The issue for me is that it does that the club has had no long term plan. Agar was only ever a temporary solution, who was going to move upstairs. Now given that scenario I would expect Gary to be constantly looking for a head coach who wanted to actually do it. Staring from scratch here does that the club have been doing sweet FA in the year since Kev left

The current only English head coach in super league that i would be happy with is Ian Watson, that’s because Steve McNamara has said he doesn’t want the job.

Going further into the championship and then I’d be looking at James Ford.

I personally believe (going by what is being rumoured), we will see an older experienced Australian coach that wants one or two years, with Danny McGuire below as main assistant

Got a name?

And that is the single biggest example of GH not running the club in the manner he once did. Agar had a six month rolling contract so thats as far as we were planning ahead. There was no long term plan and the club saw ticking over and finishing 4th and 5th as the summit of their ambition if we actually had any beyond breaking even financially.

Yep. Complacency at its finest which we are now paying the price for. As I said earlier on this thread GH better get his act together sharpish

I wonder if we will have a head coach in place before the close season

I just think the stadium and then getting the club through covid in one piece has taken priority over the rugby arm of the business over the last several years. Hopefully the next coaching appointment will be the start of the club starting prioritise the team and drive standards up again.

Fully agree, but I really don't see why it needed to be a choice? If we had had professional focus and employed someone to act as PM/QS on the stadium works, then there's no need to compromise the organisation on the rugby side. Everyone faced Covid, didn't seem to hurt Saints too much.

Bottom line is GH took his eye off the ball and now it's gone past him.

To be fair according to Christopher it takes approx 6 month to recruit an office junior and hes in the recruitment bizniz apparantly so god knows when Speedy GonHetherington will get a new coach in.

Funny cos Kev n Lowesy was in a couple of days after McDonut went.

I was thinking the very same about Frayssinous being appointed.

spot on

Ryan Carr went home cos his wife is a financial high flyer n got a good job back home in Aus. He wont be returning.

I think it’s easy as fans to underestimate how distracting stadium development is to the senior management. Saints absolutely suffered during the early part of the 2010s when they moved to Langtree Park as it was at the time, and the subsequent snagging that ensued (cladding gate!)

Our recruitment over that period was poor, and was only really saved by a strong spine whom, despite losing 5 in a row, still got there 5 times in a row… not good enough to keep us competing but not so bad we dropped to complete mediocrity. We then recruited big in Nathan Brown (if I remember correctly we made him the top paid coach ever in SL at the time) and got back to the “big league” by breaking our monkey in 2014, with a strong new generation coming through to complement the old timers.

We then stuffed it up again by appointing Cunningham, but that was sentimentality rather than anything else. As has been shown in the post KC years it wasn’t through lack of trying, just following the wrong advice…

I get what you’re saying, but think it’s more down to the small time mentality of RL club owners (you only need look at the way they only ever look after themselves when it comes to the game as a whole). There’s a big man in a small sport thing at many clubs, and given that our owner is a construction millionaire, there was no reason for us to miss a beat on the rugby side. That doesn’t mean we continue to win it every year, we have no right, but there was no real reason for us to fall so far and for so long.

Leeds is a much larger organisation with 40% of its income coming from the hospitality arm of the business.
I think we're also forgetting how close we came to not being able to finance the stadium. Emerald came in just before the deadline to get a deal in place.

If that is the case, and I'm not saying it isn't, you have to wonder why we have been so persistently linked with him over the last year or so.

Should we be happy now then and stop moaning?
We have a top class stadium and fully vaccinated squad…..?

Sorry but these two statements are simply not true.

From December 2016:

Leeds Rhinos Chief Executive Gary Hetherington said, “To deliver the £39m Headingley Carnegie Stadium redevelopment, which everyone wants, we have to find a solution to the funding issue and both Leeds Rhinos and Yorkshire County Cricket Club are working hard, with the help of Leeds City Council, to explore all options.”

Yorkshire CCC Chief Executive Mark Arthur commented, “It is essential that a solution is found in order to deliver International Cricket to Leeds beyond 2019, and we are working tirelessly with Leeds City Council and Leeds Rhinos to that end.”

Legal and General (not emerald) came in in March 2017 to fill the funding gap.

When i said he wont be returning that was my own opinion. There was some confusion as to the reason he went back home and i got told the reason yesterday. I suspect that reason will keep him in Aus.

I guess we'll find out in the coming weeks. Sad that the clubs status as a major landmark in the RL world now seems so diminished.

I know. The Leeds job should still be a prime job tho surely?

Really? Not sure that many experienced top coaches would want to work with GH and Agar undermining you…..

Its still a big club with great facilities that spends up to the cap and has great kids coming thru.

Announcement next week apparently

I think it will be Ryan Carr

Pete smith keeps posting the same article about him, i think that’s on purpose.

FWIW I think that might be a good choice