Your 'hunch' appears to have been proved right, but, then again if we'd have managed to limp into mid table obscurity in the top 8's with a few more wins and a couple of less drubbings you'd have pulled another 'I saw this first' out of the bag.

After all if someone considers that ONLY winning the GF marks a successful season you are giving yourself a comfortable 'I told you so margin'.

I think that you are right. However If we manged it would the majority on here be disappointed?

I've already got a silver trail up both my sleeves drying as we speak.

What if Brett Hodgson is appointed, the club gets on a bounce, knocks out Wigan and is only a game away from Wembley.
Stranger things have happened.

If this does happen though, Hodgson can't take the credit because he will basically have just ridden on the team that Smith built over many years, like TS did by taking Cullen's team to glory.

It's not about that. After copping a lot of flak earlier in the year for questioning Smith it seems de rigour now yet are playing as poorly now as we did in the first 6 games. Same mistakes, same disorganisation and same excuses. There is no sudden decline. Just some were in denial.

and that's where you and I differ in opinion, the "denial" strictly speaking it wasn't denial, but, a willingness to take a view based on more than three or four games.

I greed that the opinion poll might have a different complexion following the return to poor results and form

Don't worry, this team wouldn't Win a meat raffle.
This team is destined for relegation the teams below us are gaining momentum and we are in free fall.

If Smith is sacked and a new coach is brought in and he saves the club's superleague status it will be one of the greatest coaching achievements in the game such is the desperate place the players are in at the moment.
Smith took over a team that couldn't get past a play off game. ...the Tony Smith built side is much much worse.

If we had got rid of TS at the end of last season for failing to win a Grand Final and brought in Brett Hodgson now and were say 3rd what would we be saying....he took a team that was top last year and took it backwards?

....am I missing something?

Why does Hodgson's name keep appearing in the (as of yet) situations vacant column, for Smith's job?

As far as I can remember, he's played second fiddle to Denis Betts, who's team has been dog pooh (bar 6 of the first 7 games in 2016) for the last 3 years. It's hardly a glowing cV, is it?

Hodgson or Michael Monaghan would be credible choices as they were top players for us and so would have goodwill from the fans. Possibly Willie Poching would be the other who would be popular with the fans.

If we brought in an assistant from another club like Sean Long, Ryan Sheridan, Andy Hay, the fans would be sceptical from the start and so even a revival/consolidation to safety and to comfortable top 5/6 in the next couple of years, would start being seen as treading water.

The alternative would be to go for an ex head coach with SL experience like Paul Anderson or Steve McNamara. Anderson doesn't seem a bad option - he had Hudds right at the top and seemed to have one bad season.

Or go in big with money and try to tempt an existing coach away from their club - Brian McDermott, Ian Watson or Chris Chester would be obvious choices.

Sally's just doing sarcasm again, Lefty

it beats reality so i'm told............

Well done to you, go give yourself a big pat on the back.

TS is a rich mans Ian Millward.
Does great when someone else has built the team. When forced to build his own team, takes them to the brink of relegation before getting ousted. .

Hence a little piece of Sally's post that isn't sarcastic, or that's how I read it

I don't think that's true; if a coach takes an underperforming group of players and turns things around, I think he deserves all the credit, as McGuire did for us with Noble's Wigan team, or as Holbrook seems to be doing at Saints.

The point being that it many think that it was Cullen's team not Smith's that delivered, another example of Smith's inadequacy as a coach

Hardly think it was Cullen's teams that has competed in 4 challenge cup finals and 3 grand finals and won 2 league leaders shields. Almost won everything last year. I gotta question player toughness and desire. Having no half backs makes competing very difficult. Where we gonna find some half backs?

Nothing will change IMO.... They will point to Leeds - they had a season like we had last year, then the following season they were rubbish, in the middle 8's and competed for nothing, fans crying out for the coach to go (they even wanted Smith back), then they do OK the year after (this year). Warrington will look at that model, and say, we're having the same troubles, lets stick with our coach like Leeds did.

The problem is, Leeds had quite a lot of injuries last year, but still had one of the best back lines in Super League IMO (MaCguire, Hall, Moon, Watkins, Briscoe etc) - we have one quality player injured, and nothing else to look forward to. We will go into that middle 8's and will have to prey that Leigh and Hull KR can't beat us, because atm, Widnes, Huddersfield and Catalan (8th will be between those two), are all better than us, and actually have stronger squads than the start of the year (we are weaker).

As others have said, we have been rank average since the great team was split up 4 years ago - we managed what we managed last year because 1. Of the easy run we had to Wembley, and 2. Super League was, and still is, average at best - probably the lowest quality I have seen in Super League since it started.

You can also blame our "homegrown" recruitment - on one hand I like the fact that we have some many English players in the squad - but I would rather have as many overseas players as Castleford, Hull, Salford etc, and be where they are, rather than two, over age, past their best ones that we have....

Was it not Cullen's team that won 3 CC's with only small changes to personnel

We almost won everything, sounds like Bullseye "here's what you could have won"

Players desire, yes that's the players, but just as much it is the coaches desire to get the team playing with the right attitude

Half backs, that's fairly and squarely the fault of TS

The problem is, Leeds won the treble in 2015. If we are emulating anyone, it is Huddersfield.

It's all a bit tedious now. Who predicted disaster first? Sounds like wish fulfilment to me. And does anyone on here think their opinion will make any difference? It is clearly a very small part of the clubs support that post on here, and just because the same few people make the same points over and over again hardly makes them any more or less valid. Think I'll take a break till there are some meaningful developments.

Taraa

Hodgson or Michael Monaghan are not credible choices. Insufficient experience. It's like appointing a CEO who has no prior commercial or board level experience.

I know Tony is irreplaceable but I hope we do what Saints did. Get a well respected but under the radar Australian assistant and try and make do.

Nephew Rohan?

If TS goes, I'd go for Richard Marshall. I've no idea if he'd be any good, but hey ho, why not?