I see Richard Agar has just resigned as Leeds Rhinos Head Coach,I say he’d be a decent upgrade on Simon Finnigan long term,Worked numerous roles in the game and also an ex Widnes player…Thoughts and opinions?
Firstly it won’t happen because the club aren’t going to pay off Finnigan’s contract and then shell out a (probably much) higher salary for Agar.
Secondly, he doesn’t seem to have done that fantastic a job at the SL sides he’s coached.
Just reported on Sky that he’s been moved ‘Upstairs’..On the Subject of Simon Finnigan he just doesn’t fill me with any confidence at all,I don’t think he’s up to coaching a Championship team looking to improve year on year,We are defensively soft and his interviews after the are ‘Roy Hodgson’ like.
Agar has a better coaching CV than our Simon (including France) and must have picked up a few tips when he was with John Kear.
But IMHO its not financially worthwhile to bring him here - even if he was available.
@former-chemic Totally agree. The fact the Agar is at Leeds and Finnegan at Widnes would suggest that Agar has a better CV, although not been too good at Leeds - and neither has Sean Long.
It's a funny old game. We win our first four games and little comment about Finnegan's credentials. We lose against probably the best (and most expensive) team in the league and lose subsequent games against Barrow (unbeaten) and York (full-time ? and were thought to be one of the front-runners for a play-off spot), but we are still in fourth spot in the league; and fans are once again calling for Finnegan to be replaced. If James Ford had been Widnes coach, fans would have been baying for his head after their poor start to the season.
My view is that Finnegan should be judged over the season and not on the back of a run of three defeats, despite the particularly poor performances in those games. Maybe a couple of wins against Newcastle and Batley and a good performance against Leigh in the three April games, will help change the mood.
Agar has done well in patches in his career, won the cup at Leeds, some half-decent runs at times with Wakefield and Hull....but he isn't necessarily a realistic option right now for us.
As for SF, he is less than a season and a quarter into a two year deal.
Things will become clear by the early summer one way or another with him IMO.
If we slide out of Play-off contention, he will be gone. If we are in contention or in the Play-offs he will stay.
Are we a better side than last year? I would say yes, but not by a long way. Are we as good a side as we would hope at this stage, I would say not: the Barrow and York games have put a downer on things.
I don’t think he’s the man to get us promoted and attract players we need to get promoted and this should surely be the aim every season imo
@mckeeverviking I think the aim is to be the best we can with the players and staff we have. We’d all like us to be promoted but the squad we have isn’t good enough and we should be aim8ng for a top six spot realistically.
We aren't a realistic promotion candidate whilst we're a part-time team, that's obvious. We cannot compete with Fev, Leigh, seemingly York and probably Newcastle if they get their act together. The sooner people realise this, the better.
I don't know if we're able to go full-time, or what would be required to move to full-time players, that's a different conversation. But we were looking for improvement this season and hopefully a play-off position where we might shock someone. But, anyone thinking we are promotion candidates, or even that we should be, needs a reality check.
Can't argue with that....we are at best a team that could make the lower play off places....I doubt that is enough for many fans especially those who saw the Cup Kings and World champs era
I personally haven't been since the last game pre covid although I have been watching on Our League and Premier sports I'm finding it hard to motivate myself into paying good money to come away angry and frustrated at our performance. Its not even just about winning. If I thought we would be in the game during the final 5 minutes I might be tempted.
We are in a position where anybody showing a consistent good level of performance will be cherry picked by clubs with higher finances and asking players to in effect do themselves out of a job as hardly any would be good enough in Superleague even if we performed a miracle and got promoted.
Without significant financial investment we are likely to be at this level or lower for some years yet.......Will the fans remain....some will and some won't. The problem with playing the 1895 cup as a double header with the challenge cup tie means any realistic chance of success for this season ended in one match and I fear only the hardcore die hard fans will be there come the end of another disappointing season.
I was never entertaining any thoughts of going up this year at all.
The longer term question for me is have the club/officials got a vision/plan for how we get to a position to compete for the GF, let alone get promoted?
Is it the case that it's an effort for a couple of years to try and qualify for the lower play-off spots so we can be seen as upwardly mobile, then try and entice players to get into the higher places?
For me, I was thinking that £581,000 of VIQI money will have been paid in by the end of the season. Has that money been well spent on the players recruited? That remains to be seen.
On Finnegan, I hope he succeeds, a stable coaching set up for 2 or 3 years is better than chopping and changing. But if he fails, he should not be the only one leaving or held responsible.
@frankg @geoffw I have to agree also, 4 wins and three defeats so far isn’t the end of the world. Newcastle this weekend with O’Carroll, Betts and the Chuckle Brothers has bogey team written all over it, but we could do with a win to steady the ship and buck the recent trend.
What was pleasing early in the season was the liveliness in the attack. That seems to have abated, maybe asking Fozzy to manage 80 mins is too much when getting battered. Maybe to loss of both Danny and Jack was a bit too much out of our spine, despite good performances from Roby etc.?
Still, we are still there and hopefully with a two week re-think we can rise again.
It was never going to be a sudden surge to the top after our total disruption so if that's what you need to maintain interest best leave now. We survived for many many years without being anywhere near to the top, pre-SL of course.
We have to be realistic and accept that outside financial backing is what drives the game these days, without it any team would struggle, some struggle with it!!!
Survival is 'success', many proud clubs have failed.