Didn’t deserve a play off spot, certainly didn’t deserve a seat at the big boy table next week. The standard of the competition masks how bad a year it actually was.

Miserable 2 year period that exposes the club’s soft centre, which runs from top to bottom, boardroom to terrace.

While we had never been closer to winning it in 2011 (I know we have progressed further, but that year was our chance and we blew it on an over eager charge down), I feel we’re back to the level of Cullen’s days. That’s the standard of the team, atmosphere in the ground and everything in between. Great pretenders.

I’m Smith’s number 1 fan, but the repercussions of the decision not to replace Briers, Hodgson, Monaghan, King, Morley, Carvell, Waterhouse with sufficient experience are still being felt today.

Burgess needs to be in the country in the next few weeks and get the blueprint for a complete attitude overhaul underway, and to start the process of making the pack functional. It’s been a complete non-starter this year. We can’t have wholesale personnel changes again, we need the coaches to coach. Burgess, King, Marshall and Gleeson have enough experience between them to make a competent coaching network, we have world class facilities and a few (potentially) excellent players in key positions (Dufty, Williams, Vaughan, Ashton, Currie, Fitzgibbon) but they need to be prepared better than they were for the last 2 years, motivated and engaged. It’s time for the coaches and S&C staff to get this rabble into shape.

Relieved it's all over, we were poor after we met Wigan and Saints the first time round in the regular season, and looked clueless as to how to beat them. SL is now a joyless game, and NRL is so far in front of it in terms of skill and speed of their game. The observed 10 meters at the play the ball makes it flow so much better than our game.

DP has been a disaster as head coach, and it's going to take some time to turn round. I expected that we'd finish between 7th and 4th, so on that note I'm not disappointed, however it's a 4/10 for me, as we never looked that we had the ability of beating Wigan or Saints whether it mattered, or not, and never looked like contenders to win the GF.

Definitely gone backwards from 2020, and that was a time when we were in peak frustration with Steve Price.

Another counterfactual to use as comparison is how would these last 6 years have gone if we had just kept Tony Smith in charge, like Arsenal did dragging out Arsene Wenger for so long. By the end of 2017 even TS had acknowledged it was time to part ways but if we had kept Smith would the results over the last 6 years have been that different?

I was rather suprised to see Moran in the crowd yesterday.

We obviously owe him a lot, but it did smack a little of a failure to read the room. Anyone with genuine empathy with the fanbase would know its not a happy camp, hasn't been for a few years and a lot of the blame is (rightly) being aimed at his management team.

Or maybe he and the board are blissfully unaware of the mood of the fans. Would explain a lot.

So why shouldn't he stand in the crowd? What difference does it make happy camp or not? Not quite with you on this. I thought that it was good that he stood with the Wire fans.

Most fans blame the board and CEO for the recruitment issues, the coaching appointments, the vanity projects and the several years of decay and malaise.

Simon may not be the cause and of courae he can stand with the fans, but he is the boss and his management team is culpable, significantly so. It wasn't an end of season jamboree after a year of progress it was the dying embers of another season of failure.

So where do you think he should stand or sit?
a) With fans b) In Directors Box c) At home d) Strangeways e) The stocks at Great Budworth

What difference would it make? You can't blame a man for standing up, clapping & shouting on the team.

Simon Moran has made us think we can win the league. His investment and dedication/loyalty has raised our expectations beyond where they once were.
Is he to blame for the fact we've not hit the big time? Partly. Is he to blame for allowing us to think we should, 100% he is and for that he has nothing but my gratitude.

Without him and Mr Middleton we could quite easily be another Wakey, Workington, Halifax etc.

Moran can stand where he wants for me and if he ever feels unwelcome by our fans for being on the terrace, we've truly hit rock bottom.

He can stand where he wants so long as he has a ticket.

However, as with all organisations, the buck stops at the executive level. Every single decision taken by the club leadership has led us to this point at this time. The collective embodiment of every decision taken. The leadership cannot be beyond reproach.

Simon Moran is a fan, the only difference is that his season ticket costs him significantly more than it does us.

Would we have Moran and Middleton on our board if they didn't have ££££ ?
Sames goes for Norman Summers, Mike Lomax and Lance James.

Outside observer looking in .... isn't the point that you need the money men to invest and as such, why shouldn't they be 'on the board'.

Total agreement with you & that last sentence is just so right.

Goodness me, I've poked the hornets nest here.

As I've stated, I know we have a lot to be grateful to Simon for, and I agree he should be able to stand where he wants and cheer on the team. On the terrace, in the posh seats at Wembley, I don't mind.

But you have to seperate the fan from the owner. As the owner, his management team have made some epic failures. Fitzpatrick gets dogs abuse on here, but he is entitled to stand on the terraces as well. If he did, what would happen?

All I'm saying is Simon and his board have overseen years of decline. The fans should be annoyed, the owners should be annoyed and the players should be annoyed and happy clapping "arent we doing well against saints not gettong hammered and not going to win a GF either" masks culpability, poor decisions and prepares the road for more failure.

But, I'm finally done. I'll come back on here in 10 yrs and we can discuss how the board are wonderful, Fitzpatrick is a w*nker and how the 2034 GF win is surely a given now we've coaxed Bevin French out of retirement.

A break may well do you some good. You have clearly reached the point where there is no joy in watching the team (it has certainly been tough at times), but more importantly can’t see any positives at all. Hopefully performances over the next couple of years encourage you not to stay away for 10 years.

I tell you what's weird, look back at the season on paper - and I stress, on paper - and it really doesn't look that bad for long periods.
Superb win against Leeds to start, then an away win over a fancied Huddersfield. A gutsy comeback victory against Salford, then a win at Craven Park, which is always tough. A home win against Leigh, which looks better now than it did then, a 38-0 win at Castleford, an away success at Catalans.
Anyone who says 'we had a good start but we had easy fixtures' is underplaying it a bit, I think.
Sadly, our confidence never recovered from those back-to-back defeats against Wigan and Saints. The following game we played Wakefield at home, when Wakey were at their lowest, and we struggled to a win. Then a few weeks later the McGuire situation happened and the wheels just fell off completely (including somehow losing that Challenge Cup quarter-final at Wigan).
The nadir was losing 42-6 at Wakey, which made Powell's position untenable, and the following week we were poor again at home to Catalans. But after that, the performances and results did pick up a bit. We should have won at Leeds, did win at Hull FC, thrashed Castleford (yeah, I know, big wow), won at Huddersfield and gave Saints two hard games.
But now, getting back to what I said at the start about the season not seeming that bad on paper. The truth is that even when we were winning, most of us could see that we were still not good enough to be contenders, and that's where this club has to judge itself. Despite those positive early results, we have ended up mired in mediocrity yet again, and the sense of apathy that seems to have settled over most of us fans should be a huge concern to the club. It's galling because the league is so poor at the moment, we don't even need to be that good to be contenders. Saints are a rank average side this year and were there for the taking but we couldn't do it.
Do I have optimism for next season? Hard to say at this stage. I am more intrigued than anything, such is the gamble with Burgess. I hope it pays off, obviously. But as ever with Wire, it's the hope that kills you.

An awful lot has already been written about the Powell era, and I don’t really have anything new to say about it.
The Chambers era has showed that we capable of playing “steady” rugby. The eternal optimist in me sees that as a good building block for next season. Interesting that we have 2 former centres on the coaching staff. Quite what will change as a result remains to be seen. What is undeniable is that we have offered little attacking threat from centre this year with SR and my bete noire PM.
I know many on here don’t like plucky defeats, but given where we were when DP left the 2 games against Saints hint at green shoots of recovery and that’s how I see it. As ever it’s the hope that kills, but as Wire fans would we be without it?

Excellent post. I'd only add that I was never confident, before, or during, those games against Wigan and Saints, even when we were in front. The victories at Catalans were never built on, as they should have been the bar in performance level that we ought to have strived to reach in each and every game. The truth is that our performance levels over the season, just weren't any where near consistently good enough.

Sometimes you just have to look at stats ... which takes away emotions. The obvious ... we didn't perform as we'd hoped. We finished 6th rather than 11th in 2022 above Toulouse. It really was much worse in 2022. This season we finished above Leeds, Hull & Huddersfield ... who spend the same as us & had equally high expectations as Wire. Let's look forward to next season when we will, once again, have some new bodies.

you'll be back in pre season, you're a junkie, like the rest of us, you can't stay away from it.

That's an excellent observation and where I am at I think. I am only tied to Wire due to nostalgia and happy memories from times long gone of watching with my family and mates.

Perfect way to summarise 2023

Indeed. I'd like nothing more than to give this shower up but it's never going to happen, season ticket might be a thing of the past but I'll be coming back. Hard as it is I'm weirdly glad I support Wire rather than the Celtic/Rangers - Wigan/Saints easy passionless life.

If we do finally win it it will compare with the wonderful 'Sunshine on Leith' scenes Hibs fans experienced after their Scottish cup win.

We'd never be leaving a GF early if we were about to win.

The trouble is for us that we will still have to many mediocre players next year who have left the side down this season and are simply not good enough.

Ratchford, Drinkwater, Kasiano, Currie these 4 will all be starting next year which corners me greatly.