Barbed Wire wrote:
I’ve been labelled as a bitter Smith fanatic and a doom monger re: Price since the minute his appointment was announced. I was hugely underwhelmed, given his poor record as a head coach, at him being the man who could go beyond where Smith could take us. (For clarity, there was a wide spread theory that Smith had taken us as far as he could, which I understood, but my point at the time was that we should only replace him if there is someone available who is better.)
Price couldn’t take us further, there was nothing to suggest that he could on his application. If we were looking for grand final wins as an assistant, there are plenty of those as even some with an affinity with the club (Matt King for example). But the executive appointed Price, and haven’t really been held to account by the board for that appointment, which in summary has been pathetic.
The same executive have assessed that Powell is the person to not only succeed Price, but ultimately surpass Smith. That is the task, to actually win the Grand Final. Anything less must been seen as abject failure, given the budget/facilities/squad pedigree. I can’t really understand how they have reached that opinion, given that he has missed the playoffs almost routinely, and when he has got to big games, they have been dispatched comfortably.
It’s not clear what the criteria is to be considered suitable for this role, but I would argue that it is a different person recruiting the coaches than it is convincing Johns, Morley and Matt King to join the club. There isn’t the same drive or ambition.
Bennett is going into another grand final next week, leaving the job next week. Bellamy, at the time, was off contract and was the current champion coach. Shaun Wane, for all to see, is ready to come towards a club scene again. These people, like them or not (and I don’t, on the whole) are WINNERS. You can’t buy a win, but - see Jordan Abdull’s interview re: Price - some people can demand better from a group of men.
Powell may work out, may. But whether he does or he doesn’t, the recruiters need to work as hard on getting the coach in as they did at getting Williams in and under the cap. And, more importantly, the board need to hold these people to account, and stop treating the fans with contempt.
This was pretty much my position too at the time when everyone was calling for TS to go. It's not just a case of "the old guy has gone stale, bring in any new guy and we'll turn things around". Around the same time you had the same situation with Arsene Wenger at Arsenal and look what happened to them.
It seemed like from our recruitment round that Price was about our 3rd choice as other options were taken off the table. His record as a head coach at St George-Illawarra wasn't good, so the omens weren't great. Overall, I think 3 finals and 1 trophy is better than I was expecting when we appointed Price. It's better than I'm expecting at this point from Powell.
I think the big difference between now and the era when we were bringing in Johns, Morley and King is the practicalities: less favourable exchange rate, Aus salary cap bigger, Brexit (and now covid) making it less attractive to join a club across the world. It's not just about ambition, these are practical hurdles.
