Not in a million years am I defending Vasty, but I just don't see the 'great white hope' that Westerman is meant to be? No sour grapes, but I have never seen him have a good game?

Maybe not his finest game, but any Wakey fan who would condone Kear's dismissal needs their head looking at. We have never been as regularly competitive in SL as we are right now and again, for a club our size we punch well above our weight and this is down in no small part to Kear.

Don't think there is any doubt that Kear is the man for the job. Just needs to play players in thier correct positions. It's confusing watching the interchanges so who knows how confusing it must be to the players.

yes your right about people playing out of position atkins has been out of position for the last 2 and half season HE is not a centre

while i at the moment dont think jk and p45's should be in the same sentece i do agree with what RDM says.players are been played out of postion too much grix needs to play at 6 for rest of the season with out a doubt while some players (mainly atkins) need a kick up the backside.while jk is doing a good job but to me he is not the special one many believe if we fail to get in the playoffs we would have not improved on the previous 2 season and infact dropped a place or two and while i dont think we can expect to improve every year but that would be 3 years without improvment therfore kear is not the special one

I was also stood next to JK during yesterday's game, as I do every week. I love the fact that he shows passion, and whilst I didn't throw anything about at the final whistle, I certainly felt like it! He brought Drew off so that it could be pointed out to him that he was 'going missing' defensively, and that he needed to sort it out. At that point in the match not a lot was going for us, so with about 10 to go he told Beans to get him back out their and just to pop up wherever he wanted to try and create something and maybe unsettle Cas with a sort of free roll. Not exactly part of the plan, but a good coach is not frightened of trying something different when obviously plans A,B and C hadn't worked.

No probs with JK, does a very good job........just a bad performance.......it happens

i do think Kear got it tactically wrong by starting JD at Dummy half when we had Obst in the team and Drew on the bench (and Latu 18th man)

I think it was a case of trying to fit players in the team in their wrong positions.

Latu was injured, (not fit this week) drew cant do 80 mins. I always feel its better to start where your intended to stay for the maj, so you get into the feel of a game and if jd's playing 50-60 mins of dummy half, for my money he has to start there. With hookers its different as they are known.renowned for and used as impact players.

It seems a couple of people might have misread what my original post said.

I'm NOT suggesting that JK should get the boot after 1 defeat (least of all after a defeat to Cas), but we've only won 4 (1 of which was Celtic) out of our last 12 matches (13 if you include the CC defeat by Wigan) and that simply isn't something that equates to a side expecting to compete in the playoffs.

If we are going to make any impression in the playoffs it's clear that JK will have to start using players in their best positions rather than trying to fit them into plans that clearly aren't working.

3 wins from our last five SHOULD give us a playoff spot & WOULD give us some reasonable form going into them. Like it or not, we're in a franchise system now and we need to be fully competitive to give us the best chance of renewing the franchise (the stadium will happen so I'm not worried about that).

An earlier post suggested that JK shouldn't be blamed for the quality of the squad he's got as it's mainly inherited, but a look at the teamsheet from the survival match shows that only 4 of that team played on that memorable night were playing yesterday (JD, Hendo, Korki & Obst - Latu was on the bench). That means that JK has brought the players he wants to the club, but he persists in playing these players out of position.

If we don't make the playoffs this year that will probably mean that we have taken no more than 12 (and possibly only 10) of the last 34 points that have been available to us & that's why I think JK should go IF we don't make the playoffs.

JK may have saved us in 2006, but how long can we afford to let things continue to slide if we want to be in SL after 2011?

for me you make no allowance for the fact that we spend significantly less than the clubs we have and are likely to again, finish above. nor for the fact that barring 2004 we finished 2nd bottom every year. kear has lifted the club away from this and raised expectations, which as ever, leads people like you to question his success. it all needs to be put in context and for me he does and is doing a very good job considering

Who is going to give us the guarantee of a play off place while operating on a smaller budget to most other clubs? We need to pick up bargains and spend wisely getting the best out of 'average' players like Bibey. JK has shown that he is capable of doing this and I don't see a massive queue of available coaches who would want or be able to better what he is doing.

The main two criticisms I have of JK would be the way he seems to want to fit players into his team rather than playing players in position and the way that we seem to peak too early in the season often leaving us looking tired in the last third of the season.

It would be a lot easier to pick players in their accustomed positions if we had Blanch, Petersen, Martin & George available for selection, but as we don`t JK has to utilise who`s available. If Murphy is a Centre, as I`m led to believe, we currently don`t have an out-and-out winger available, thus making it mpossible to to pick players in their `right` positions.

ATEOTD JK didn`t do too badly against Saints did he?

The point remains regardless on field results, which are satisfactory and a long way from the perennial strugglers of yesteryear, since Kear has been here the whole ethos of the club appears to have changed. It is much more professional now and the academy is developing nicely.

The players who are at Wakefield may have been brought by Kear but how many would’ve actually featured on his wish list if the club had the means to purchase ‘in their prime’ SL and NRL players. Not many. That’s said the players he has drafted in has done a remarkable job in getting the team into playoff contention not just this year but for the past three seasons, we have never seen consistency like that at Wakefield in SL. It has been disappointing to see the team fade away towards the end of the past two seasons but that’s sport. There were better teams who made the playoffs.

Without a doubt there is no one better placed to guide this club. If Trinity fail to make the playoff s this year then so be it, there is always next year, and the year after that. Franchising, if nothing else, is here to bring stability to all clubs. Changing your coach, and one who has such an influence on the club as Kear, could undo all the good work that has been done so far.

If Wakefield had Warrington’s finance and repeatedly failed to make any sort of impact on the playoffs then it may be a different story and the future of a coach who failed to deliver that would perhaps be shown the door.

But for now, and the foreseeable future, it is imperative that Kear remains at the helm. As long as the off-field criteria are looked after the on field criteria will look after itself.

My judgement is not based on 6 games in 2006, it’s based on the past 3 years of progression as a club.

There have been many occassions when JK has had the opportunity to play players in position and he hasn't.

The fact that we have no wingers makes it even stranger that Petersen has apparently left for some unknown reason.

Perhaps a good comparison to the Trinity’s current situation is the plight of Charlton Athletic. An un-fancied side with average players who performed very admirably in the money obsessed Premier League. At first the supporters were happy just to be in the top flight, but the longer they remained in that division the stability of keeping the same man at the helm enabled the club to progress year on year up the league and become a club on the fringes of a European place.

After a number of seasons of just missing out, the supporters grew restless and demanded that their manager be removed as he was unable to take them on to that next level. Eventually they got their wish and after 15 years the manager stepped down.

A year later the club was relegated from the Premier League, three years later they now are set to face Wycombe Wanderers in footballs third tier.

Surely peaking early in the season is a tactical decision. Sure, if you want to win Super League you have to peak at the end of the season. But when that's not a realistic goal then peaking early allows you to pick up wins against teams having a slower start to the season.

It does but if your goal is the play offs then the fact that in the last 2 seasons we have fallen away in the last few weeks would suggest that maybe it is time for a different tactic.

he didnt do to bad against saints the gripe i have and its only a little one unless he was carrying a knock why drop latu? at the beginning of the season he stated that players wouldnt be brought right back and would have to have a run out in the a team so why change a winning team by picking drew ahead of latu.

I believe Latu was injured or he may have left it's hard to know these days!

1 Latu picked up another injury , so he was not dropped.

Latu hardly played his part in the wining team did he.

no al he didnt i am just stating what john kear said at the begining of the season

and although latu may or may not have had a injury why did he warm up he was in 18 so he must have been prepared to play

Possibly the mistake JK made was in his original statement/promise. It was a big statement to make at that time, imho you have to asses the needs of the team at that time and react accordigly, which is what JK has tried to do. I think in an ideal world he would have liked to stick to what he said.....................but it's not an ideal world is it

Apparently it was what the players wanted ie every player needs to earn their place after injury via the 'A' team. However this 'rule' seems not to apply to all players.

I'm pretty sure that if we have a hooker, for example, coming back from injury and teher are no other hookers available, that the rule doesn't mean he has to play someone else!
I think if there is someone playing that is earning his place then a newly fit player does not automatically take his place, but form and ability still apply in the decision of who to pick.

I agree with your statement and its context. However there are players in the squad who have been out injured more than once and have not been involved with the 'A' team and other 'lesser mortals' have done their porridge. If you have a rule it should be seen to be applied fairly - we are all equal , but some are more equal than others.