The squad was so poor under Furner and not fixed under Agar that achieving a complete turnaround in less than 3 years was probably impossible given salary cap issues. I think Smith did a good job of getting rid of some dead wood, but some of those brought in are as poor as the ones who left, which means we're not as far into squad renewal as we should be. That's aside from coaching issues.



Generally though its really hard to argue that the club lost its focus years ago. It does now feel with Blease taking over that there's a recognition that everything ultimately stems from the first team being competitive, but its been a long time coming. At least now we have a boss who's job depends on success.



One other thing, please do not reinvent Furner as some kind of misunderstood genius. He was a terrible head coach, who got both his NRL and SL roles through his history of the clubs, and nothing at all to do with ability.

Whatever your views of Furner’s coaching ability, you surely cannot disagree that his summing up of the terrible state of our squad was bang on the money, but the powers that be chose to ignore his views

I'm not suggesting he was wrong if he thought the squad was dire. But a better, more respected coach would have found a way to manage the change required in the squad without pushing us into relegation.



For a second opinion, ask Raiders fans what they think of Furner as a coach. Its not good.

Agree with the majority of the above , but not sure Walker and Grix could be trusted with the water bottles

Excellent post Matt

BTW I agree entirely that the next coach will assess the squad, and that Blease needs to be able to stop any player from running to mummy if they are told they need to improve or ship out.



My only question is how much weight/clout a temporary coach might have. Giving a view on every player ready for the next coach might be useful, but I'd doubt someone like Rowley who is in and around SL all the time wouldn't already have a strong view on our squad.



Or is it more about a temporary coach trying to energise the team to have a season end like 2022? Not sure how you do this unless the whole squad buys in from day one.



At least it'll keep interest in the season going - it already feels like this year's done and gone.

Arthur coming in and being a sort of "axeman" might actually be beneficial, would give more insight to next season

Aside from that fact that lots on here are ridiculously critical (some of you need some happy) - Arthur might end up catalysing a couple of players to leave. It would be easier for the incoming coach to take a settled group. I don't think Blease will shy away from a couple of hard decisions in there, the question is will he get them right?



I'm not as despondent for our chances against Wire, although to me their performance at HQ was the best I've seen this year. They have some disruption, we're underdogs, let's see what we can come up with.



If we do get done over I wonder who will be the next target for the Malcontents in the away support...? Judging by this forum Rohan Smith still has some legs.

Someone like Arthur coming in for the rest of this year is an opportunity to try and remove some of the awful bad habits that have been embedded over the last 2 years.

That wasn't going to happen overnight and the performance against London showed that.

Chev and Grix are not in a position to do that as they were part of the problem.

We can have a reset with the current playing squad for a few months.

A coach with proven NRL pedigree coming in to get us back to RL basics, remove the gimmicks, improve line speed, improve intensity and try and get us so we at least look organised. All the things that have been missing.

The results are not so important to me tbh.

Whoever we have in 2025 at least then has a better foundation to take us forward.

I think it's a good move from the club.

Ridiculously critical?, have a look at the league table, we have just parted with an absolutely absolutely useless coach, who signed several sub standard players. The assistant coaches are hopeless and we have just about managed to beat the worst team in the league. Plenty of scope for criticism I would have thought.

and one of you is ridiculously happy to accept mediocrity and a poundland coach

Yep, I love nothing more than a bit of mediocrity.



I’m more M&S than Poundland though.