Powell may turn it upside down, but he may also not be able to get it moving in the right direction quickly enough?
Don’t get me wrong, there was a period of relative success at Cas for a while, on a much smaller budget. And that is commendable, but it’s not a prolonged period of success. They won 6 games all year last season. They finished 5th the year before and while ironically they knocked us out, they got nilled Salford the following round of the play offs.
I’m not saying he’s doomed and destined to fail, it is a different beast being a Warrington coach. There is expectation beyond what has been earned. The club peacocks as a super club, without having actually backed it up. The last ‘great’ team was 2016 until Sandow/Currie finished their seasons, before that we were justifiably a great team in 2011-2013, aside from that were just decent challengers. It’s a tough job, but with that expectation comes money and a decent starting point by way of a squad.
But, there is nothing to say that he can replicate that in that environment. He had a budget at Leeds, signed players like Adrian Vowels, Ben Walker, Willie Poaching, Andrew Dunemann and David Furner. A list of decent players, and they all played a part (Walker aside, didn’t last too long). He also had a stellar academy to supplement that team, to his credit he put them in and stuck with them. But even then, they were shrewd signings.
But realistically, Smith took that squad of good kids and decent old boys and turned them into champions. Powell built a decent squad, but that list of signings in really uninspiring. The production of Sinfield, Burrow, Maguire, Mathers, Bailey, Diskin, Walker, JJB who all came in at the same time, really filled that squad with talent.
Since then he’s been on a shoestring, and getting a bit back from that, but the club expect more than a plucky underdog. Powell will have a huge budget, with Widdop and Austin likely to leave, along with Clark (2), Inglis and maybe Hill if rumours are to be believed. He needs to find some players to get us going from day 1, or he could be in trouble.
Fans get on the back quickly, even when we had the last huge squad purge, losing Briers, Morley, Monaghan, Hodgson, Carvell etc and trying to play the kids, the fans got on the back of Tony Smith. Even with all the credit he had in the bank. Powell won’t have that credit, Smith saw out a rocky 2014/15 because he had earned the respect, he bounced back in 2016 with a cup final, league leaders shield and grand final only to have ran out out that credit/loyalty 12 months on. If Powell has a “2015” style transition year, would the fans trust the project enough to not hound him out?
