Smith - 10 wins from last 13 games after inheriting a bag of sh*te. Top 3 form. Did PC ever achieve such a return in 6 years?

Winning ugly. Plenty more to come.

Viva Tony.

One of the big differences for me is that in the past we used to lose but play a great style of Rugby and always be seen as unlucky, as we may have scored 7, but we would concede 8, whereas now, we can play pretty poorly but get some good wins.

I know which I'd rather have.

As a neutral, though, watching Warrington play has gone down in enjoyment levels. You really don't play anything like as attractively as you used to, although clearly it's a successful plan.

thats the next step ...be patient it will come...hopefully against you shower

With all due respect, I couldn't give two turds about neutrals.

if we play ugly at Knowsley road and beat you i couldn't care less. in fact if every match we ever play from now until eternity against Saints is ugly and we win i'd take that right now and keep it and couldn't care less.

wins a win for me two points is just two points dosnt matter how we play as long as we win

we are the Cliff Thorburn of Super League

But we're lucky as we're only winning games because the opposition are saving some of their worst perfomances of the season for games against us [i(at least that's what their fans seem to say - not read that from Cas fans yet, but I'm sure it'll come)[/i.

Ugly or pretty, close or a cricket score, exciting or dull (for neutrals) I really coudn't care less so long as we're picking up wins. Does make you wonder where we would be now if we'd have brought in a genuine quality coach three or four years ago (or this time last year for that matter)!

It will be interesting, If we ever do get round to beating Saints, what type of Rugby that we play. Paul Cullen has said that in order to beat Saints you have to attack them. I would disagree and say that the style of rugby that we are playing now would do the trick (with perhaps a few less errors and penalties).

We did give Cas some cheap ball with Westwood, Carvell, Higham all making uncharacteristic errors. Failing to find touch is something that should never happen at this level. You know that against Saints that would be 6 ponts to them.

10 from 13 is impressive without putting anybody to the sword.

Bradford and Featherstone got a bit of sword

Bradford were hung drawn and quartered

We won 11 out of 12 at one point in 2005, which put us up to 3rd in the league at the time (the one defeat being a one pointer at Saints). That was the high point of Cullen's reign, and was the best rugby we've played in the SL era. We had some close wins as well as some big scores, and that run included two wins over Bradford who won the Grand Final.

Although we were 3rd in the league then and are 10th now, I feel we are not as far off success here as we were then. We are already in the semi finals of one competition, and I think the difference between us and the best teams in the league this year, is not as marked as it was then.

You all have dodgy moustaches ?

Remember the wheels begining to fall off the season that year around the time we lost badly to Hudds away?
Although we eventually finished fourth in the league table, if it hadn't been for the Johns factor, I feel we could easily have fallen into mid table obscurity completely that season and the big mid-season run counting for nothing.

HOPEFULLY....... being the key word...

It's interesting when you hear what the players have to say.
It seems that Tony Smith has done a lot of 'little' changes to most of our players games.
No drastic overhauls.

I'd love to know more about this.
Thought the Justin Morgan insights the previous week were very good and would like to see more of them.

Slightly before that, the good run ended when we lost at Wigan (supposed to be the start of Ian Millward turning the club around

), we lost to Leeds, Saints and Hudds soon after that, like you say the wheels were coming off.

At the time we lost to Hudds there was a theory going round that the wheels had come off because the players were rebelling against us getting Johns in because they had found out how much he was being paid etc. I doubt that made a difference, I reckon the truth was on our winning run we were an OK team in great form rather than a great team.

I think that's a fair point. The way we played at that time was an expansive all out style,and it either worked or it didn't. We didn;t generally win games ugly, like we are now.

Playing such a high risk game was always going to mean we made mistakes, and we simply weren;t a good enough team to cover for these mistakes, whereas now we seem to be able to recover from them.

On our day at that time, we could be as good as anyone, but no team can maintain that style week in week out.

Plenty of people think that Saints are a high flair team, but to be fair, they play plenty of games like we did last night. I've been to a couple as a neutral where I have been bored to tears, and plenty of my Saints friends say the same.

Yeah, that's the one. I couldn't remember the sequence, but remember being at the Galpharm wondering what had gone drastically wrong in such a short space of time.
It was sort of feast or famine with the manner the team were playing.

having been to watch us at cas, i felt that a big stand out for me was that we had composure and castleford didn't throughout the game. we weren't ugly just very professional without having to get out of second gear for the whole of the match. we spent much of the opening quarter in first gear.

we played like this quite a lot in the mid 80s!!

here's hoping

York 79

Big forwards, quick playtheballs, running out of dummy half, clinical close to the opposition line. Has worked for Saints for ten years and for us for ten games

I thought you weren't going again?

I think TS has changed what matters most in our team and that is Attitude

Its a happy time to be a Wire and thats good enough for me.