Given Rush's experience in coaching first team, and the hole that he was thrown into he did a very good job to get us to third and 40mins from OT.
After the Leeds and Warrington games I thought we had definitely turned a page and the confidence returned to the players: we were offloading the ball with style and the forwards were battering their counterparts...however - and this is a major negative of his time as coach from my PoV - after this promising start we went back to percentage rugby, and one that hasn't sat well with the paying supporters. 5 drives and a kick bored the hell out of me, and our three-quarter line may as well have just taken a seat until we got into the oppo's 20.
Another negative was the way Rush handled the youngsters...from an outside perspective he seems to have completely killed the confidence within Gaskell and Foster, and has suffocated Lomax's general play from half-back by putting him alongside Hohaia. Lomax hasn't been great this season, and you'd have to say that the change of his half-back partner is a major reason for this, as it seems to be the only variable.
Overall though I'd say that Rush did the job that was expected of him, and very nearly got us to another Grand Final. Hopefully Brown can come in now and push the club on by implementing a new tactical philosophy and developing and improving the likes of Lomax and Gaskell.