I mean [iREALLY[/i crash. To the point where it is patently obvious players are going backwards in terms of their careers?

Do we stick with Keiron & Mike Rush? Can we AFFORD to stick with them? I imagine Nathan Brown won't be too happy if he has to spend valuable pre-season time coaching out a load of bad habits.

Do we bring in someone else? Maybe - heaven forbid - a "stablising" coach on short-term pay (of Kear standard)?

I can't see us begging Huddersfield to release Brown early and paying substantial compensation.

It's all well and good thinking such won't happen but I'm sure most fans thought our current situation wouldn't happen.

If in this unlikely event, i'd imagine a Kear/Noble type would be brought in on a short deal.

But we'd have to really crash. We've got 2 wins out of the last 3 that i didnt expect, so we're 4 points up from what i expected

It's obvious that two "coaches" that have never coached SL level, Rush and KFC don't have the necessary experience. I'd assumed that KFC would at least be able to motivate the players but that's got to be called into question after friday too.

An interim coach is the right call before the rot sets in and NB spends his first season rebuilding a squad without any confidence.

What is the Russians drop a nuclear bomb on St Helens. Is Langtree Park insured?

As I've said from the start of Roycegate, this season could very quickly and easily turn into a disaster from here on. It might not, but very easily could. And if it does assume the shape of a pear then there's no way we could make another temporary change and we're stuck with whatever happens. We'd almost certainly have been better off with the players and board sucking it up and making the best of it with Royce for the rest of the season, and the road we're now committed to is a tremendous, enormously huge risk. We may not have had much choice with whatever the mystery behind the scenes shenanigans were, but the sacking was a risk nevertheless. Fingers are crossed.

We'd be no worse off than we were before rush and KC came in.

After that Bulls game, you just couldn't see where the next win was coming from. Then we go and pull out two great wins against teams who were flying.

There was nothing in the Wigan performance to suggest a crash was on the way, let alone one of biblical proportions the like that would warrant emergency action.

There's nothing to say the players wouldn't have turned things round under Royce. Let's be honest, after the goings-on following the Grand Final, we were always going to be motivated for the Leeds game.

By the same token there is nothing to say we cant turn this defeat around,after the loss to Wigan the team are going to be motivated to win.

What happens if we win the GF with KC and rush?
What happens if we win the CC with KC and Rush?
What happens if 1 + 1 does not equal 2?
What happens if we win the next 4 league games?
What happens if we win 2 and lose 2 games?
What happens if Wigan go on a losing streak of 7 games?
What .....................

You get the point, it's a very negative point of view to take. Currently this team are 2 out of 3.
Royce and Purtill were 2 out of 7,

I understand people get joy out of misery, but jes' it's a loss to Wigan which I think every Saints coach has had in there day. I see no reason for our performances to crash. People talk like having an untested coach is an impossibility. Well how many teams did hanley coach before coming to Saints?

Rush has years and we mean years of coaching under his belt. So what if he was not a head coach, Royce was hardly dripping with head coach experrience, his job was with guess it............................................................ the youth team structure.

Saying we would have turned it round under Royce to get the previous 2 wins well, there was nothing to show that was going to happen. Under Royce would we have dropped the back on the bench, moved meli back to the wing, dropped gaskell, started lance at 6, not rotated the wingers each week, played josh jones, etc etc etc....

Under Royce it was going to be more of the same. Hence why on other threads people claim Leeds where not ready for us in that game. I just hope after the next set of games if performances are good again we don't have people holding on waiting for another loss somewhere down the track to say the end is nigh.

People so easily forget that we were playing really badly before Leeds away last year - although we had James Graham on board to cover up the cracks in the forwards - but we turned it around at Leeds away. There was nothing at all to say that things couldn't have turned around with Leeds again this season regardless of who was in charge.

The problem we now have is that we might have a group of senior players who are not going to play unless the fancy takes them AND an inexperienced duo in charge. When Royce was around at least we had an experienced coach who had already been through a similar pattern with the players before AND turned it around to the point where we were off to another Grand Final. And let's face it, I don't think anyone thought we would get to a GF last year given the number of injuries we had and the disruption caused by that factor plus all the off field stuff. We ended up winning our last 10 matches if memory serves.

Royce had form on turning the team around. The present regime do not. While hopefully things will turn around, because although I am still firmly of the opinion it was wrong to fire Royce (for a number of reasons) I do still want Saints to do well, there is a bigger risk this season than last that they won't because not only are we without our inspiration on the pitch but we are also without experience in the coaching team.

Actually I did think we would make the GF!!!!



I believe I said we'll finish in the top 4 and get a final appearance be that CC or GF. You could see the performances coming last year, what we lacked was a win against Huddersfield, Wigan or Wire. But at no point did I think a win against those 3 was impossible, just difficult.

Royce was right to be sacked for a number of reasons, most of which was our abject inability to create, I'lll give him credit where it's due and last year I did not at any point lose faith, but at no point last year did we have such a poor run of game. 2 out of 7 was not good enough and would have got pretty much any saints coach sacked. Although I thought the sacking was due this weekend. But then I thought we would beat bradford with ease and that would get him through to the next 3 games.

Royce was also very dogmatic in his approach and like some other coaches seamed to lack a plan B.

It seams your willing to accept that Royce could have turned around the performances with the same ol same ol. Yet one loss to Wigan and you are quite unwilling to accept that this team (who do have experience) can do anything.

Shaun Mcrea was an assistant for a few years prior to Saints
Hanley had close to zero coaching experience
Millward coached leigh before Saints,

So 3 successful coaches who had no first grade pedigree to talk about. Rush has had more experience than hanley, could be said similar or more than mcrea and less than millward, but millward coached at a lower level, so is being a SL assistant or a youth team coach for a SL side equating to a head coach at a lower league side, i would say not, but you get the point their lack of first grade coaching did not stop them getting results.