Cheers for clarifying - I thought I'd missed summat definitive



It's certainly a reasonable point of view although for me there are some fairly big jumps in conclusion but that's your prerogative and many share your angle. The press (Star?) got hold of the fact Gentle was to leave quite early last season which I found interesting at the time. My view is that I doubt Radford had anything whatsoever with his ousting by Pearson. Pearson, I believe, was not happy with what he could see behind the scenes in terms of discipline, structure, ethos etc. Maybe the Star got wind of that somehow but certainly Pearson has alluded to the fact that the playing side was not as he wanted it at fans' forums since. Pearson may not know much about rugby but he's been around sport and sports clubs a long time and I would think he knows what he expects to see 'behind the scenes'. Added to that he must have gradually felt let down by the recruitment record of Gentle and McRae which was garbage at best.

Pearson's feeling regarding how the team was being managed was probably reinforced by bad defeats away to Widnes, Huddersfield, Castleford, the league shocker at Catalans, and a draw against London. Defeats at home to Wakefield, KR, Huddersfield again won't have helped. I think these defeats compounded what he himself was seeing at training and generally around the place and that's why he acted - not because of some grand plan that he fell for to oust Gentle. I think the cup final and play off debacle would have left him thinking that his already intended course of action was the right one.

As for Radford well he's doing a bit worse than Gentle was on the field, albeit with a similar group of players minus the guy with the kicking game that more or less got us to Wembley. I've seen the charge you make that Radford is a poor man manager which may be true but crucially I haven't seen it from anyone who has been managed by him so it's speculation. Crooks' confidence for example was shot last season under Gentle but Radford has copped the stick for that. By contrast there's been little if any praise for Radford in getting Westerman playing his best rugby for Hull in his best role/position. Westy certainly doesn't look like a guy who isn't playing for the coach and if you saw the reaction of all of the players on Saturday after the Shaul and Feka tries they didn't look like players going through the motions or submitting a 'cancerous' performance. At the end of the day they came up short both individually and as a team and Radford certainly has his share of responsibility for that and other defeats just like Gentle did.

In summary I'm genuinely not bothered whether Radford goes or not - don't know the bloke. But I'm not carrying on buying into this player-power/cancer theory as I believe with better players the team would be higher up the league regardless of the coaching. The biggest problem with some of our players is that they're not as good as the players they are playing against and that's about it for me. Pearson seems to think that he has the right man in place and it also seems that however many fans threaten to leave he's sticking with it - maybe the extra TV money helps that position a bit. Guess that's his decision to make. If he backs the coach by going in again on recruitment and getting it right from now on things will improve.

That's my two penneth

Aren't we around 9 points worse off than we were from the corresponding fixtures last year? Considering we're only halfway through the season, I'd say that was more than 'a bit worse' than Gentle managed. Especially when you consider that we've played most of our home games, haven't won away yet, and that of the homes games remaining, most are against teams above us in the table.

@Staffs FC. Agree with a lot of your two pennoth

.

Got to add I still can't get it straight in my mind how Pearson didn't spot the undermining of Gentle, although perhaps he did but still felt Radford was the better man for the job. But as an owner surely he could see that an appointment under those circumstances could only lead to short term gain before the inevitable crash we're seeing now?

Said at the off my concerns about Radford weren't about his tactical skills and technical ability to teach. He proved that with his defensive coaching last year (but wtf has happened recently?), his triumph with the Westerman transformation and, indeed, the team's performances in the first part of the season were encouraging to the point where I was happy to admit I'd got it wrong and Pearson had it right with his appointment. But, as we've seen time and again, it's what happens when there's apathy or dissent amongst the players - Radford, like his predecessors, is clueless about how to put it right. The Catalans defeat you mention was, of course, following the catalyst of Gentle's dropping of Yeamo, which is, as I've said, where I think the rot set in for him.

Must disagree about Ben Crooks, though, he was high on confidence last year! Dream Team player, although Gentle made a mistake bringing him back (too early?) from injury at Wembley. It's this year his confidence is shot, although I'm not sure how much this is down to Lineham's absence. Not sure about the players not been good enough. As mentioned on another thread, few would cite Cas on paper as stronger than us, a lot are our ex players!

Undoubtedly Gentle had lost the dressing room and when it's gone you can't get it back. But the question Pearson should have asked is what was the root cause of that loss? If the solution he put in place, Radford, was part of that root cause, then the drooping foliage we are seeing now following the initial thrusting green shoots, was inevitable. It's weedkiller we need, not transplantation of infected sources, but who is out there that can inject the solution right to the bottom of the rot?

I agree with you, Leeds is in a way a week off from all the flak Radfords been getting. no one expects a win there so if you lose it was expected, if you lose heavily its expected, but if you can put in a top performance and grab a result or get close to them then he'll earn a reprieve for another couple of weeks.
I think you'll turn London over easily enough too

For sure we're worse that's what I said. However I'm not sure we're that much worse in performance. Take the Challenge cup run. The only good performance in that run was the outstanding defeat of Warrington which Holdsworth orchestrated. Even though we won away at Catalans the performance there was rubbish - we were hugely lucky that Catalans were worse. Other than that we beat the mighty North Wales Crusaders and Wakefield at home. Wakefield went on to beat us at home in the league shortly afterwards.

In the league Wakey away thankfully saw the emergence of Shaul in a game we looked set to lose - which we did manage to do the year before. Widnes away was a shambles as was Bradford. The list of poor performances under Gentle goes on. The point I'm making is that those who hold Gentle up as the yard stick have short memories. His team embarrassed the club twice on the big stages but for some that seems to be OK because he's better than Radford. Lots of coaches are better than Radford so what ?

I doubt you will get one, I think he would be surprised who is sat at the other end of the computer, well maybe not if he is a clever boy!

Oh and Radford in!

Not so much a worry, but more a potential nightmare.

A "dream team" of McNamara/Radford anyone.

I keep waking up in a cold sweat at the prospect of another almighty Fc clanger.

You said 'a bit worse'. Nine points worse at the halfway point is more than 'a bit worse', whatever subjective judgements you wish to make about performances.

And Gentle is not being held up as the yardstick, he's being held up as the man who made us the 6th best team in the competition for two seasons running. Not brilliant, but not terrible either. However many poor performances you want to cite, there's no doubt that he had achieved a level of consistency we hadn't enjoyed for a long time prior to his tenure, and which we certainly haven't enjoyed since. That's not to say we were particularly consistent under Gentle, but there's no arguing that we were more consistent than we had been under Agar, and than we have been under Radford.

Gentle's time in charge was far from perfect, there's no question about that, but there were many positives as well. We obviously disagree on the reasons for some of the more embarrassing performances, but it seems likely to me that the players took exception to something he said or did and responded with poor attitudes and substandard performances.

As for your final question, I'd have thought the answer to that was obvious. 'Lots of coaches' weren't the man sacked in order that Radford could replace them. It doesn't make the poor results 'OK', but it does seem a little senseless to replace a coach who was making some progress with one who has retarded that progress back to Agaresque levels.

So you really think Gentle was making progress ? Really?

See for me he was actually going backwards not forwards. We had a great run at the start of last year when Horne was pulling up trees in the play making and try scoring role (an in form half is worth his weight in gold) but once he got injured we had a terrible run. Maybe you've forgotten saying this ...



after the shambolic defeat at home against Wakefield. That was in July 2013 - only two and a half playing months since the start of this season. In fact that thread is an interesting one as it contains the same content as today's do about Radford- worth a read ...

[urlhttp://viewtopic.php?f=34&t=553039&tsmp=1400517131&start=257[/url

And there's multiple threads just like it after Widnes away, Bradford away, Hudds at home etc. etc.

I don't think Gentle's record stands up any where near as much as I'm reading on here. I left Wembley wishing we'd lost against Wire and as for the Huddersfield away fiasco fortunately I was on call and only had to suffer that disgrace from behind my settee. That said I knew then as I know now that the playing roster wasn't strong enough to win any final. But we weren't coached any better than we are now in my opinion - hence why those shambolic performances were around before just as they are now.

The only consistent thing I can see is that we haven't got enough good players. Another coach to replace Radford would be fine but Pearson was at least right to get rid of Gentle who with McRae was responsible for much of the poor spend on recruitment.

I see your points but I don't think anyone is holding Gentle up as a yardstick I certainly aren't. However you can not ignore that Gentle even with some shocking performances he achieved 6th place finishes even with the peak and trough performances. Wembley for me was more the players not turning up or be able to actually catch or keep hold of the ball in awful conditions. As for Crooks he was certainly not short on confidence as his performances showed along side Lineham and both getting in the dream team. I think some of his issues were adjusting to playing regular SL and coming back too early from his injury at Wembley.

If we had the choice of the 2 would I rather have peaks and troughs and a 6th place and a flirt with the CC under Gentle or less peak and trough and stuggle to make the 8 and knocked out first round of CC? I'd go for Gentle.

That said Gentle was removed by AP (rightly I feel) as he didnt deem that as successful enough however it is no good getting rid of one guy who delivered 6th place finishes to appoint a guy who looks unlikely to be able to repeat any of that and at present we look to be going backwards.

As for the Holdsworth factor he missed a good chunk of the season too and was never the same after Meli took him out so its not as if he was a mecurial master who played the majority of the time.

I agree Westerman has flourished this season but how much of that is simply to do with him now playing in the position he loves to play as opposed to a role that stifled him and his game?

The team is not got enough to achieve success I know that but neither was the one Gentle had but currently the team for me is performing at a lower degree than it was previously.

It all depends on how you look at it I guess.

Fair points. In regard to Gentle there's more to look at than the 6th place finish is I guess my point. And for me it was more troughs than peaks second half of last year. Having said that I have said for a long time that we don't have the ability in key positions - Holdsworth had an excellent kicking game which is totally absent now but was average with ball in hand.

A top coach would be a boon no doubt whatsoever but they would have to rebuild the side to win anything.

A rather scary proposition, stop it.

It's indisputable that we made some progress under Gentle compared to what had gone before. We had consolidated 6th place and, although our squad wasn't good enough to get much higher than that, we weren't ever in danger of not making the play offs as we were under Agar and we now are under Radford.



As I have said previously (and as Worm In Hand alluded to), much of that (in my opinion) was down to the coach having 'lost' the dressing room.



No. Suggesting that the coach is partly responsible for inconsistent performances and saying that the coach was making progress overall are not mutually exclusive.



You deny that we finished 6th in both of his seasons in charge? Even allowing for some awful performances along the way? We can only dream of that this year.



That much is not in dispute. The squad is, however, good enough to be doing much better than it currently is. I'd say we should be around, er, 6th.



The squads are roughly comparable, but the results were better under Gentle. 9 points better (I think) than for the same games last year. On that basis, we must have been better coached under Gentle.



He would have been right to get rid of him if he'd have replaced him with someone better, I fully agree. But to replace him with Lee Radford was asking for us to be in precisely the situation we now find ourselves in.

Defensenively Gentle got us spot on it was scoring points that was the problem.

This season we are struggling with both IMO. There is no consistency, no style or structure to our play and although there were lows in Gentle's tenure they were still not as frequent as Radford's.

I agree with Worm In Hand's analogy, Radford was part of the cause and now he is reaping what he has sewn.

Did Hay not recognise this and this is why he ended up leaving with no explanantion?

For what it's worth I too would like a new coach as I'm bored and disinterested in what we are doing now and soon I feel I'll be past caring.

I hope the feeling of discontent has reached Pearson and that he is prepared to do something about it.

What would people thing to Hay as our new coach, I know unproven but was credited with a lot of the good stuff we did under Gentle. Just a thought.

Just took the Fev job, and we don't want to be replacing an inexperienced coach with another one.

Remind me again why we got rid of Peter Sharp. Surely it can't all have been down to people leaping on the "Sharp is Toast" bandwagon shoved out by Burns?

This is my thoughts exactly I'm happy to give a coach time to build his own squad if that coach was the right person but unfortunately radford is not that right person, to replace gentle with a young unproven coach who only had a few years as assistant under his belt was a ludicrous decision.

Classic urban myth in my opinion. It wasn't just at the end of the season that we were poor we managed lots of poor performances along the way with Gentle - even in his first year. My theory is much simpler - the players aren't good enough as a group and that's down mainly to poor recruitment and retention in the Gentle/McRae era. We made precisely no progress in that area In fact when you consider that we have lost Briscoe (currently selecting Colbon and Crookes as wingers), and the only kicking game we've had for years in Holdsworth I'd say we were much weaker now than we were under Gentle. Our half back situation is dire - no experience there whatsoever in view of the fact Horne seems now to have finished his career.

Pearson seems to think he's made the right decision regarding the coach and that's his decision to make. If we get relegated he might think differently but it seems he's sitting tight.

Radford needs 5 years minimum to rebuild this club, don't see anybody doing any better long term. People thought it would get better when Agar left, it didn't, then when Gentle left, it hasn't. Certain players are willing to give their all (Westy, Feka, Shaul etc.) others aren't, let him get rid of them. This problem isn't going away by dumping coach after coach, might as well let someone see it through. People like Noble and Smith aren't the answer and it's going to get a damn sight worse before it gets better, people need to realise this, get over it and support the club in what it's trying to achieve. Too many fans spoilt by the minimal success of the mid 2000's.

Good post.

We don't always see things the same way but what you've posted there is a perfect summary of the situation. If it's not Radford then whoever it is the timescale is the same. We've wasted two years under Gentle/McRae and Howes etc - with the exception of an increased investment in youth which was welcome and long overdue.

I'm just sick of the same old cycle of failure, time to do something long term. We've always taken a top down approach in the hope of stumbling across a formula that works, but there's no quick fix. I'm sure the Wigan board looked pretty much like this one in 2005/6/7.

Adamfaulkner pearson tweeted 2 hrs ago "Have just had an offer for our flying wingers crookes and colbon but neither wanted to play for jenkoprint" Nice one adam,you have to laugh.

I appreciate that nothing we do is going to turn us into a great club over night. I just want to see signs that we are working on the right things and moving in the right direction, however slowly that may be. So far I can't say I've seen that.

I actually thought there were some green shoots on Saturday, I felt there were areas that were much better than in recent weeks. So I will be interested to see how the next month goes. If we can put in some good performances and pick up a few wins then I would be willing to give Radford a chance. As things stand though he's got a lot to do to convince me.

I agree with giving someone time, but I couldn't agree less with the assertion that Radford is that man. A decent coach gets the best out of whatever squad is available to him (whilst building a better one over time). Radford has singularly failed to get the best out of his team, despite assurances that the squad now had 'their guy' in charge. The very idea of another 4.5 years of Radford chills me to the bone.

It hasnt taken Powell 5 years to take Castleford to contenders, more like 5 months.

We've had clearout after clearout of players, we've had the 'let Agar/Gentle have his own team' before
now we're saying the same for Radford?

A good Head Coach, improves a team with an existing squad.

I'd appoint someone like Flanagan,Smith or Elliott , but back them with sufficient coaching resources,
just like the Wigan board backed Maguire.