Quote ="lefty goldblatt"
Let's also not forget, Millward (hate him or loathe him) has an eye for a decent player. SLs and CCs show this.
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I think its a bit of Emperors New Clothes with Millward as a coaching genius. Those SLs and CCs were helped no end by the fact he arrived at Saints at a perfect time with a generation of players like Cunningham, Sculthorpe, Wellens, Long etc all in their early 20s and forming the core of the strongest side in SL during his era. That Saints side had more class in it than Bradford who were just big and efficient but they shared out the trophies between them. If Saints had had a better coach I think Saints could have dominated that era like Wigan did before.
Then when he went to Wigan where he didn't have the core of class already there and he tried to build a team he made lots of big signings that didn't come off, Calderwood, Orr, Seu Seu, Logan, Fletcher, Paleaaesina. He had Wigan getting 70 odd point smashings at Saints and Leeds and were bottom of the league with 1 win from 9 when he left in 2006.
You can also say that Tony Smith arrived at Leeds at the right time with a core of players all young and ready to dominate, but Smith then came to a mid table (well bottom table when he arrived) Warrington side and won 2 Challenge Cups and a minor premiership in his first 2 and a half seasons. Brian Noble also proved he wasn't a fluke at Bradford by going to Celtic Crusaders who were garbage, and getting them into the playoffs. Is Millward going to do that? I reckon they are going to go backwards compared to where they were under Terry Matterson.
