Saints poor start to the season has forced Royce Simmons to step down.
Not many had this guy as the first coach to go !
IMO its far to early in the season, but he's gone.

Coach pays for players failings.

Coach pays for poor recruitment, I'd say.

Saints have failed to adequately replace Graham, recruited a player in Hohaia that IMO is hugely overrated and have found themselves with Francis Meli as one of their first choice centres. Add in Perry being a complete flop in SL and someone needed to carry the can for the poor start. Even if they were recruitment decisions made over Simmons' head, the board are highly unlikely to take the blame for it.

Soon as Roby got injured they became a very ordinary team overnight.

Surely the board would't make the recrutement decisions without his input. I've been a RL fan for many years and if i won the lottery and bought my club i wouldnt dare think i knew better than a top player or coach.

It does happen, It happened at Wigan for years, Maurice would go to Aus and bring back a Trent Barrett or David Vaelliki with little or no input from the coach.

Simmons is an assistant coach who was out of his depth at head coach level. He has this policy of having a back on the bench, who is there to cover injuries. If there are none that player either doesn't play at all or plays 8 minutes in place of another back. So effectively Saints have played every game under him with 16 men and with the reduced interchanges to 10, it's a pretty stupid thing to do, especially when we are light in the front row anyway. He also has this rotation policy where two or 3 needless and not particular beneficial changes are made each week, which disrupts the momentum of the side.

There are rumours he had fallen out with the players over the tactics used and the type of rugby we were playing. In that kind of scenario it's never the players that lose out, it's always the coach.

As for the recruitment issues, those are genuine faults. If he was involved in that, he clearly deserves sacking. If not, it's because the club has been so focused on the stadium development that the playing side of things has been neglected for years now. If you look back at the list of ins and outs at Saints over the last 5 years and it's pretty evident that there wasn't the same ambition and desire to succeed as there was previously.

With the stadium built now, hopefully this decision marks the club returning it's focus onto the playing side of things. The rumours that we've signed Jamie Lyon, if true, would also show this.

It's seven games in and they've sacked a coach who got them to a GF last year.

He's not had the best of times so far this year, but he's proven himself more thsn Rush and Cunningham so far, so its more likely they'll do the same or worse.

With Roby, Soliola, LMS back Simmons owuld have still guided that team to a top 6 finish minimum imho.

Top 6 isn't good enough for a team like Saints, however they will be challenging later in the season, probably hoping to do as the Rhinos did last season.

Depends on who comes in and when.

Who is available?

It adds to the rumour I posted last week that Simmons would go and Nathan Brown would come in; the two who are stepping up don't really have any pedigree, so they reek of a temporary fix until Brown is out of contract at the Giants.

Bit hasty to oust him this early, but if as some suggest he's lost the players, then it's probably an exercise in cutting losses in the short term; this could effectively be seen as Saints writing off this season for longer term gains.

To be fair, Laffranchi has been good up front, though he was never going to fill the void left by Graham. While I don't particularly rate Hohaia, I think he's doing a good job at 9 with Roby out. So I don't think they recruited poorly.

Doesn't N Brown keep saying he is going home to Aus?

From what I can gather, Simmons asked for Lance and also wanted Laffranchi as he had coached him earlier in his career.

No, on SL Extra Time he said he hadn't made a decision.

Distinctly possible. But amazing that 7 games in Saints would appoint a couple of seat warmers for 75%+ of the season.

yes but with no nrl jobs in the offing then his hand could be forced and end up at saints at the start of next season

got a job with the giants to finish first...club statement released saying hes going knowhere till end of the season

The problem IMO is that saints haven't replaced James Graham. he has carried saints for the last couple of seasons. Once Roby got injuried, the writing was on the wall. Wigan suffered the same when Farrell left (another who had carried a team for a number of seasons).
It happens.
Every team goes through a change as our players cannot play for ever. Coaches must start to blood the new generation of players 1 or 2 at a time so that when the time come that they are ready to step up .

Rhinos (more importantly, Sinfield and the players) stayed rock solid behind McDermott during their 'crisis' though didn't they ?

Saints are developing a habit of this ....announced McRae would be leaving well before the end of '98; Hanley left 4 games into 2000; Millward went about May time in '05; now Royce.

Since Anderson left they've made two dud appointments and paid the price.

They also got McClennan the shove a year before his contract was up too for similar reasons Royce has by the sounds of it. Player power always wins. They are the guys who win the trophies. Obviously a good coach helps but if the relationship isnt working between the 2 then it's the coach who goes every time.

As if the Giants would stand in his way. He's just finalising the rental of a house as we speak. He's on the East Lancs heading back towards the M62 as I've just seen him at a petrol station.

The Giants statement is just hot air, they'll get their compensation when Brown resigns from Huddersfield in three weeks after this tough run of games is over for Saints.

Hudds keep releasing stuff on their website carrying the name of Paul Anderson and not the Head Coach Nathan Brown.

Surely its a formality now that Brown will be at St Helens some point this year?

That's been the case since the beginning though hasn't it?

Plus why would he leave the team he has built for another job in this country when his family aren't overly happy here?

Quote ="Ande"Hudds keep releasing stuff on their website carrying the name of Paul Anderson and not the Head Coach Nathan Brown. Surely its a formality now that Brown will be at St Helens some point this year?'" If he does take the Saints job, it wont be this season if this report is anything to go by... www.google.com/hostednews/ukpres ... 169767614A Quote On Monday, Brown said: "I have seen all the speculation and I am going nowhere. I have a job here until the end of this season and that's that for me. "This group of players and the club are very special to me and I will leave here at the end of October having given my absolute best to try and achieve the goals we have set ourselves. What the situation is at any other club is not for me to comment upon." '"

Quote ="Ande"Hudds keep releasing stuff on their website carrying the name of Paul Anderson and not the Head Coach Nathan Brown. Surely its a formality now that Brown will be at St Helens some point this year?'" If he does take the Saints job, it wont be this season if this report is anything to go by... www.google.com/hostednews/ukpres ... 169767614A Quote On Monday, Brown said: "I have seen all the speculation and I am going nowhere. I have a job here until the end of this season and that's that for me. "This group of players and the club are very special to me and I will leave here at the end of October having given my absolute best to try and achieve the goals we have set ourselves. What the situation is at any other club is not for me to comment upon." '"

always been the case, brown sometimes leaves it for his assistant to do the post match comments etc.