I agree.

Part if the fitness thing is about ball retention which is much better than it used to be but it's clear that the change in backroom team is having an impact.

Does anyone know what length of contract Willie signed, it all appears to be coming together nicely & bearing in mind the predicament some of our neighbours are in, it might already be prudent to start talking of an extension?

The EI Quotient is low

Don't think that I've read as many well thought out, interesting, well written and complementary posts as on this thread for a long long time. It certainly has brought about a real resurgence in interest for the Club, which can only be a good thing. No hints of pessimism just genuine enthusiasm and praise for the full squad.. Well done to all

One year, I believe.

Kay was always a good player and once a very promising halfback but not given the opportunity first time around and ended up a Leigh where he played wing
For me a good winger but wasted and now proving his worth all be it at 9

Hall is quality Leeds must surly be regretting the decision to offload the lad and our problem will be keeping him if success is not delivered

Crowther always had the ability just needed the belief in himself and Batch was always going to develop into a class forward

Poaching was a winner as a player he served his apprenticeship as a assistant coach and comes across
well as a motivational knowledgeable coach
Chester was a decent man but always seemed to lack any motivation in his after pre match interviews
Maybe this filtered down to the dressing room.

Early days this season and not getting carried away but with the young players coming through and a coach who is not scared to give them the opportunity I see a very bright and exciting future providing SL status is secured this season.

I also do not dismiss the contribution made by Francis Cummins a winner as a player and a great acquisition to the coaching team

I agree except the Chester bit.
No matter how people want to spin it, he got us to 5th in the league.

Some coaches react with emotion others react with intelligence and reason... I think CC very much fits the emotional coach description and Poching is in the intellect and reason category ... I'm not saying one is better than the other ... it depends on the circumstances,,, some times..(eg the current Leeds team) the team needs an emotional jolt... although I would postulate that the longevity of coaches in the intelligent and reason category is greater.

Why CC gets so much hostility should baffle me but it doesn't. A certain sector of society always need someone to blame and they will do so without any reason other than malice as far as I can tell.

CC was a good coach, end of. Two top-eight finishes and five years in charge and some glorious performances under his reign prove that. Anyone who argues against this is in my opinion a fool. However, CC was not an exceptional coach and I don't think anybody ever thought he was. So when the wheels fell off and that crucial element called luck deserted him he simply wasn't able to put them back on, or at least not in a reasonable time period. Chester's time came and then it went but he deserves credit for the legacy he left.

It's far too early to decide what Poaching is and those waxing lyrical should hold fire for a bit. Yes, the signs are promising but you only have to look at Shane McNally or even Richard Agar to see how quickly things can change.

I'd say CC was very much an orthodox coach and not much prone to thinking outside the norm but I don't know him so I may be wrong. This season suggests that WP is more single-minded and more creative but a few bad results and that one will quickly come tumbling down.

Much of WP's style seems to be geared to trusting the players and that is the riskiest strategy there is, though if it works it's by far the most effective IMO. WP will need balls of steel to make this work combined with a genuine level of genius and I'm in no way exaggerating. He's got one thing going for him in that ours is not an ego-driven club and that's mainly because we are poor. On the downside, we are not conventionally choc a bloc with talent though that IMO is debatable.

Whichever way you look at it WP will have to be a genuinely visionary coach to be able to lift us to a level that even JK couldn't, ie to truly compete.

The jury is so far out on this that it's still in bed, very early days for WP as a coach (not as a player). CC on the other hand has earned his place in our history.

By taking over a team that was fit ,and most of the spade work had been done .also got us in with a big chance of been relegated 4 times .Stayed 3 year to long .

Took over a team that scraped past Bradford to stay in the league with a last minutectry and took predominantly the same team to 5th.
Staying through Covid simply took the pressure off the next guy. No one would succeeded with our injuries and covid issues

I get that you don't like him but you can't just change history to make him look bad.

Utter nonsense.

Pop Tart like reading your post but as far as covid ,do not use that as a excuse.The Government are using it all the time .to why the normal working class person is getting porer Does not wash with with me

It's not an excuse. It's a reason. We had players unavailable. It's just a fact.

I do agree he stayed too long.
I'm not sure how much better Willie would have done back then.

It actually worked out that Chester took the heat and Willie got a fresh team to start with. He's made more from that team than anyone else could have I think.

But when times were good, Chester was the most successful coach we've had in a long time.

Virtually all coaches stay too long, it's how it is. To be fair how exactly do you know, coaches tend to believe in themselves so are more likely than most to keep going. When it comes to the playing side it's the only real job the CEO has and that's when to call it a day and that can't be easy because unless you are tw*t or the person you are asking is it's a hard thing to do. I've done it on numerous occasions and very rarely have I felt happy doing it even though it's been justified from a business point of view, it's certainly always been the last option.

Will always be grateful for what Chester did...took over a struggling side and turned us into a top 8 side challenging in the play offs...can't ever forget that Scott Grix moment and being seconds away from ending Saints season!

Just because of the way it ended shouldn't take away from the excellent job he did...built a very competitive squad on limited funds as opposed to other teams...yes he got some wrong but he got plenty right and over his reign I think he had the backing of all the players as our better players were always happy to stay...

There's no doubt he suffered some awful luck with injuries etc...remember that season after the two top 8 finishes we were flying half way through the season sat in 3rd then in the space of a few weeks lost both halfbacks...plus many other of our star players and went on a real bad run and never really recovered...then even the covid seasons we had a shocking start fixture wise playing top 4 teams away in something like 7 of our fist 9 games or something daft like that!

That said...with the benefit of hindsight now it was the right decision for a change....think he just got bogged down with the constant bad luck of missing injured players...disruptions etc...think sometimes it came across in interviews that he was losing the fight and that possibly rubbed off on his players too.

Willie has had a great start and things are definitely looking good but there has been a few similarities...losing to Leigh last season...losing the pre season game at Fev....that first half v Leeds where we had the injuries and disruptions Chester had so much of...having to play two forwards in the centres and losing Miller in the first 5 minutes and a young lad on debut making a few errors...saw things like that loads of times under Chester but when it happens plenty of times fans are very unforgiving.

The things I like from WP though is he's not afraid to drop a player as showed with Tanginoa early in the season...arguably one of our star players but can't have been showing the right signs and was dropped...hasn't done him any harm as he's looked right back to his best the last few weeks whether that be as a prop or a back rower...another thing CC was constantly slated for.

Like the fact he shows real faith in the youngsters and that he won't risk playing injured players...would we have risked Big Dave carrying a knock against Warrington in the cup in previous seasons desperate for a result? All those things will contribute to a healthy competition for places throughout the squad going forward which is a great position to be in...

No it isn't. He's got it just about right and in a nutshell.

I also think he’s about right,
Brian Smith had the squad really fit but they were utterly miserable.
Chester came in and loosened the reigns, lifted the mood and the squad started playing with a bit of freedom and a smile on their faces.
Also, like it or not, our 5th place finishes did owe something to the demise of a few of the usual top 5 suspects.
Wigan, Leeds, Sts, Warrington, Catalan & Huddersfield all went through a couple or three seasons in transition and thus opened the door for the likes of Cas and ourselves to finish higher up the table

Willie has done the opposite to Chester, he’s taken an unfit team who have had 3 fairly miserable seasons and he’s turned them around, getting them fit and playing some confident attractive rugby.

Whatever