Imagine : Sat Jul 15, 2023 12:17 am  

Being a young, academy product, hungry prop. Named on the bench for a local rivalry.

You watch one of the senior props go off with a HIA. You hear he's not coming back on. The team start to drop off, you think to yourself "I'm on here"

And then you turn and look at our coach, he's not interested in using 4 subs tonight, even with a man out. He'd rather let you sit in your full kit and watch a game for 80 mins.

Chin up Whitehead

Re: Imagine : Sat Jul 15, 2023 5:11 am  

Imagine ... if we all decided to start a new thread every time we had a bit of a thought about basically the same subject.

Re: Imagine : Sat Jul 15, 2023 7:06 am  

Philth wrote:

Chin up Whitehead

Seems to be one of DP’s idiosyncrasies- Ask Lucas Green.

The one that has me scratching my head is Luke Thomas - made a couple of appearances during “the run” (anyone remember that?) and, to my eyes, looked very promising. Now he struggles to get 18th man. I’m sure someone closer to the inner sanctum can shed some light on that.

Then of course there’s the mystery of how our academy and reserve sides function without a stand off. They must do because when the first team need one we’ll try anyone who can count to 6 rather than play 6…If Georgie fails another fitness test who’s next? I do recall DP’s interview saying Big Sam has good hands…

Re: Imagine : Sat Jul 15, 2023 11:01 am  

Perhaps it would be good to put a few more "passionate about the badge " kids out against Wakey & see how they do, It is beginning to appear that a hoped for win against Wakefield could be the zenith of the season.

Re: Imagine : Sat Jul 15, 2023 11:38 am  

ninearches wrote:

Perhaps it would be good to put a few more "passionate about the badge " kids out against Wakey & see how they do, It is beginning to appear that a hoped for win against Wakefield could be the zenith of the season.

Kind of a depressing thought is that. But it’s what our season as currently come down to, stories of players wanting out, the latest being Nicholson and we get no encouragement from the club other than Karl planning the next silly stunt to get the young fans in because all us older fans are near deaths door anyway yeh all a bit depressing. So give the players that want to play for the club the town the shirt this season can’t get any worse can it ?

Re: Imagine : Sat Jul 15, 2023 11:52 am  

I think he's toast if he loses to Wakefield. He was never going if he lost to Saints and Wigan but the downward trajectory and losing against both Wakey and Cas would arguably be too much for the board to stomach.

In that, he's already shown a bit of a "meh" attitude to Green, Thomas and Whitehead so he's not going to trust them to save his job.

Re: Imagine : Sat Jul 15, 2023 12:31 pm  

Philth wrote:

I think he's toast if he loses to Wakefield. He was never going if he lost to Saints and Wigan but the downward trajectory and losing against both Wakey and Cas would arguably be too much for the board to stomach.

In that, he's already shown a bit of a "meh" attitude to Green, Thomas and Whitehead so he's not going to trust them to save his job.

When was the last time we sacked a coach? Lowes 2009? It's not the Warrington way

Re: Imagine : Sat Jul 15, 2023 12:46 pm  

Wires71 wrote:

When was the last time we sacked a coach? Lowes 2009? It's not the Warrington way

Yep ... not the Warrington way. The coach gets changed at the end of his contract or he decides to go. But when he "decides" to go is of course open to discussion.
This isn't a new problem. I can remember individuals, bleating on about Tony Smith's selections, after match chats etc. many years ago. He is generally thought of as our best ever coach but lots thought they knew much better & wanted him sacked & kept twisting the knife. The trouble is you never know ... you might even find the next man not to your liking and let's face it ... that is very likely to happen. Those who say we couldn't possibly do worse are plain mad & don't know their sport as clubs can spiral downwards as well as improve.
I'd guess Powell will be here for another year and we may have to lump it ... but I've been wrong many times before.

Re: Imagine : Sat Jul 15, 2023 2:24 pm  

Smiffy27 wrote:

Yep ... not the Warrington way. The coach gets changed at the end of his contract or he decides to go. But when he "decides" to go is of course open to discussion.
This isn't a new problem. I can remember individuals, bleating on about Tony Smith's selections, after match chats etc. many years ago. He is generally thought of as our best ever coach but lots thought they knew much better & wanted him sacked & kept twisting the knife. The trouble is you never know ... you might even find the next man not to your liking and let's face it ... that is very likely to happen. Those who say we couldn't possibly do worse are plain mad & don't know their sport as clubs can spiral downwards as well as improve.
I'd guess Powell will be here for another year and we may have to lump it ... but I've been wrong many times before.

I'm not in the Powell out campaign. I don't think he is going to turn it around but I can no longer summon the energy to get animated. It's more a consigned "sigh".

But as a challenge to your logic - plenty of Saints individuals "bleated on" about Cunningham in 2017. I bet they regret sacking him and wished they had honoured his contract. I mean they went on a spiral of only winning 1 WCC, 4 GF, 1CC and 3 LLS in the 6 years since he was sacked. You should have seen the coaches they got in afterwards. Mind you they probably had some visionaries on Red Vee at the time saying keep Cunningham, give him to the end of his contract to turn it around! I bet they wished they had listened to such wisdom.

I don't know how many times we need to discuss the Tony Smith departure - by his own words he had had enough and the team that Cullen built, and the superstars, had long since gone. He stayed about 2 years too long. We were stagnating and anyone could see that.

Re: Imagine : Sat Jul 15, 2023 2:39 pm  

Powell had been perfectly happy giving 19/20 year olds game time - see Thewlis & Wrench who regularly got game time ahead of Lineham and Minikin (even though everyone was sure Minikin would be first pick because Powell brought him in).

If Whitehead (who isn’t a prop, but could have done a job at 13), Thomas & Green aren’t getting the same amount of game time, I’m sure he has his reasons. But he has shown he isn’t afraid to play young players if he thinks they are good enough and ready.