It has to be seen in the context of doing a mass rebuild which is something we haven't done for a while, so it will naturally take longer to get the new set up bedded in. Powell is bringing in entirely his own players to play his own system and those might not suit a new coach so if we change coach again next season we'll have to accept we're resetting the clock to zero again and give the new coach his own grace period and new money to pay players off/bring in new players which might not get us where we want to be any quicker.

As long as I can see a coach is moving the team in the right direction I'm on board with keeping them, where Wire need to improve is spotting the plateau point where a coach has taken the team as far as he can and they are just going to tread water from that point onwards. You could argue that Cullen, TS and Price all reached this point about 2 to 3 seasons before they left.

GF is my expectation every year. It's only happened 4 in times 27 years. I suppose it's really 4 times in 13 years of realistic expectation. Still not enough.

Far better than the previous 20 odd years though isn't it? A couple of hub caps and 4 challenge cups mean it's been a good time to be a wire considering previous history. I'm hoping for another decade like that starting now with maybe a GF win to Complete the set. It would be nice to come away from old Trafford smiling for a change.

Tough crowd FMC.

IF the team gels it could be on the cards though, IF our new pack plays to its potential then we should make plenty of metres in all games and be playing mostly on the front foot. Ifs!

Agree with all of this apart from resetting the clock to zero.

Leeds changed coach in April when they were on 3 points (P9 W1 D1 L7) and in 11th position in the league (below where we are now) .

Lohan Smith has not had the opportunity to bring in his own players. Leeds haven't made the argument of resetting the clock, time to bed in etc

Instead they have got on with the job of qualifying for the playoffs.

I guess that's what champion sides do - not make excuses.

If Rohan Smith had come to Warrington I wonder if the results would have been as good or if we'd be hearing about how Smith's methods were alienating members of the squad etc.

Any new coach that tried to change the general lethargy that has been tolerated, for far too long would have been met wholesale opposition.

If you was only working for half a day. and a new boss was appointed and told you, that you had to put a full day in from now on, for the same pay, what would be your reaction?

Do all those clubs spend full cap with 2 x marquee allowances? I should imagine we have one of the highest, if not the highest, wage costs.

We will never know. The only thing we can see for certain is the league table.

Anyhow, the point was to challenge this "time to bed in" bs. If Lohan Smith was still languishing at 10th or 11th in the league he would be under pressure, not in a comfort blanket.

Boss - genuine question when do you think this lethargy dates back to ? Did Smith create it? Pre Smith? The Smith period when Cullen's signings had gone? Did Price see it and not want to rock the boat?

I think it started towards the end of the Smith era, when he just seemed to lose interest, took a backseat and allowed Agar to run the show for him.

Price was allowed to stay here for far too long and the situation festered under his tenure.

The fact that Price left Wire on his own terms, without being dismissed. reflects very badly on the Warrington hierarchy.

He should have gone after we lost the home playoff game in 2020 when we were beaten 14-27 by Hull FC. Not the benefit of hindsight as many were calling for it at the time. Not least because this was the 2nd successive time we had exited the playoffs at home in the first round. But in classic Warrington fashion we had to wait until he had done it a 3rd successive time.

Rohan Smith has had to make changes too, but at least he's had a reasonable forward pack as a basis. For me, everything starts in the forwards and our pack, for the most part of this season, has been too small so we've been on the back foot for most of it.

I hope it can all be blamed on the pack.

If Jack Hughes was ever a powerful runner then I am the Pope.

A team with a good pack and poor backs will 9/10 beat a team with a poor pack and good backs. A loss of control in the ruck area is a lost game - imo - and that control is gained by the forwards.

R Smith, with a relatively stronger pack is going to have an advantage over a similarly changed/turned around side possessing a smaller pack.

Huddersfield have definitely benefited from having some good forwards this season.

Over the last 15 years apart from the dominance of Leeds / Wigan / Saints there has been a number of teams that have lifted the LLS, Picked up the odd challenge cup win or appeared in finals. Us, Hull FC, Huddersfield or Catalan etc.
Now even though we can try and pretend that we were close to lifting the SL trophy we didnt and have been a million miles away.

So even though we appear a million miles away I can appreciate the direction the club has provided and the challenge that they have laid down to Powell. For years many people have said that the club has carried passengers (loyal servants in their comfort zone) on a gravy train.
This year has been tough to watch but I appreciate Powells hard d stance.
I am not yet convinced that he can take us all the way but i hope the minimum is that he brings a professionalism and ruthlessness to the team that we have not seen for a while.

If I was given the choice right now of swapping places with Huddersfield, Hull FC, Cas and Catalan i would take our position. Yep, terrible season, but not a great previous 10 years but the decision has been made to make the hard calls to do something about it rather than just making a few tweaks round the edges and hope that it comes off.

Let's get things right. That 2019 challenge cup win was because the players wanted to win that game but how many all or nothing games over the last 10 years have the players not quite had the desire, prep or mental toughness to overcome the opposition. At the start of the season I dint expect this scale of clear out but now it is happening I am on board with it.

The seeds of that lethargy started when we lost the 2013 GF and lots of key players left. The feeling hung over us that our window with a special team had closed. It's hard to adjust from being a dominant juggernaut to going back in the mix of quite-good-kinda-contenders. The same happened to Cas after they lost the GF in 2017. We lost our edge.

There have been some brief periods where it was revived, eg Sandow's half season hot streak, Price arriving and bringing a new set of ideas and organisation and Blake Austin having a Sandow-like stretch for a few months.

But if you exclude those spells, for the last 8 seasons before this one we were basically in a purgatory of being good enough to be relevant but not good enough to be significant. Then this year we've blown it all up to start again.

I can understand there's a bit of a feeling that the slate will be cleaned before we enter 2023, and there's a hope that 4 forwards to come into the squad beforehand will be the cavalry that we've been holding out for. Nevertheless, its far from easy to have any confidence that Vaughn, McGuire Dudson and Kasiano will be our required panacea, when we've created yet another unbalanced squad.

Were still looking at having Mata'utia at 3, Currie at 11 and Holmes at 12. Add that to Ratchford at 7, Clark at 9 who are no longer able to compete at former level, and either Minikin or Thewlis at 2 (not having a pop at Thewlis, because he should be at fullback, but we've brought in Dufty rather than a 7). All this makes us look even more unbalanced than we did at the start of 2022, with a lack of grunt. We could even be a centre short, should Wardle not sign and King be 2023's version of Josh Charnley.

Happy days ahead? I don't believe that DP has put together the right squad, as he hasn't been ruthless where the above are concerned. I have a feeling that at least two out of Philbin, Harrison, Mikaele and Bullock will be out on loan to enable a couple of backs to come in, and thus continue the stop gap situation that we encountered in this season. It's not professional enough.

Either the rebuild has not finished yet, or we've done it just to remedy the prop issue, at the expense of the organising spine, the outside backs and being stuck with a non functioning second row. I'm far from being onboard.

Good points. In my opinion D Clark will have more success with big forwards creating fast play the balls, scattered or late retreating defenders. But we do need a number 7.

A new 7 or let dean/ Hayes have a chance there to see if they can control a game or give us an effective kicking game, Wardle plus another right centre and I'll be really happy with the squad.

I have a feeling I'll be moaning about our half back partnership and centre options when the squad numbers are announced.

So why as it never worked for Hull FC they have been with a big pack for years but have never been that good and always falling away at back end of seasons.

That's a good point, I'll have to think on that one.

Hull have loads of bad apples just like us but their bad apples are bigger? Like bad cooking apples?