He might be a great coach with the exception of match days, so do we put a lot of blame on the players who can,t even do the basics right of pass, catch and tackle and adding the terrible playing attitude this season.

The majority of the team are brain dead in rugby terms surely Brown is responsible for that.

He got a pretty poor Huddersfield team to tackle and defend well, there's a reason it isn't working here. I'm not sure it's all his fault to be honest, our defence is the worst part of our game.

A couple of contacts I have at Saints really rate Brown so either he's a very good salesman and conning them or the fans have got it wrong. I suppose time will tell.

I think he is conning everybody, we have 2 on loan players which are holding back the development of our own players.

We have o,Brien who is now taking the place of a better player in Charnock, we have Howarth who is now taking the place of a better player in Thompson.
Another thing we have noticed is that the on loan players made reasonably satisfactory debuts, but now they sre familar with the coaching regime they have got progressively worse.

Mr Wane would have none of this, so maybe Brown is a better coach than Wane and the fans no nothing.

He coached an NRL team for 5 years, and took Huddersfield up a notch to cup finals and consistent high placed league finishes. That doesn't correspond to someone conning anyone about his ability. I don't think he's a real top class coach in the mould of Bennett, but his record suggests better than what we're seeing at the moment. If players are also rating him, that suggests to me that the faults may lie elsewhere, at least in part.

But he has history of messing players about which he appears to be at every club he has managed. He was found guilty of assaulting Thompson and Barrett and fined 5000 dollars, he had the mutiny at Huddersfield last year.
The picture I am getting now is that his man management technique maybe conning the players short term to believe in him when in reality his coaching abilty is erratic by way of selection and game execution.
We have 7 more games to try and turn things around but I don,t have confidence that Brown is capable of improving the current players skillset and more importantly..............ATTITUDE.

Were St George successful under him?

So far as Hudds are concerned, he got them to ONE cup final, which they lost, and they progressively deteriorated under him subsequent to that up to the point where they imploded in 2012. Contrast that with, say, Tony Smith at Wire, where there has been consistent challenging from a team that had previously consistently missed the boat and I'd say Brown's record certainly doesn't warrant the faith that McManus put in him (ie didn't bother interviewing anyone else, signed him up for three years).

But Tony Smith has brought hardly anybody through from his youth system since he came to Warrington.
On Monday night the only player on the Wire side that has come through their system since Smith arrived was Ben Currie. He fielded about ten players over the age of thirty.

I was privy to a conversation between a Wigan staff member and a Wire staff member at the U19's game at Orrell between the two teams earlier in the season.

Wire employee "Your young players did well last night, HE won't give ours a chance"

Took them to second and knocked out of the playoffs by the eventual winners in one year, in the hothouse of the NRL, if he'd been garbage he'd have been found out in a year. He took Huddersfield a step up above what they were, had them consistently finishing at a higher level than they had previously and got them to a cup final.

I would expect Smith to be challenging given the amount of money he's spent, though he has struggled to take them the extra step to League Champions.

Whilst he may have problems as a coach, the way this year has fallen apart is too extreme for it to be his fault alone, especially if players are stating that he's a good coach.

That actually seems to happen in coaching to some anyway even in the NRL. For example, Daniel Anderson took the Eels to a grand final in his first year and then they plummeted down the table in the second (and he subsequently got the chop of course).


Not quite true. They didn't reach those dizzy heights again.


Unless there is something going on behind the scenes at Saints - and I can't dismiss that obviously - then the only difference between last season and this is the coach.

Those dizzy heights of finishing league positions?



Is it? Have there been no other changes at all behind the scenes?

Who says the players think he's a good coach?
Have they been quoted in the press or on air?
Even so, they are hardly likely to say anything else, if they have to work for him after they have stated their views?

I don't think he's lost the plot; I don't think he ever had the plot.

Some people who post on here know some players so the views have been expressed off the record. Now normally off the record stuff is as a rule honest as there is little to no comeback. When Mick Plodder was coach there was lots and lots of negative off the record stuff and this was confirmed after he left at a testimonial forum I went too (one of Ade's) by several first team players and Cunningham.

So far I'm not impressed with Brown and I'm mystified as to why the players seem to be given they all look bloody clueless on the field.

Fair enough. Off the record is off the record.
you will also know then that Rush was not liked/rated by the players but he seemed to be able to get more out of them which is a bit of a mystery?

When he talks rugby, he talks sense but when it comes to doing it, he does some crazy stuff.

His team selections are a worry.

I agree they are just plain dumb at times but the complete lack of a game plan worries me more. We either don't have one or the players are unable to execute it which is odd given the amount of time they must spend practising it.

I've played with some pretty thick players in my time but everyone of them has been able to execute basic plays and do 'their bit' , we have a team of well paid internationals who seem to struggle with simple things like catching, passing, dummy runners, moving up in a line ... it's embarrassing. If a team I'd played in had put in a performance like we did on friday we'd have been flogged in training running boring set moves and running up and down a pitch in a line.

On Friday when we had a tap, we did the same move every time. It was Roby taking the tap, he'd pass it to O'Brian, he'd pass it to wello who'd give to to Walmsley (or prop) who'd over run it and take the ball so flat it look awful. We can't do basic rugby.

Hudds was a well structured team so I just don't see why we can't be. I understand the whole pre-season ball work went out the window due to the constant changing of halves. We had prepared with lomax and Gaskell as the halves and we've had many many more since then so it was never going to be great but even our dummy runners can't get it right.

The picking of Howarth in the back row was almost mind blowing.




But even with that, surely the basic structures, especially defensively should have sunk in by now? The fact that Hudds were so well structured to us not being structured at all is what puzzles me most.

And me

I've mentioned before about my suspicions that Brown's heart isn't really in the job. But lets assume for a minute that he is, this period of complete collapse was always on the cards. I told you about it last season. He has to break down a way of playing that we've had since Daniel Anderson, that has been progressively worsened through Potter and Rush. He's then got to get the team playing a certain way. With the players we have, that probably isn't ever going to work. We don't have the big, super aggressive forwards Huddersfield have, we don't have the clever halfbacks Huddersfield have and we don't have the athletic backs Huddersfield have. On that score, the signings he's looking to make seem to make sense, perhaps.

The only complete curveball to all this is the decision to give utterly terrible players who don't fit into Brown's new world at all, like Laffranchi and Wellens, new deals. What is that about?

His team selections are a major worry indeed. Stuart Howarth in the back row is just a nonsense decision, he isn't even a Super League standard player in my opinion.

Our strongest side should be

Lomax
Makinson
Turner
Percival
Meli
Hohaia
O'Brien
Puletua
Roby (c)
Laffranchi
Manu
Jones
Wilkin

Bench

Wellens
Thompson
McCarthy-Scarsbrook
Walmsley

Not the greatest Saints team in the Super League era, infact it will probably go down as one of the worst if not the worst. The thing is Nathan Brown doesn't help himself in some ways at all. Some of his half back combinations have a lot to be desired. Wellens is never a six in the memory of man. If he wants Wellens in the team put him at Full Back and move Lomax to Stand Off. The only reason Id have Wellens on the bench is if the half backs are struggling to create and we could move Lomax into the halves. Im getting sick of his tinkering and him not having the common sense to play players in there natural positions. Rugby League is a simple sport, Nathan Brown makes it look like mission impossible at times.

Agree with the view that Brown's heart is no longer in it. His job is pretty much untenable with Rush KC & the senior pros.

Fairly sure the players above were not on his list of keepers & leavers that went to EMcM earlier in the year.
Think this just confirms any radical plans for change will be stifled.

Got the crazy situation now of the establishment making the job more and more untenable , Brown
appearing uber casual and making zany selections which almost say sack me. Add to this senior pros
continually whining and sniping.

Its like a mexican standoff (we could do with one mexican or otherwise) where all parties
seem to be goading the other to pull the trigger.

Can see this coming to a head after the Wigan game.

I do wonder how long he'll get.

McManus made that hollow statement in the press a few weeks ago about how the players aren't performing and need to. It'll be mighty interesting to see how he backs that up. Does he just go to ground and hope we don't notice they are playing terribly, does Brown cop for it and get sacked, or do the players?

I totally agree. If we get hammered by Wigan Nathan Brown will be gone by Tuesday morning.

I think Brown will be here next year unless he quits.