying whether we're going to win, but worrying whether we're going to score.

A bit of an understatement. Sixteen halves of SL rugby played this season and ten of them have seen us score 0.

Sometimes a few adjustments are all that are needed to turn a season around. To turn our season around will require a complete rebuild and reprogramming.

Whilst still lacking creativity admittedly, there was that period just after half time where we actually played with urgency and what a difference it made. Why not play like that beforehand? We look so lacking in confidence it’s untrue.
We look like we need a motivator as much as owt. We need……?

Mr Motivator!

I agree.
I actually said to my pal, "bloody hell, we've started playing rugby league".
Although it's hard to gauge, as Cas aren't exactly world beaters just now but, the second half was possibly our best 40 minutes of the season.
We have to be more adventurous with our kicking game in the opponents 20.
Maybe, confidence is so low that, we actually daren't try anything.

We have to persist with Lino and Smith in the halves though, they still look better than Gaskill.

Ditto