I found this an encouraging read and how Fitzpatrick disagrees with Price on season https://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/sp ... ead-coach/

I found this an encouraging read and how Fitzpatrick disagrees with Price on season https://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/sp ... ead-coach/

Yes, I was suprised with the candor of some of the answers. Interesting comments about how the Kev Brown injury situation unfolded too.

We need to move away from jobs for the boys.

Pretty honest really. He is as disappointed as the rest of us.

If Price didn't think it was a failure surely he should be sacked/resign as his expectations are obviously different to that of his bosses?

Really impressed with Fitzpatrick's comments, gone right up in my estimation. No flannel but fair in all his answers - wish MPs would take a leaf out of his book.

Encouragingly realistic. Presumably he has discussed this with the owners as well.
It sounds like SP has been told in no uncertain terms what is expected, will be interesting to see what changes if any result.
Wonder how far advanced the prop search is?

How Steve can think our Super League season was not a failure is beyond me

KF answers were probably really thought out. Proper set up interview with local press. Therefore had time to get the answer he wanted out there. SP answer on the other hand could have been from an off the cuff question straight after season ended and with CC win still on his mind.

Exactly this. KF has had time to take stock and more importantly listen to the views of his customers. Why Price would admit the season was a failure is beyond me, you’re pretty much signing your own resignation letter if that were the case. Price was happy he brought the Challenge Cup back to Warrington but disappointed in how the season finished I’m sure.

Season a failure? What nonsense, who is this guy?, CEO?, CEO doing what exactly.

I am certainly very content with winning the Challenge Cup, and against out local rivals, absolutely massive.

Maybe what KF is hinting at is he was a failure in not acting to replace Brown after such a serious injury, because in not doing so , and coupled with the other injuries we picked up, that effectively put paid to any Grand Final ambitions this year .

He states Super League season was a failure. Not the season as a whole.

Its more a disappointment with the dross that was served up especially the 2nd half of the season..in sp defence he's taken us to 3 out of 4 finals..winning only one..not fantastic..next season with widdop gelling hopefully more front row forwards that want to perform for us..for sp next season is make or break...

The issue is not winning the CC, nor failing to win the GF (or finish top 2 even), it lies in-between. It's the poor quality Rl for most of the season, with lots of errors, a clueless attack, two underused wingers and a pack incapable of getting the ball up-field once Coops and Hilly were off. Other than signing Widdop, what else has changed so far ? At least KFP seems to understand the challenge, but it doesn't sound as though Price does.

Actions always speak louder than words with this sort of thing.

You see it a lot with politicians - they look to win favour from the public by saying what they think the public are thinking, acknowledge all the problems, and then do nothing about it. Theresa May did that all the time - she took office talking about 'burning injustices', helping the 'just about managing', saying it was a disgrace that home ownership was unaffordable, and then had literally no policies designed to tackle any of those things. After a while, people realised it was just empty talk to try to win popularity.

Now, if KF was talking tough about how disappointing the season was in the context of big changes, it would be a different thing. If he was bringing in a new head coach and new coaching set up and announcing new signings, and was saying "I appreciate this may seem surprising after we won the Challenge Cup, but I didn't think we achieved up to our potential last year and I didn't think that set up was the best way for us going forward" then that would seem more credible.

What I fear with this is that KF is going to say this is unacceptable at the moment, but plans to basically repeat the same thing next year just with Widdop. What will he be saying if in a year's time we basically repeat the same story in the league but don't win the Challenge Cup? Will KF be resigning his position? Or will he be giving an interview stressing the 'positives', giving explanations for why the luck didn't go our way, talking about his ambition for 2021...?

However, before I get too negative about it, fair play to KF for talking openly and actually trying to answer the questions that will be on fans' minds in that interview. You often see CEOs fall in to corporate "lines to take" for the press but he hasn't. I guess that is where coming from a background of being an ex pro rather than just an outsider from the world of business, is good, he is grounded and understands how rugby league fans think and can communicate to them, so respect for that.

What we want to happen, and what we expect to happen, are often two very different things.
2019 is done, and we move on, regardless of whether the changes that occur sit well with us, or not.

That interview says one thing - if we don't start off next season like a house on fire, then Price is gone.

Personally, I'd have terminated his contract within 24 hours of the Cas defeat, however, the club obviously want to give him a chance to rectify things on the back of the Wembley win.

Can Price turn it around though??... I really just can't see it. From his 2 years so far, he looks like a man with a very solid Plan A, but absolutely nothing after that. Will Widdop really make such a huge difference?... while a big upgrade on Patton it is asking a lot for him to change a side which, in the second half of the season, was showing relegation form, both in results & quality.

I hope Price can do it and prove me, & others, wrong, but I will be very surprised if he does and fully expect him to be gone by May.

its all a bit of a blag job this interview.....

a) he has read the forums and knows the opinion of the fans
b) he knows there is NO way the club will be removing Price before the start of next season
c) he has eyes.. he knows where this is going.

he is showing we will make a chnage if we need to....

So Price somehow needs to be able to coach a nice brand of rugby and look good.... he has no chance.

We should have won both competitions and we failed...so our the season was a failure.
However...would I have taken the CC in 4th and bombed out?...of course I would...2012 was our last win...'losing becomes a habit!' Someone once said.
As I've said before...what I expect this team to do and what I would take if offered are 2 different things.
Draw up a contract with the same terms in 2020 and I'd sign it now...however I expect the double and hubcap...and I'd replaced Price if we don't as the progressive vision of our club is to be the 'greatest RL brand in the world'...but we are stalling and could argue gone backwards from 2018 as we made both finals.

Forgive me if I've got the wrong end of the stick, regarding this interview (I only skimmed through it).
It's done for the purposes of a paper /website (printed questions and answers) and not a TV style interview, where Fitzpatrick would've been "####ed up hill and down dale" by a Paxmanesque interviewer. This seemed all a bit like those cosy interviews that David Frost used to do, about 15 years ago. You know the type. "Are you sitting comfortably? Cup of tea, custard cream? Errr, OK" kind of thing.

One thing is being forgotten here. Price IS Fitzpatrick's man. When Smith's Wire career was obviously coming to an end, he announced it in August 17, giving us time to find a successor. We ambled on, until the end of the middle eights, and still no announcement on who'll replace Smith. Season has ended, and KF hops on a plane to Australia, and it takes him a month, to come back with what can only be described as an NRL failure. In the meantime, someone sanctioned the (as it turned out, disaster) Roberts deal.
Basically, KF ISN'T going to sit down in an interview, and say "yeah, we ####ed up", because HE employed Price, and it makes him look stupid. He's got to give the interviewer a little bit, and the reader some, too.

My own thoughts on the season. Failure. Not massive, as a cup win overrides that. But we did our best to lose that HKR game, early rounds, and thank God Saints bokkled it again,and surely won't play as badly again".
Looking at the league, with two games to go, if we hadn't beaten Wakefield, we could have finished 6th or even seventh (unlikely with points difference), after being second for twenty plus rounds, that's pathetic.
Then there was the capitulations v Wakefield and HKR (both away). Not good.
The only plus points I remember, were early season wins against an out of for.m Wigan and a depleted Hull, where we last played any kind of easy on the eye rugby.

Not sure how much more KP could have said short of “I’ve just sacked him”. It wasn’t the current politician style answer of answering the question you want to answer rather than the one that was asked. If I was Steve Price reading that I would feel very uncomfortable which makes me think there has been some fairly straight talking behind the scenes.

I liked the interview, basically I think words have been had but price is given the chance to turn it around. I still think that will prove a mistake but that's what we have got. I don't like searching for for a forward in the NRL, they are more expensive, no better and often just don't adapt at all because they want to be here. I'd prefer to take a proven superleague prop like we did when we signed carvell.

I think we missed out big time with George burgess.

I'd agree with this. Sounds like Price has been told that, whatever he thinks, last season was poor and that a continuation of it during the early part of next season, definitely results wise, hopefully quality wise, will see him out of a job.

If KF is doing his job properly, he will already be quietly putting together a shortlist of contenders to take on the job, should Price not fix things. (At the moment, it's probably a very short list reading Ian Watson, though I fear our best chance to get him would be the close season, as no club will want to let their coach go after a season is already underway).

With Austin out for the second half of the season, Patton and/or Smith in the halves, a total lack of size/strength/speed/tackle busts/offload game in the props and no depth at all in the front row (all we have is Clark Cooper Hill and Philbin who either play or contribute anything), and absolutely no loose forward or ball handling forward... how on Earth do you come up with the opinion we should have won both competitions?

We are well short!

Teams fighting relegation had better half backs, more depth in the front row (and an actual ball handling/running loose forward) than we did from July onwards.

Absolutely every player from 1-17 played the game of their season at Wembley and we deservedly best the best side in the country. But try and get any sort of consistency with the deficiencies I listed above and we’ve got no chance.

For me it was the style of rugby I was most disappointed with this season. We are boring and really need to improve in that respect. But there’s a problem of a disconnect between hope and reality if we think we [ishould[/i be winning things with our squad.

We have two extremes to our squad, some of the leagues best players and one of the world’s best players in Clark. But we have glaring holes and weaknesses in our squad that even relegation battling sides easily have. Rugby league is a team game, a squad game, no team is as good as its best handful of players - all teams are only as good as their weakest links and we have too many.

You've contradicted yourself there massively