How many games have we played and of those how many have we won since Kear left.
With regards Chester he is still not taking any blame instead passing that onto one player who I remember played when clearly injured last season to help the team. I note he was enthusiastic in stating that he is our highest paid player so is it once again down to money and cost cutting. The biggest loss however to revenue will be those supporters either staying away or not renewing their season tickets because of what a team he coaches has produced for many months on the pitch. This will then be followed by the usual it’s the supporters fault that we cannot have a competitive team despite the fact we have provided the club with a bonus by not requesting our money back. I am afraid this threat will not wash this time because people will have greater calls on their finances caused by the effects on employment by the virus than watching a poor performing team.
It will therefore be up to the CEO or the coach to realise it is a time for a change regardless of friendship because Wakefield Trinity is bigger than one individual and hopefully will outlast all of us.
With regards the Hull KR comparison, they realised he had taken the team as far as he could and sacked him, we on the other hand have not. We are not talking just this season but since the Leeds away win last season. I am sorry but based on the teams attitude and performance levels he is clearly no longer up to the job and no I don’t know who to replace him with but that will depend on who wants it.

The Hull KR comparison I’m making is with current coach Tony Smith! Over the last 25-30 games both teams results are pretty similar. Is Tony Smith a useless coach all of a sudden or finding it hard on limited resources and continuos injury struggles. To a lesser extent you can throw Brian MacDermott in there...won everything with a champion side of players at Leeds but couldn’t win a game with Toronto and suffered a 66-12 defeat in his last match...

If there were to be a replacement, I'd go for a proven coach at a lower level than an unproven one from the top, in the way that Cas got Powell from Featherstone.

Ford or Ward (with Langley) would be the ones. Ward prizes fitness, and appears to prize team-togetherness. Sheridan would be too much of a risk, just because some people are meant to be assistants, not coaches (see Webster and Lowes) and it shouldn't be for us to conduct the experiment.

For me, it would be JD. He's proved at it at the lower level in Aus, has bags of NRL assistant experience and knows the club, but I just don't think we'd get him. A family man with kids who is being groomed to slot into Wayne Bennett's job. He doesn't need to come here to get the head coach NRL gig. He just needs to bide his time.

I haven't done the maths but I reckon if someone sat down and worked it out, he would have one of the worst win-ratios for Leeds in the super league era. He won some of his grand finals from lower down the league. He was very good at a short run at the end of the season, but Leeds had a history of starting badly under him but then coming good at the end of the season. My reading of his Leeds side is that he benefited greatly from a golden generation and strong leadership within the playing group rather than astute coaching.

Ward & Langley would be my choice as well. Either way we need a change, Chester has done a decent job but coaches have a shelf life and sadly the decline is deep set. A total refresh of the backroom staff is needed as well. Dickens, Clawson, Gilmour etc have been there years and we need a change of direction.

As for JD he is taking over from Bennett in 2022. The contract is in place, was announced earlier this year.

I remember a mention of something along those lines during commentary on one of the games but I didn't know it was all official and signed off.

I bet he pinches himself when he thinks back to walking into Belle Vue for the first time after an unsuccessful stint at an unsuccessful Widnes, compared to where he has ascended to, past all those great NRL players who have retired since then. Good luck to the guy. Just a shame that it is unlikely we'll ever see him coaching Wakey.

What I liked about Ward was how fit the London players looked. I know they weren't coming from a bruising Super League campaign but fitness was clearly an issue for them, and why they were able to stay in the games right to the end. Teams like ours cannot carry players who begin huffing and puffing after twenty minutes, because we are always likely to be doing a lot of defending and because to have a chance, we have to play above ourselves.

I imagine if you can stump up the cash to pay off Chester and his coaching staff, and then pay for a new Head Coach and coaching staff, MC will oblige. You do realise the world had stopped for four months, and we are now in a recession?

So we were unfit and London were fit yet at the end of the season their points difference was -282 and ours -115...

This is what makes me laugh about our fans. Supposed to be ‘supporting’ our club but rip us to shreds at every available opportunity, yet heap praise on the teams in and around us who are getting similar results!

Case in point...praise for Hull KR trying the other day but forgetting in their previous game they lost 40-10 to the same Warrington team we did.

We lose our first game back by a point to Wigan who are now sat top but instead of praising a gutsy effort let’s pick apart the performance and say Wigan eased off to let us get back into it...and it goes down as another defeat to add to the numbers...

I agree. Some people just seem to live for the moaning and don't actually post anything when something good happens.
I guess if they pay their money they can do what they like but it seems like a sad existence to me.

Saying that my mate is a Cas fan and says they have exactly the same issue. Maybe all clubs have them.

I was only ever talking hypothetically, on the basis that if someone else "were" to come in. I don't think I've ever posted a "Chester Out" post, and for me this season doesn't matter, other than getting some cash in the bank. I have said a lot in the past that if you can't be the best, be the fittest, something London brought. They were clearly very fit, which gave them a chance. What caused them to go down with a big points difference is that they were fundamentally a Championship side who played above themselves.

We have battled against injuries for two or three seasons now, and I imagine that fitness must be a factor, as you must come off worse in a challenge if you are more gassed than the other bloke.

My starting point for us, however, is that with the lowest budget in the league, any top half finish is a good season. We have to utilise every aspect to achieve that, and being fit is part of that, which is clearly what London realised. As it happened, it wasn't enough, but it very nearly was.

Yes they’re suffering too and have returned 3 losses since the restart, same as us! A gutsy effort against Wigan with a fair few injuries, a few 50/50 decisions against them and disruption through the game with injuries...a good effort at Saints but registered a 0 in the points column, and after going 14-0 up shipped 40 unanswered points against Catalans...

I still don’t see any side being able to do much with 8 backs out pregame and losing a further 2 during the game, which ultimately leads to all four 3/4 made up of players playing out of position. Up against a team with a spine of Ratchford, Austin, Widdop and Clarke is the scoreline that surprising?

The ones that are hurting us at the moment are in the backs though...which of the current injured backs would you say picked up their injuries through lack of fitness?

Or do you put it down to bad luck...to add to being without 4 more players stood down for other reasons completely out of the coaches hands..

Just for PT our shirts look nice but unfortunately that is the only positive I can think of. With regards sacking Chester it is not the money which is the major factor but his friendship with the CEO, so no it will not happen. The only way he will go is if he resigns and looking at his lack of responsibility that is very unlikely.
I am not sure we have the lowest budget that may belong to Salford but I expect we should receive a bonus from SL by playing and moving our games around just to keep Sky happy.
With regards the four players who had to stand down, this was a decision taken by the club and coach to play when we could have postponed like all the rest have, so yes he knew the risk he was taking with regards the outcome and therefore cannot use it as an excuse.
We were bad before lockdown but whatever happened during this period has not helped in generating any team spirit when we returned unlike all the other teams. I don’t know why and anything I think would be pure speculation just as I am sure everyone on this forum will have their own.

I don't think fitness in the backs is necessarily an issue. Our spine yesterday is the one most people are calling for, but the backs we have are not able to do a job because they are never in a position to because the pack isn't strong enough.

In some respects, bad luck plays a part, but when the same clubs suffer the same bad luck, there is perhaps another cause. Hull FC promise every year but always seem to be club that has wretched luck with injuries. Ours too.

It could be technique. It could be fitness, so players are straining more than they need to do, or doing more tackling than other clubs. When Chester first arrived, he recognised that our pack was too light and took steps to address it, and we had a couple of good seasons. A lot of the players are older and a little more battered than before. It maybe just needs a refresh in the pack. Westerman should be an eighty-minute player, for example, but he isn't fit enough, but we need him to be.

Catalans have turned back into the team they were a couple of years ago because they have a pack that is big and strong, and a couple of players in the backs who are effective when given the chance. We have the backs but perhaps not the pack anymore. Write this season off and prepare for next. Refresh the pack and I reckon we'll go well again.

That’s a very fair post! I honestly thought our forwards did ok yesterday and continually got us good field position only to be let down by very poor last tackle kicks.

Chester was spot on back then...he identified early on that we were getting bullied by teams and we got the likes of Fifita, Pauli, Huby, Hirst...big intimidating guys who probably put fear into opposition...

The way the game has changed and quickened up though has maybe caught some of the big fellas out and it’s clearly been tougher on some having to come back after 5 months off with no pre season. Taking all that into account I’m prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt...

Comparisons with Catalan are irrelevant as they have spent big, very big, certainly when compared to us.
For me, we have only 2 star players in our side and both need to be playing and in decent form to help make up for our shortcomings (compared to other sides) in other areas, that's TJ and Fifita.
Johnstone is injured so, we cant do anything there and Fifita doesn't want to play.
We are severely lacking in the halves, with not enough organisation and a woeful kicking game. Without Brough we lose both organisation and a quality kicker and this is the area that needs addressing more than anything else.
Our pack, despite having Batch and Crowther in there looks old and tired and our three quarters is shot to pieces with injuries.
It's going to be a very long season and spotting where the next victory may come from and whether it might no be this season, is difficult to see.

Smith won two Grand Finals with Leeds. They finished top in one season, and second in the other, just a point behind Saints.

We must be a godsend to Super League because we would have played Saints at their ground, Warrington at theirs and now Leeds at Headingley. This is coupled with our cup game against Catalan followed by a SL game against Catalan which should have been Saints being brought forward a day and then we play Warrington with 2 players missing through track and trace which appears to be unique to us and 1 by association. We then quite happily agree to play Leeds with a three day turnaround and have to probably use an ill prepared player coming back from a serious condition.
I wonder if they would have asked this of any other club or are we just so desperate to keep Sky happy at the risk of further injuries due to player fatigue. The load should be shared between the clubs not just accepted that it will fall to us every time, with the exception of Castleford who had to play on their free weekend to cover for a team who had players testing positive.

Thats been my point mate, the teams who have done nothing wrong are being penalised to keep sky happy.

this season is defo one for the ages - I don't think chris can be really be heled to account solely for this year (we will be lucky to win another game )

However the way its going we will be able to afford a new coach? let alone a any new players?

He should be held to account for nearly getting us relegated last season, then failing to improve on that. He had a couple of good seasons when he had help from Kear, but has dragged the club backwards since

The sensible posters on here put last season down to an injury list that no team in SL could have coped with.

We didn't have it any worse that any other team. Our issue is that we've got a shallow squad with poor cover, so missing some of the playing team makes our situation appear so much worse. Again, this comes down to poor coaching and a lack of development for the younger players from a coach who would prefer to play players well past their best

Your having a giraffe did nt have it worse than any other team ? We have the thinnest squad financially in super league. We probably have about 5 players that are genuine super league quality and for most of last season we had fafita bishop johnston tupo arona ashurst brough and arundel out on top of the normal run of injuries.

When leeds had a run of injuries they used their financial clout to buy a load of second rate aussies, imported players from their feeder club featherstone. Saints just didn't have injuries, wigan had quite a few injuries but also had their pick the best juniors in the area and beyond.

As regards our younger players - I can't see any of the current crop of youngsters getting anything other confidence crushing hammering.

I m not a chester lover but .....

I tend to think we did have worse injuries than other teams, might be down to conditioning I don't know obviously, but here was the injury list prior to the Leeds game last season.

TJ
Tupou
Arundal
Miller
Brough
Huby
Wood
Randell
England
Ashurst
Batchelor
Kirmond