Sure, Holbrook was a hit, but my point is that on average you're more likely to get a hit if you draw from a population of proven success.

Its like if you want to sign a prop and I offer you two pools to draw from at random: one is of NRL/international props and the other is Championship props.

Now you can say, Roy Asotasi had an NRL/international background and Chris Hill had a Championship background.

But if you had to draw one at random, you're going to hit more often with the NRL internationals than with the Championship props.

Rather than take repeated draws from the lottery of coaches and hope that you'll strike lucky I'd rather just sit tight and search long and hard to find the opportunity when a real class act becomes available and willing to come in. Look at Guardiola at City or Klopp at Liverpool. Those weren't just random draws from the lottery of sacking coaches.

What about if at some point in the next 5 years, one of these coaches wants to take a Super League job:
Des Hasler
Craig Bellamy
Michael Maguire
Ricky Stuart
Brad Arthur

Or we have the opportunity to appoint:
Daryl Powell
Shaun Wane
Brian McDermott

I would rather set feelers out, scout out when an opportunity may be available and pounce at that point. You could say well no harm in getting rid of Price now and then appointing someone from the lottery and then if they don't work out sacking them and getting one of these big names, but each time you bring in a new coach you disrupt everything with all the recruitment plans, style of play etc and also you send a signal out to potential new coaches that you are trigger happy and thus less attractive as a destination.

I understand your logic. In reply

1. We have had 2 of the longest serving coaches in SL in the last 18 years (Cullen and Smith). We give coaches chances so not sure the trigger happy reputation would stick.
2. I would have Shaun Wane now in a heart-beat.
3. Holbrook has shown it is possible to win a GF from a low base within 2 seasons. No need for "5 year" plans.
4. Are you advocating that if we got a verbal promise from Craig Bellamy that he would join in 2023 that we stick with Price unless we are in a relegation position?

I realise it's a difficult call and I think it's moot anyway as Price will be here for the remainder of 2020 at the least I imagine, unless our league form takes a turn for the worse (if that is possible).

lb for £...the best coach of The last decade in SL was Madge McGuire?
Shaun Wane hadn't come close to doing what Madge did...with the same team in only 2 years?

Shouldn't we consider him rather than his monkey Wane?

On point 3, its interesting how both Holbrook and Maguire managed to win a GF from a low base. I wonder if they'd have been able to do that at a club outside Wigan, Saints or Leeds? It seems like certain clubs have a basic infrastructure which sets them up for success. TS turned Leeds from perennial nearly men in to two time GF winners but with us, he was only ever able to turn us from also rans in to nearly men (plus cups).

Point 4 - no that's too extreme. We have to be wary of long term verbal promises else we get in the situation Wigan had with Shaun Edwards. I think its more about being opportunistic and basing a coach switch more on what you can switch to rather than what you can switch from, unless you have completely gone to pot.

But going back to that basic infrastructure point I think we need to look at stuff like who is responsible for our recruitment, it was a problem in the later TS era too. The big turning point in our fortunes over the past decade was after the 2013 season when Briers, Hodgson and Morley left. That marked the divide between the early TS era and late TS era. The Price era has basically been a continuum of the late TS era. The difference in calibre of player on the roster pre- and post-2013 is telling.

If we do jettison Price, I would be interested in Paul Anderson who doesn't seem to have been mentioned so far. I think Anderson was cut too soon by Hudds. He had actually improved them relative to where they were under Nathan Brown who went on to get the Saints job. Anderson had Hudds winning the League Leaders Shield. For decades its just been the same clubs, Wigan, Saints, Leeds plus Bradford for a brief window and us a couple of times, who have finished top of the league and then there's one year when Hudds popped up there when he was their coach. Pretty big achievement, when you think of the quality of the Leeds, Wigan and Warrington teams Hudds had to finish ahead of.

Hudds basically had a couple of bad months run of form (when his squad was disrupted by one of the players sleeping with anothers wife) and wasn't given the chance to turn it round, and since then Hudds have been playing the coach lottery and never been as good since. So why hasn't PA had another shot in SL?

Only Madge and Daniel Anderson you can not make an argument against that they were completely successful coaches.

We've trained well all week.

We also know what kind of footy team we have got.

Someone's going to get it when we click.

Maguire was top class. One of the great coaches of the modern era.

Anderson....less sure. He had the fortune to have a very good squad with a lot of great players there who were also great leaders. He did well but not sure he was exceptional. One Grand Final win and a run of cups. He didn't do what say Brian McDermott did with Leeds, winning Grand Final after Grand Final.

It may be a controversial view but I actually think St Helens underachieved slightly during the Millward and Anderson eras - barring one stellar season in 2006 they were good but not dominant. I wonder whether a better coach would have taken a team with Cunningham, Sculthorpe, Long, Wellens and co and made them more successful than Leeds. Much as I respect the Sinfield/Peacock/McGuire/Burrow axis at Leeds I think I'd take the Saints core ahead of them.

Perhaps one for Saddened or Redvee, we know they read this forum....?

Probably. Then the week after we'll get beat by Salford at home.

We are only 2 points outside the playoff places.

Our social media profile is really good

We trained really well

It's how you finish, not how you start.

Don't matter how well we train, how good the team is or knowing what type of team we have, if the performances are poor the supporters will slowly stop attending. A plan to redress this appears to be missing from the last two seasons plans and on current form its still missing.

If we're keeping to positive spin then we're only a couple of good performances away from this being a blip.

There was a lot of negativity pre-season on the back of 2019's 2nd half slump. 2020 saw a great effort against Wigan with 12, and for a while 11, men then a stellar performance against Saints and suddenly things looked rosey.

It all hinges on Toronto. Anything less than a dominant display and the fans will vote with their feet.

Hill is welcomed back.
That means our bare bones front row is upto pitch strength.
Same old if we loose another again.

Hill not back until Leeds away but our pack should be more than enough for Toronto without him. Latu should also start coming into the mix within the next few weeks. I've no idea about the date for Hughes return.

No we would be two performances away from P5 W3 L2. However beat Leeds and we do break our away duck.

Today's positives:

- our poop form will probably stop KF from embarrassing the club by baiting Hull and Radford on Twitter

It’ll soon be November

We might still be playing fixtures then if a couple of months are disrupted by fixtures being cancelled due to coronavirus.

More money to spend on you’re summer holidays with no finals to go to

See that....put a positive spin on it and someone takes your legs.

I was kidding myself with this post.

I think we all knew what was coming deep down.