As someone who used to be a great advocate of Nathan Brown you need to consider the following !!

His full back judgement runs to replacing Brett Hodgson with Scott Grix for want of an extra years contract for a man who was our best player and 'man of steel.'

Tried to turn Lee Gilmour into a prop forward one of the best diagonal running 2nd row or centre of recent times.

Thought Kevin Brown was a loose forward, sent Shaun Lunt to Leeds and replaced him with Scott Moore !!!!

Thought David Fiaumu a New Zealand international loose forward or hooker was a man destined to be a prop too !!

Brought in Jamie Simpson and played him as hooker a man who had previously played for the bunnies as a winger or centre !!!

I could go on but finally we went to doing a 30 minute intense warm up so half way into the season we were flogged out as he never relaxed training and we signed Brett Hodgson before NB so initially he benefitted from some shrewd signings and took a modest team with one star player and some good players a long way until he started tinkering !!!

From the outside looks pretty similar at Saints on reflection you'd have been better with Rush and our nemesis Mr Cunningham a player I have nothing but great respect for !!!

Final observation from visits to Langtree Park it doesn't hold the terrors Knowsley Road did I have nightmares about Dave Chisnall and company and many other Saints teams and legends the 'park' doesn't seem to hold the same terrors !!!

I'm not trolling just like healthy discussions with Rugby league fans and I hope we don't lose to Batley this afternoon !!!

Wasn't he the guy that made players like Luke Robinson, Crabtree, cudjoe, Brough, mcgilvery, grix etc Ito household names?

Wasn't he the guy that took a bottom 3 side into the play offs?

Wasn't he the guy that took you to super play offs semi finals?


Wasn't he the guy that took you to challenge cup final?

This is no place for facts Pete!

I think there are definitely 2 sides to the Brown story at Hudds. He did so well for them but did make some odd calls especially latterly in his time there. I think he tried out some ideas that fell flat like going with a fast mobile pack. The one mentioned by the OP that I dont think was that daft was Brown to LF ... I've always been a fan of a ball playing loose and it works well for Wigan so I dont see why he should be criticised for that at all.

:s I must have missed that

It doesn't take a rocket science to see we've got problems. I don't know what people expect Brown to do, he's got no halves at the club, he's got injuries to key players and has Inherited a poor squad.

Brown has got the hardest job of any saints coach in the super league era IMO and its going to take time. Any team that loses halfbacks and throws backrows and fullbacks in the halves will struggle.

Brown came here with no halves. Its not Brown that signed Laffranchi to play prop. It wasn't Brown that signed lance as a 6. It wasn't Brown that kept the likes of Meli, Ade, wello that's eating up our cap.

All the Brown knockers out there, I'd love to hear what you'd do with this current squad?

I'm not knocking Nathan for two years he was really good Challenge cup final 22 minutes from Old Trafford then he just made a lot of odd decisions of which letting Brett Hodgson go to Warrington when he wanted to stay the strangest.

I thought he would pull up trees at Saints but reading posts seems like you got the years three and four Nathan not the best version !!!

To be fair your current squad is as good as he inherited at Hudds but he came up with the wrestling and slowdown game which worked well with the players we had just after a year everyone caught on and McGuire at Wigan thought it worked well and did it much better even as he had more quality players !!!

he did very well for us,no doubt,restored some pride back into our team, took us to the next level,which was consistent play offs,a cup final and 2 semi finals so he gets my respect for that.
but most of us can't help feel that we could have achieved a lot more had he not started messing about,primarily with positional changes which didn't work out.
instead of some big strong running props,which we have now, he went with crabtree,mason and a selection of hookers,2nd rowers and centres and we got caught out.
he certainly did flog the players in training as some players have alluded to and fell out with certain players who weren't happy with what he was trying to do, indeed before the semi last year v wire the players more or less said they wanted to play the way they were used to not the new way brown had installed, we lost and he walked.
i have respect for what he did for us and would never slag the guy off but he seemingly lost the plot at the end which was a real shame,as people tend to see that rather than the good times he gave us.
i hope he turns it round at saints and becomes a top coach, then, like tony smith,we can say we nurtered a top coach.

His track record is good, imo, perhaps very good and I was excited when we announced his appointment.
Some things he does though are mind boggling.

Take the Salford game, he left our reserve grade hooker on the bench for 60 minutes for the sake of a reserve full back (who was clearly not suited to play there). He picked Dougie Charnock at #6, but ran him more as a full back, in a game in some of the worst conditions we've played in, then dropped him for the sake of having the likes of Paul Wellens and Staurt Howarth in at 6 instead.

The highlight of this season is the very impressive victory over Warrington. Where that intensity or commitment has gone, I don't know.

got told this morning..(i know another got told blah blah blah) ..that brown was for the high jump and kieron and scully are taking over!

Unless they're putting their boots on, I can't ee how that's going to help.

The would be another sensible move!

Get a half decent coach but give him the worst squad we've had in SL then remove his only real half back and when we get injuries and the paper thin squad is exposed SACK him!

Hardly likely....

I HOPE!

Brown won't be going anywhere yet.

Any talk of brown going now with the squad he's had is ridiculous !

we all know browns downfalls, main one being having no plan B when things start to go wrong.

but he was good for huddersfield..look at the players he brought on!

cudjoe (made him an international centre)
wardle (gave debut)
mcgillvary (gave debut)
brough (signed him)
robinson (international hooker)
lunt (debut)
patrick (debut)

we have alot to thank him for

I'd be VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY surprised if that was the case and VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY uneasy if that was the case. McManus would, with that move, seem to place the blame onto the coaching when it is not atm.

I like Brown and I cannot see why people are failing to see that it is the team that is the problem and not him.

I'd be inclined to believe any rumours about Brown, as there was always the question over his desire to take the job in the first place. He's been trying to get a job back in the NRL pretty much since he joined Huddersfield. He clearly doesn't want to be coaching in England if he can help it.

So it might not be him getting sacked as such, perhaps the size of the challenge and lack of investment in helping with it has made him question his desire to do the job?

Don't you think it's just the usual inane rumour that arises when a team goes through a rough patch?

It would be outrageous to sack Brown at this stage given the materials he's been able to work with.

Given that he couldn't get a job in the NRL before he took the job at Saints, I don't think he's going to get one now.

Maybe because it isn't wholly the team which is the problem. For example, it wasn't the team who decided to mess around with the pivot positions just before our biggest game of the season and it wasn't the team who decided to dispense with our one remaining fit 6. There are other questions too which go to the coach rather than the team. And, at the end of the day, the buck stops with the coach regardless of how good or not the team is.

Ultimately, yes. But I think it would be harsh not to acknowledge that he has inherited a number of problems from previous regimes. He needs some time to sort these problems out before we can judge him on his own merits.

Exactly, it's all about context.

How can a coach be questioned when he has inherited a squad with ZERO half-backs?! I am completely baffled as to any question of his ability currently. If that is sorted (a big if!) this season and the problems persist then I would agree with SaintsFan. We shown a lot of effort and desire on Sat and that shows that Brown said the right things at half-time as they came out a different team, or was that the team that did that?



Someone who was bang average last season and this season? Gaskell did a similar job to Hohaia when he has played #6 for Saints yet everyone hates Hohaia but thinks Gaskell is the saviour? It makes no sense.

I don't think he's suffering anything from previous regimes. McManus has the cheque book at the end of the day. He wouldn't even open it at one point! (Claiming that the club 'believed in bringing through the youth' - remember those days?!) I just think in terms of recruitment generally we have suffered due to all focus and finance being directed towards the stadium. However, that doesn't excuse the coach from getting the best out of what he has and I don't believe Brown is doing that just at the moment.

Not true but what I will say Gaskell has never defended as badly as Hohaia did on Saturday.
Gaskell was binned for a lot less,Im intrested In Browns tollerance levels this week.

Could well be. I don't think we would sack him, it would be utterly stupid to do that. However I wouldn't rule out him walking. If he's got a massive uphill battle on his hands (As realistically, he has) he might not fancy it. He's in the same boat as Harry Potter was before he left, he only took the Saints job as he couldn't get a job back home and took the Bradford job out of sheer desperation. When a chance came to leave them and go home, he did.

I certainly don't see Brown staying at Saints long term, unless he's had a massive change of heart.