Weren’t you trying to justify how it might not be powells fault our linespeed is absolute tosh by doing the basics? Wouldn’t you say the basics of a side aiming to win silverware is making sure our defenders are running up and meeting the attackers head on set after set? Because I certainly would.

Pep has spent less than United in city’s period of dominance and they can’t get anywhere near city. Everyone will see how good pep is when he eventually leaves and the standards drop

No team has spent 3 or 4 years of finishing near the bottom with youngsters then their youngsters suddenly become good and they win the title. Wigan, Saints, Leeds didn't do that. If you're finishing near the bottom with a load of youngsters then those youngsters probably aren't very good.

The issue with young players is are they good enough. A lot of home grown Wire players have had 50+ first team games with us and never turn into players who can influence SL games, they then spend the rest of their careers at smaller clubs or in the lower leagues. Those guys would not have had so many games if they'd been at Wigan, Saints or Leeds because there is always more talent coming up the production line so less good home grown players get moved on more quickly. Wigan didn't look at Matty Russell and say if we give this kid 4 seasons in the first team he might become the next Radlinski.

When this question about blooding youngsters came up once before I looked through our season records to see if there were any eras where we were more willing to give youngsters a shot. Cullen did - early on he brought back guys like Sibbit, Mark Gleeson and Warren Stevens, he had Riley in the first team aged 17, Penny at 18, even when we were starting to load up on stars he was pushing through guys like Pickersgill and Cooper.

The other time when we did this was the mid/later Tony Smith era where we brought through a lot of young players: GO'B, Currie, Patton, Toby and George King, Rhys and Ben Evans, Ormsby, Dwyer, Laithwaite.

The thought experiment to consider is if we'd basically kept all those guys together and made them the core of the first team, would they have been any better over the next few years than the team we had with Steve Price which made several finals and won the Challenge Cup...?

I agree it is not the coach dropping balls or throwing stupid passes. What concerns me however is the cause of those problems and lack of seif/team belief seems to be the root cause. This was the case last season as well but was put down to bad apples/ off contract players etc. This esaeoson the coach largely has his stamp on the squad but the same problem of lack of belief rears its head and that is where a good coach earns his corn. Strikes me the coach can see the problem but not the answer. I am very concerned that this season is going to descend into ignominy (but hopefully not relegation). Were I in charge I would be lining up a replacement and giving him the final 1/3 of this season to bed in.

I think the club have had a lack of mental resilience for many years and I'm not sure any coach has been able to overcome that.
This was raised (iirc) in the TS years during the playoffs and after GF losses.

I hate to say it but Wigan and Saints have a built-in resilience - have had it for many years. It's something throughout tne club, not just with the 1st team.
But it can be 'lost' - just ask Leeds and Bulls.

If Matty Peet or Paul Wellens were our coach would we suddenly have that resilience? I think not.
It's not down to one person.

I don't disagree but where is it? Does it permeate all the performance team or wider?

Good point - I simply don't know.