Sorry lads maybe got carried away with the "hilt" comment but at least 8,000 of us bought passes and believed things would improve (which they did last season). He had every chance, but for me lacked motivational skills.

Yeah, fancied a name change. Think I may change it back, tbh.

Last straw for me with Agar was the MM game against Quins in 2010, strangely the time when Expro/Icecreamman showed up.

I remember going to Caravan Park after Saints at Wembley and i know we were suffering from the cup loss but the team were awful that day and totally unmotivated, the rot started to set in then for me. But still no unrest or boos till around a couple of seasons later, so for Cooke to say we never backed him is not true.

But be fair, the team had travelled a long way to play that game.

Isn't this real life?

If Cooke ever wants to get back into the game in some capacity, it's a fair bit more likely at Wakey with Agar than FC with Pearson. His stated opinion is therefore unsurprising.

Briscoe's effectively had his rugby league "dad" move out. Not surprising he's a bit unimpressed.

The whole player disappointment thing seems to me a collective "oh e, now we're going to have to work for a living" tbh.

agree

I don't think it's that,at least not with the bulk of them. They'll have been comfortable with Agar in all aspects of their day to day life,for a new boss to come in takes you out of that comfort zone and you're heading into the unknown. I think it's human nature to be apprehensive about that. The ones who don't want to put the effort in and carry on taking it easy will be shown the door,those that want it and embrace it will go from strength to strength. Once they build up some trust and the players start enjoying doing different things and learning via new methods i think a few of those that have only ever worked with Agar will see him for what he is.

Not necessarily. Can't think that Ogre, for instance, has that kind of mentality.

Agar has been at the club for a long time and many of these player have known him for either his entire tenure or for theirs. Players like continuity and stability. Coupled to his general popularity and reported ability as a [icoach[/i it's no real surprise that there's a degree of upset/trepidation about the change. They will also be focussed on what remains of this season and not thinking ahead to next just yet.

Let's see what their reaction is once Agar has left and Gentle is actually here. That will tell us a lot more about whether they'll embrace the opportunity or waste time looking backwards.

If they don't like it they can all go with him. The club is bigger than any player

It really grinds my gears when I here this Agar's been hard done too bull$hit. It's a results based business and since he's been head coach the results have been poor to say the least. You can't say he hasn't had the chance to turn it around when he took over in 2007 and here we are in 2011 just about getting in the 8. Time for him to go along with anybody else who's willing to accept mediocrity.

I’m not sure where all this “shock” from the players and some fans has come from about Mr Agar being asked to leave. Richard Agar is now into his fourth season as coach. Here are the facts of his tenure.

• We have not won a single playoff game during his time as coach.
• We have not beat any Super League team in the Challenge Cup since July 2008.
• We have played the so called big four 30 during his time as coach and we have won only 5 times. That is a 16.6% win % on big games.
• Attendance at home games has been declining year on year. Between 2 to 3000 down on average.
• His win % as coach is around the 40% mark.

All the above should be put in context that we spend the full cap every year and have an A grade licence and he has on more than one occasion had transfer money to use. If Mr Agar was as good a coach as all these players keep making out. They need to ask themselves the question, why have they as individuals and as a team consistently underperformed? If it wasn’t the poor coaching and team management then it must have been them.

Seeing it like that its even worse than I thought.

the thing that amazes me most, is that the HDM and Cooke himself think his opinion is valuable!

Get the same impression as well. We may get a couple of players speaking up about the Agar years when he finally leaves, but hardly surprising there is no comments at the moment as they still want the chance to play in the playoffs.

You're making it sound worse than it is! We've only played two under Agar!

Robin Asquith will be playing him in the forthcoming "Confessions of a Shopfitter's Mate"

Dont buy the rag and i cant believe people still do.
Why they would want to read his comments is unbelievable, there are plenty of current or past players i am sure who could write a column for the paper.

Indeed, I'd love to hear Royce Simmons views on Gentle and him coming to FC.....

Tbh it really irritates me that they're employing him to do that. AFAIK the guy is not qualified to be a writer, and appears to have been chosen for shock value only, + to stir as much $hit as possible, because that's that Rag's policy.





The guy's opinion about both clubs means absolutely nothing. You have a guy like Shaun Briscoe in today's paper who is liked / loved and respected by both sets of fans, then you have that idiot who is disliked and / or hated by both, lessons to be learned that Cookie.

Shame on the HDM for taking the low route to 'journalism.'

Well, that's what I "understand" anyway.

I agree with you 100%, it made me laugh when Cooke was allowed to peddle the myth that it was his decision not to play SL, nobody (not even John Kear) wanted him, talk about damaged goods, a charity shop wouldn't stock Cooke!

Yeah that was a good one, gave up £2000 a week (guessing?) to produce a weekly article for a terrible local paper, it's a choice we'd all make eh.

Well said. It's almost as if these people think Agar should have been allowed to remain in post indefinitely, regardless of results, and we fans should just keep our mouths shut about his inability to get his team playing to its potential.