Looking at Castleford's early season form they are reminiscent of us a few years ago, and Powell has taken them steadily forwards since he has been there. He had to deal with the disruption of losing Denny Solomona and they have taken it in their stride unlike us with Sandow.

Powell also had a good record before with Featherstone and it's between him and Wane as to who is the best of the British coaches. He should be a good shout for the next England coach.

So if we did part company with Smith he would be the best option to target, but I don't see it happening. Castleford has been his project for a few years and he has got them where he wants them now - a team with whom he can have a real go at winning trophies. To move to us now would seem like a step backwards.

If he does have half an eye on his next role, it will probably be Leeds, where he is Hetherington's mate, has a history with the club and probably would be his preferred role out of the big clubs. He will see Brian McDermott is vulnerable at Leeds and might have already a few off the record nudges that he is in their thoughts for being McDermott's successor. I seem to remember that back when he was replaced as Leeds coach in 2003 by Tony Smith, the original plan was for Smith to be coach for 2 years and then Powell to return in to the head coaching role, before he went off to RU for a while...?

We would have to look elsewhere if it wasn't Smith.

Your coach hasn't been sacked (yet), Powell has a job to do at Cas, and then we'll see what he does if he does decide to leave - but this seems a little premature for people to be discussing his next moves.

If We need a new coach after the Leigh game it won't be any currently employed head coach... and certainly not Powell.

So we should be looking at current assistants that have head coaching ambitions. ..
Personally I'd like to see Michael Monaghan given a shot.... after that I'm struggling. ..

Its just nonsense to think Powell will come here while riding high with Cas. ...

I would also like to see Michael Monaghan in charge. I couldn't care less if he hasn't got any experience of coaching a SL side... From what ive heard, he pretty much coached this side when he was here anyway.

Lets face it, we hardly have a dearth of coaching talent in this country do we? Only one i would be interested in is Powell and if he came here it would be purely for money.

The fans would get right behind Monaghan... it would give the place a lift... Give him 2/3 years and lets see how it goes.

back on Powell, he seems to be a good motivator AND an astute tactician.

You can look at that cas squad and think 'i dont fancy them' at quite a a few of their players. But he has them performing to a high standard and playing the best RL of their careers (probably). They are putting higher paid 'elite' players to shame.

I've seen people saying 'well warrington were playing like this a few years ago'.. and we were. Difference is Powell is doing it with other peoples cast offs and young talent. His recruitment is second to none.. We did it with probably the most expensively assembled squad in SL history... actually our current squad is probably the most expensively assembled in SL history.

How about Brett Hodgson? He is currently coaching the Widnes academy team and could be worth considering.

I think Hodgson was touted as a future coach before he fell out with Mr Smith.

Hmmmm. The Monas and Hodgson coaching magic didn't deliver much at Catalans last year, or Widnes errrrm well ever has it?

Appointing an untried, unproven rookie coach would be potential suicide I'm afraid.

If you want change, Geoff Toovey should be rescued from Bradford post haste then TS given some nice shiny job title and AN Other brought in as assistant. NEXT YEAR.

Recent history tells us that replacing the coach mid season is far from the panacea you all crave. Quite the opposite, be careful what you wish for.

We replaced Jimmy Lowes mid season and won the Challenge Cup a few months later.

Well yeah he was the exception. I'd have supported the appointment of Barney the purple dinosaur to replace Lowes though. Would have made for more intelligent post match interviews too.

Speaking of which, what happened to the bloke who always used to post those WG interviews on here?

How many GFs did he deliver and could he not have done better with the side that he had?

The only reason people say Monaghan is because they liked him as a player, but he wouldn't be coming back as a player he would be coming back as a rookie coach who hasn't had his first head coaching job to get his mistakes out of his system. Is Warrington the place for a rookie to learn from his mistakes...? It would be fine if we were a small club with modest ambitions but we are a club that has been near the top for the past few seasons so we need to win the Grand Final - not have more "near misses" or excuses like last season - we need a coach that can deliver the trophy at Old Trafford. Otherwise, we won't have improved on Tony Smith.

Now sure he might do "OK", like Keiron Cunningham is doing "OK" at Saints. Two seasons, two playoff appearances is pretty decent going for a rookie coach and he will get better the more time he has but look over at the Saints board at the calls for KC out. And KC is much more of a long standing Saints legend than Monaghan is with us.

The fans would get behind Monaghan - sure for a few weeks, but how long before the forum experts on here started pointing out his flaws - playing players in the wrong position, selection mistakes, being too negative, being too positive, he would soon be getting dissected on here and just doing what Cunningham has done at Saints and making the playoffs would be regarded as just a poor man's version of Tony Smith.

Good post. If anyone is going to make Warrington their rookie club, surely it would be Briers, rather than Monas. But just like how Giggs was overlooked for Mourino, will he have what it takes to step up. Based on Briers' coaching career, when might he be ready?

Briers could go to a club like Wakefield or Salford and then if he took them to be a club pushing the top sides like Powell has done with Cas he would be well set to come back to us and help us win the Grand Final.

Coaching Warrington should be something you earn, when you have proved you have what it takes to be a winner, not just a jobs for the boys culture, where players from Tony Smith's era of "nearly men" go on to replace him as coach, but end up achieving less than he did and leave the fans even more disillusioned.

some great posts on here ....
but the following were former assistant coaches and very much untried head coaches
Michael Mcguire:
he won the League leaders shield the grand final and the challenge cup in his first two years as a head coach. ..Wigan hadn't troubled those trophies much in the previous TEN years....

Shaun Wane:
a former assistant to an untried head coach, how we laughed at how quickly this idiot would fail, he won even more and added the world club champions to the list and his team spanked our teams backsides without breaking sweat last week...

Lee Radford:
untried head coach and former assistant won the Challenge cup and manager of the year with Hull FC

Paul Anderson:
untried head coach and former assistant won the League leaders shield and manager of the year with Huddersfield.

then there's the semi tried and tested head coaches:
Brian Mcdermott:
had what 4 or 5 years at Harlequins ....never reaching the play offs ...hows that for tried and .... yet he filled his boots with trophies at Leeds
Trent Robinson famously coached Toulouse to nothing at all... got manager of the year at Catalan and had the gall to go to the NRL and win an NRL grand final at the first stab....

however NRL super coaches Tim Sheens and Geoff Toovey are arsing about in the lower leagues, Rick Stone is having a good go at trying to get there and Brian Smith second time around version flirted with relegation and couldnt head home quick enough.

I'm failing to see any evidence which supports the notion of staying away from Assistant coaches they are guaranteed to win you nothing...

exactley and how many actually grand final winning coaches or nrl final winning coaches are there ?? if previous success is a pre requisite we will not change coaches anytime soon as there are few available

based on how they have performed with other clubs and how their teams play is more important to me than their previous successes, which is why Powell is top of most peoples list irrespective of if we believe he will leave castleford or that Leeds are his obvious choice theres no fact to them statements just an opinion.

we can twist the question slightly and say based on the way their teams generally play who would we like to see at warrington and there will not be many coaches ahed of Powell on that respect alternatively who do we believe could succeed with the current set up we have and the finances available to him which may not be available at their current club again Powell would be towards the top of the list also. wether we can actually attract him is a different question theres no reason why a coach with aspirations of winning titles would not come to us if other issues were addressed.

When we signed Anthony England from Featherstone people were using similar arguments - Chris Hill came from the lower leagues and how good was he? That didn't mean England was Chris Hill.

Getting an assistant coach doesn't mean you are guaranteed to win nothing but it is a bigger gamble.

If we appoint an assistant coach, the only reason fans would accept them at first is if they played for us and were a popular player, eg Michael Monaghan or Brett Hodgson. I wonder what the reaction would be on here if we brought in an assistant coach from another club like Chris Thorman, Sean Long or Andy Last, as head coach to replace Smith? They will all be complaining that its the cheap option, where's our ambition and so on.

IMO if we are going to bring in an assistant coach the best option is Willie Poching who has been an assistant for a while now, he's part of the NZ set up, and he was at Warrington during our best era. Hard to argue for any other assistant coach above Poching.

Here's my take on our season so far. wirerantings.blogspot.co.uk/2017 ... stock.html

Here's my take on our season so far. wirerantings.blogspot.co.uk/2017 ... stock.html

Quote ="Fatbelly"Here's my take on our season so far. wirerantings.blogspot.co.uk/2017 ... stock.html'" Thanks for that. So it is confidence then? Though why we be short of confidence having beaten Brisbane doesn't make sense. Or why we would be short of confidence in the first game against Catalans.

Quote ="Fatbelly"Here's my take on our season so far. wirerantings.blogspot.co.uk/2017 ... stock.html'" Thanks for that. So it is confidence then? Though why we be short of confidence having beaten Brisbane doesn't make sense. Or why we would be short of confidence in the first game against Catalans.

thats because there is none.

So if Agar gets promoted we shouldn't write him off too quickly then.

As flying biscuit notes above, Brian McDermott hadn't exactly ripped up trees at Harlequins any more than Agar did at Hull and Wakey, and in the right club he started delivering Grand Finals.

Agar is part of our current problem of poor defence and poor attacking rugby, he may also have input contributing to poor team selection ,and may even be offered views to assist in the current poor recruitment.Plus he took a demotion from head coach role to assistant hardly a great career move.
I'm no HR executive but those are just a few pointers that would persuade me to look for an alternative candidate.

the reason I would fancy Michael Monaghan as coach is not because he was a popular player ...not for me anyway.
In his early years as Scrum half I loathed him.. he was a poor scrum half he was also quite a miserable player he often chastised other players (younger ones) and would then make an error of his own and would think putting a hand in the air made up for it...

So this is not me selecting my favorite former player ...if it was, I'd want Brett Hodgson.. but Hodgson doesn't strike me as a hard task master where as Monas does.
plus he publicly mentioned how bad our defence was when he first came here and how it would take a long time to rectify the bad habits we had.And we did that with him as a particular stand out in defence as well as attack (once in his correct role)

of course he could end up falling on his backside and could end up being all surly in interviews like James lowes...

but I'll wait till after the result of the Leigh game with the return of Hill. if we look like world beaters then fair enough, if not then Smith must go along with Agar... we will have nothing to lose.

How can the last post be Thursday 16th March at 12-03 am when it is only 23-21 on wed 15th March????

The time zone for the server is +1 Hour. It's 12:32am GMT as I post this.

Quote ="the flying biscuit"he publicly mentioned how bad our defence was when he first came here and how it would take a long time to rectify the bad habits we had.And we did that with him as a particular stand out in defence as well as attack (once in his correct role) '" I remember that article and thought it was brave of him to come out with the truth. Whilst the back story was all "we are going places, and we are not far off" he called it exactly - we stank in defence. These were the Cullen days of conceding on average 25-30+ points per game which never improved until we got Lowes in, then Smith. Monaghan saw the problems with Cullen a year before he left. www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/spo ... _Monaghan/ www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/spo ... _problems/ I would not be distraught if he was appointed if Smith falls on his sword, as he won't be sacked.

Quote ="the flying biscuit"he publicly mentioned how bad our defence was when he first came here and how it would take a long time to rectify the bad habits we had.And we did that with him as a particular stand out in defence as well as attack (once in his correct role) '" I remember that article and thought it was brave of him to come out with the truth. Whilst the back story was all "we are going places, and we are not far off" he called it exactly - we stank in defence. These were the Cullen days of conceding on average 25-30+ points per game which never improved until we got Lowes in, then Smith. Monaghan saw the problems with Cullen a year before he left. www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/spo ... _Monaghan/ www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/spo ... _problems/ I would not be distraught if he was appointed if Smith falls on his sword, as he won't be sacked.