Re: 2022 | Head Coach talk : Wed Apr 13, 2022 11:22 am  

I just think the stadium and then getting the club through covid in one piece has taken priority over the rugby arm of the business over the last several years. Hopefully the next coaching appointment will be the start of the club starting prioritise the team and drive standards up again.

Re: 2022 | Head Coach talk : Wed Apr 13, 2022 11:42 am  

Fully agree, but I really don't see why it needed to be a choice? If we had had professional focus and employed someone to act as PM/QS on the stadium works, then there's no need to compromise the organisation on the rugby side. Everyone faced Covid, didn't seem to hurt Saints too much.

Bottom line is GH took his eye off the ball and now it's gone past him.

Re: 2022 | Head Coach talk : Wed Apr 13, 2022 12:21 pm  

lionarmour87 wrote:

I wonder if we will have a head coach in place before the close season

To be fair according to Christopher it takes approx 6 month to recruit an office junior and hes in the recruitment bizniz apparantly so god knows when Speedy GonHetherington will get a new coach in.

Funny cos Kev n Lowesy was in a couple of days after McDonut went.

Re: 2022 | Head Coach talk : Wed Apr 13, 2022 3:30 pm  

Marty Grrrrrrrrrr! wrote:

European is a strange word to use i think. Makes me think Laurent Frayssinous has tossed his boule into the ring.

Sacre bleu and Amber

I was thinking the very same about Frayssinous being appointed.

Re: 2022 | Head Coach talk : Wed Apr 13, 2022 3:40 pm  

batleyrhino wrote:

Fully agree, but I really don't see why it needed to be a choice? If we had had professional focus and employed someone to act as PM/QS on the stadium works, then there's no need to compromise the organisation on the rugby side. Everyone faced Covid, didn't seem to hurt Saints too much.

Bottom line is GH took his eye off the ball and now it's gone past him.

spot on

Re: 2022 | Head Coach talk : Wed Apr 13, 2022 5:22 pm  

Ryan Carr went home cos his wife is a financial high flyer n got a good job back home in Aus. He wont be returning.

Re: 2022 | Head Coach talk : Wed Apr 13, 2022 6:26 pm  

batleyrhino wrote:

Fully agree, but I really don't see why it needed to be a choice? If we had had professional focus and employed someone to act as PM/QS on the stadium works, then there's no need to compromise the organisation on the rugby side. Everyone faced Covid, didn't seem to hurt Saints too much.

Bottom line is GH took his eye off the ball and now it's gone past him.

I think it’s easy as fans to underestimate how distracting stadium development is to the senior management. Saints absolutely suffered during the early part of the 2010s when they moved to Langtree Park as it was at the time, and the subsequent snagging that ensued (cladding gate!)

Our recruitment over that period was poor, and was only really saved by a strong spine whom, despite losing 5 in a row, still got there 5 times in a row… not good enough to keep us competing but not so bad we dropped to complete mediocrity. We then recruited big in Nathan Brown (if I remember correctly we made him the top paid coach ever in SL at the time) and got back to the “big league” by breaking our monkey in 2014, with a strong new generation coming through to complement the old timers.

We then stuffed it up again by appointing Cunningham, but that was sentimentality rather than anything else. As has been shown in the post KC years it wasn’t through lack of trying, just following the wrong advice…

Re: 2022 | Head Coach talk : Wed Apr 13, 2022 6:33 pm  

I get what you’re saying, but think it’s more down to the small time mentality of RL club owners (you only need look at the way they only ever look after themselves when it comes to the game as a whole). There’s a big man in a small sport thing at many clubs, and given that our owner is a construction millionaire, there was no reason for us to miss a beat on the rugby side. That doesn’t mean we continue to win it every year, we have no right, but there was no real reason for us to fall so far and for so long.

Re: 2022 | Head Coach talk : Wed Apr 13, 2022 7:12 pm  

batleyrhino wrote:

Fully agree, but I really don't see why it needed to be a choice? If we had had professional focus and employed someone to act as PM/QS on the stadium works, then there's no need to compromise the organisation on the rugby side. Everyone faced Covid, didn't seem to hurt Saints too much.

Bottom line is GH took his eye off the ball and now it's gone past him.

Leeds is a much larger organisation with 40% of its income coming from the hospitality arm of the business.
I think we're also forgetting how close we came to not being able to finance the stadium. Emerald came in just before the deadline to get a deal in place.

Re: 2022 | Head Coach talk : Wed Apr 13, 2022 7:20 pm  

Marty Grrrrrrrrrr! wrote:

Ryan Carr went home cos his wife is a financial high flyer n got a good job back home in Aus. He wont be returning.

If that is the case, and I'm not saying it isn't, you have to wonder why we have been so persistently linked with him over the last year or so.