All except three or four of the U20s aren't ready, I agree with the sentiment though.

This idea that you can just throw youngsters in and everything will be all right is cuckoo land nonsense. It's unfair to blood too many in one game for a start. Yes we have been cack for the last couple of games and there is every chance Agar will not be a success at the club but it never ceases to amaze me how knee jerk the reactions of some fans are. Calling for the coach to be replaced after 9 games is sheer lunacy

The majority of fans were calling for him not to be appointed in the 1st place! Giving him the job on a three year contract was the lunacy.

Agreed .

Some fans were against his appointment. There is no way you can say that was the majority.

The season is not far enough through to make these judgements. Imo it is simply a knee jerk reaction to losing against Cas. We have played well under Agar at times and not at others.
I think some players are under performing but that doesn't make it easier for Agar and just chucking kids in certainly would make him a poor coach.

If Ali had stayed on things could have been a lot different. That isn't Agar.
Could be another 10 games before we see a team jelling. We'd be a lot better off supporting the team than moaning after two poor games.

I, seriously, cannot remember any one single fan coming out in favour of Agar during pre season.

Just because they were not for, does not mean they were against.
There were plenty who said they did not know enough about some such as Gentle or Sandcock but many jumped on that band wagon.

What I recall is that most said in thr absence of the likes of Wayne Bennett they were prepared to give Agar a shot.
Not the same as didn't want him at all.

I'm still prepared to give him time.

Wondered how long it would be before the team gelling excuse would reared its head again.Yes we are only 9 games in but we are going backwards and the 3000 or so paying fans that came to Catalans game are going to stop coming cos they will not pay to watch the crap we are currently playing.New team or not it is packed with experience and we are no further up the table than this time last year with a bunch of kids.

The bottle throwing is excused, they were only aiming for Gronks head anyway so what's the fuss ?? Ouch !!!!!!!

Got to disagree with you there, mate. I think the vast majority of fans on here said they didn't want Agar. IIRC, Jimmy E even turned up at a Suporters' Trust meeting and told those present the new coach wouldn't be Agar (I apologise unreservedly if I've got this wrong).

Most of us, myself included, don't know jack about what coaching a SL team involves. We judge the competence of a coach by first team results and league position. We take nothing else into consideration. We'd be happy to watch 5 drives and a kick if we won every game.

Agar will be measured by the results, but it may be someone else who gets the credit for what he's really achieved. This is not a defence of RA, btw... I'm not in a position to judge either way... just a general observation.

The gelling excuse has been and gone, it should be happening by now. These are fulltime professionals who are a third of the way through the season. We should now be getting results. Agar was a very unpopular choice with the majority of fans, he was never going to get much leeway. The last couple of totally inept offerings have started the murmurings. Another two or three bad results and shouts will get ever louder.

Sad in a way, and tough on him, but that's one of the main problems, IMO.

I can't disagree with that but it is a seperate point. We never bloody learn, just like with Tony Smith. But, he's here now, with a ridiculous amount of new players and we have to get on with it. To be calling for his head and start protesting so early serves absolutely no purpose other than to create a negative atmosphere around the team and the club as a whole. it's moronic

it will get worse, that is the most certain event whilst he is with you!!
he is a useless and thats all there is to it

Thank you.

And I'd just like you to know that when Gateshead make it to the grand final, I will be supporting Sheffield, but good luck all the same.

You are partly correct James did say that Richard Agar would not be the new Coach because he had not applied for the position but to put it in perspective that was very early in the process and applications were still being taken.

He told us just before the appointment who had applied for the job and Richard Agar was by far the best person who had applied. If the Club had appointed one of a few of the candidates who had applies some on this Board would have been calling for their sacking or talking of a organising a protest before we kicked a ball.

The problem we faced was that the 2 Hull Clubs, Castleford and ourselves were all looking for new coaches at the same time. This put us in 3rd or more likely 4th place in the pecking order. I wanted Peter Gentle, don't know much about him but as he had worked in the Australia set up and with Tim Sheens I believe I thought he would be ideal for us. He was not interested in Coaching us, Hull were interested and can you blame hime going there rather than us.

Ian Millward was in the frame but he was also in for the Castleford job. I am led to believe that Castleford were dithering and Jack Fulton intervened and told them th get Millward signed up which they did. As I said this left Richard Agard as the best candidate available for our Coaching position so he was appointed. I have to say however I cannot understand why a 3 year deal was offered, I think 12 months is not long enough to give someone a chance to get things moving his way so a 2 year deal would have been what I expected.

Anyway, we are where we are. Richard Agar is the coach. I'm as brassed off as anyone with the last 2 performances and I have no idea why we were so poor in them. I thought up to then we were making steady progress and looked good against a top side in the Catalans and I think Richard Agar, James Elston and Andrew Glover should be looking at finding the root of the problem as to what has gone wrong and address it.

We have made some tremendous progress this year with attendences averaging 8,276 but that will plumett if performances do not improve. We have until the Salford game to sort it as Salford to me is a "must win" game not just for attendances etc. but most importantly to give the fans something to chear about.

As El Rey has said, as brassed off as we may feel, we are in this together.

Thanks for clarifying that, and putting things in a proper context.

Excellent post Sandal, very well put.

It is unfortunate that Mr Agar probably was the best candidate for the job, bearing in mind the position that the club had been in.
I think at this moment in time we are stuck with him for some while, however the most important moment of this season wiil come at the end of May, when hopefully, Newmarket gets the green light.
This will give us some proper stability and may allow the club to attract a couple of genuine quality players, which in turn will allow us to build a competetive team.
For me, the most disappointing aspect of the current team is that, on paper, they are better than we had last season but, in reality they are no better.
The measure of a good coach is their ability to get their players to perform at the top of their ability and using this benchmark, we do not have anything approaching a good coach.
We're in for a long hard season on the pitch so lets hope Newmarket can spark some sort of revival mid season

Ok, I'm going to pose the question that nobody has asked (I think)

We sack Agar, who is the stand out replacement that we could bring in NOW who is a better coach than Agar? and will ultimately change our fortunes on the field?

Brian Noble? would he want the job? if he applied first time around he would have got the job....
Jon Sharp? worse coach than Agar?
Paul Cullen? would he want the job? is he the right man for us?

Then you're into the top end of Championship coaches...

The answer is in the banner at the bottom of your message, Wakefeld through and through and won't settle for less than 100% effort. Agar out, JD in !!!!!

A nice touch, but in my view, SL is about more than 100% effort... you need an element of skill and class in this game to make a success of your team. We have bags of effort... the prime example of a player who recently left us who was the definition of WTW - Kevin Henderson....110% every single week, faultless.... but he was never going pull up any trees!!!

i would say that i have to agree with rebelrebel, at the supporters evening james elston played down agar even when directly asked by one guy who made it quite clear about the supporters opinions of him. the answer came back that he was under contract at hull and was effectively not in the running. i dont know what other peoples thoughts were, but mine were that he was lying through his teeth even then. after all where did the rumours come from in the first place.

all very dodgy imo

Glover said they were impressed by Millward but Agar was the best candidate. While I think Kear had to go I think he would still be a better option than Agar. A clear case of be careful what you wish for.

I still maintain it was time for a change. John Kear had done a good job for us but time moves on and it was time to look in a different direction and aim for a more modern outlook on coaching. Problem is was finding someone who would improve us. With the list of applicants we apparently got then it doesn't sound like there was much in the way of rich pickings. But rumours that Agar was Elstons choice appeared on here totally out of the blue long before it was stated both Kear and Agar had were to leave their current roles, which is what led to the pretty much unanimous calling from the fans that Agar as coach was not what we wanted. The club stated that there was no truth in it, but low and behold, who gets the gig but Mr Agar. Now lets just say not everybody believed James Elston when he said no talks had taken place prior to Agar getting the boot at Hull. And to give him a three year deal looked a big mistake at the time. But most were willing to give him a chance and many still are. But the clock is ticking and improvements need to be seen pretty damn quick. A good 20 minutes against the worst side in the league, 45 minutes against Catalans and a good game at Warrington which we lost anyway isn't enough to win around the doubters. We should be doing better with supposedly better players, so why aren't we? The squad have been training together for six months, we are about to play out tenth league game and also had four friendlies. Thats enough time to gell. We need to start seeing some progress.