Old man Royce : Thu Oct 14, 2010 6:06 am  

I know it's a little sad but last night I was talking to Robbie Farah the West Tigers and Australian hooker about Royce on Twitter. Apparantly all the West Tiger lads had s nice drinking session with him the other day to say goodbye. Benji Marshall even asked for permission to leave the NZ camp.

Robbie Farah said the players are gutted to see him go because his personality is up there with the best, very funny and sarcastic guy apparantly! It was good hearing off a top class international about our new coach, rather than a few no it all West fans.

Re: Old man Royce : Thu Oct 14, 2010 6:57 am  

The Hurricane wrote:

I know it's a little sad but last night I was talking to Robbie Farah the West Tigers and Australian hooker about Royce on Twitter. Apparantly all the West Tiger lads had s nice drinking session with him the other day to say goodbye. Benji Marshall even asked for permission to leave the NZ camp.

Robbie Farah said the players are gutted to see him go because his personality is up there with the best, very funny and sarcastic guy apparantly! It was good hearing off a top class international about our new coach, rather than a few no it all West fans.

The world certainly is getting smaller.

Its nice to hear the players have a high opinion of him, but we shouldn't get too carried away of the back of just that. The assistant coach tends to be popular with the players as he's not the one that has to make the big calls and tends to be a lot more friendly with the players than the head coach.

It is another good reference for him though, but the most important one (imo) is that he's rated by Tim Sheens.

To be fair, not many people have anything bad to say about him.

I'm not really up on the whole twitter thing, can you provide a link to this virtual chat?

Re: Old man Royce : Thu Oct 14, 2010 7:26 am  

The Hurricane wrote:

Robbie Farah said the players are gutted to see him go because his personality is up there with the best,

Hes already Saints best ever coach in Saintsfan's eyes then

Re: Old man Royce : Thu Oct 14, 2010 9:48 am  

Judging by that it's a damn good job we've got no players with a personality left either

Sounds very 'mate' rather than 'manager' to me.

Re: Old man Royce : Thu Oct 14, 2010 11:18 am  

Offside Monkey wrote:

I'm not really up on the whole twitter thing, can you provide a link to this virtual chat?

You're not missing much, it basically says

Ash: Reet mate, I'm a Saints fan, what's Royce like?

Farah: Good mate, going for a drink with him later.

It's not an in depth discussion

Re: Old man Royce : Thu Oct 14, 2010 12:45 pm  

Billinge_Lump wrote:

You're not missing much, it basically says

Ash: Reet mate, I'm a Saints fan, what's Royce like?

Farah: Good mate, going for a drink with him later.

It's not an in depth discussion

Bloody hell, you've read a lot into that

Re: Old man Royce : Thu Oct 14, 2010 1:28 pm  

Saddened! wrote:

Judging by that it's a damn good job we've got no players with a personality left either

Sounds very 'mate' rather than 'manager' to me.

Could be a worrying factor. Benji Marshall was the footy show this year saying the same thing.

Dident Millward use to go drinking with players?

Re: Old man Royce : Thu Oct 14, 2010 1:42 pm  

The Hurricane wrote:

Could be a worrying factor. Benji Marshall was the footy show this year saying the same thing.

It depends on him really, he'll have to know that he'll have to take a step back from the players. There are plenty of examples of assistants who make the step up to be decent coaches, it will also help that he is having a completely fresh start rather than doing it with a club that has players coached before.

Re: Old man Royce : Thu Oct 14, 2010 1:45 pm  

Saddened! wrote:

Sounds very 'mate' rather than 'manager' to me.

As I said, its a common thing with assistant coaches. It won't be the same when he's head coach, I'm sure.

Re: Old man Royce : Thu Oct 14, 2010 2:11 pm  

Difficult to predict how Simmons will do, but I'd say any NRL coach or assistant coach is a level or two above anything over here. If Maguire can turn some average players into SL champions, then surely Simmons can get an extra gear out of an already good set of players?