Just wondering why Watson turned down a really good job at Hull ? mm.
roy litherland it's happened i told you it would
A new (Free) video just put up on Saints TV, is an interview with Watson bigging up the young Saints players at last night's match.
https://tv.saintsrlfc.com/2020/10/27...ts-youngsters/
Phil Vievers...Balls...Joan Collins...Try...Orgasmic... RH the living legend.
He probably doesn't want to move to Hull, which I would imagine would be a pre-requisite for the Head coach there. Having to uproot his family - or moving on his own and not being able to see his family for months. The Hull job is a big gamble too, with strangely high expectations for success, and there are also 3 bigger clubs/better jobs over this side of the Pennines (Saints, Wigan, Wire) that he will be a front runner for in the next year, so probably not worth the gamble of going to Hull now and ruining the chance of getting those jobs.
"If you're going to strive for a change then you have to keep going upwards,"
Keiron Cunningham, 2016
I think Hull is a massive job for anyone.
They have always spent big and apart from a couple of Challenge Cup wins not much to show for it.
Many big signings have not performed.
Can't help but feel there must be a deeply embedded culture problem at that club.
I have no evidence to back that up its just a hunch.
If Hull ever cracked it and became the force they were in the 80s they blow the likes of Wire out of the water in terms of size of club and support, and would probably give Leeds a good run for their money in terms of crowds. People talk about RL towns, but for me, Hull is THE rugby league town/city, and they’ve been constantly let down by their clubs over the last twenty years or so.
Being a coach that won a title at Hull and then presided over a 5-10 year period of success would be a massive thing for anyone, and it would be as fulfilling and as emotional than doing it anywhere else given that they’ve not won a title for a long time. I think it’s a massive job in our game, and eventually someone will crack it for a sustained period.
Who'd take on that job when the owner publicly sacked the previous manager live, on TV.
Radford wasn’t sacked on TV though, it was announced first on TV but the two aren’t the same. It was unnecessary and a bit unprofessional but it wasn’t as bad as everyone made out and it’s certainly not a reason to turn a club down. Radford survived a lot longer than he should have, given Hull had been rubbish for a long time. If anything the amount of time Radford got should make the job more appealing.
The Hull job is a massive upgrade on the Salford job, he’s obviously turning it down because he knows that whichever job out of Saints, Wigan and Wire is next available, he’s getting. Wouldn’t shock me at all if he’s been told he’s our next coach after Woolf, given he only lost out to him. We’d be better off getting rid of Woolf now while Watson’s still available but as that’s not happening we’ll just have to hope Lam and Steve Price are both still in a job by the start of next season.
I,m not totally convinced that Watson could be our man, also if Woolf engineers a win on Friday against the Goons he will be "flavour of the month". I remember Holbrook self diagnosed himself as a failure in his first full season and I think Woolf deserves a second season he has had too many external distractions this season.
If Watson did get the job after Woolf and stayed anything like 4-5 years then I think we’d lose Wellens and I’d dearly love to see him as head coach in a couple of years time.
It all depends on what the individual fan wants I suppose. Am I thrilled with Woolf? No. Do I think we can win a Grand Final under him? Yes.
To some the second question is all that counts, and if we win a league title then the coach is the right man. I get that, and whilst I've moaned about him it's only ever been style I've questioned because I've always felt we'd be fine results wise. To others the first question matters more. Do we like the style of play, are we excited, do we think the coach gets the club, is he going to stick around, etc. To me that's important, and I've always felt that we could be successful with this team but actually do it better, and we did that under Holbrook despite losing a few big games along the way.
Woolf will definitely get the second year, and nobody is going to fire a coach for finishing 1st or 2nd in a messed up season in the middle of a pandemic. And we may well win two league titles under him, and that may be all that counts. But maybe we could have won two league titles under someone else better suited to the club who then wanted to win another couple and hang around for years. Who knows.
I suppose we could ask the questions which current superleague club is consistently playing with style and flair, which superleague club has a coach has the best potential to win a high percentage of games and lastly were do you see Woolf if there was a league of superleague coaches from 1 to 11.
Also given the title of this thread how would Watson fare?
I said on another thread that Saints played the more free flowing rugby last night.
Having given it more thought Watson would get crucified on here if he coached us to play like Salford did last night (& to a similar but lesser extent in the Cup Final. Two barge overs and nothing else.
Don't get me wrong I wouldn't mind Watson at Saints but the idea that we will become the Harlom Globetrotters is laughable.
Woolfe may have his faults but the over reaction and near obsession with him is odd.
Do you think that was his second application for the job here? Ivé never heard a coach so enthusiastic about the opposition, but i don't remember a game where we played so many youngsters. Reminded me a bit of a game many years ago, when Blackbrook played York at KR in the challenge cup and pushed them until the end.
With regards to our playing style with Woolf vs Holbrook, he probably isn't anywhere near as expansive however it's probably worth noting that we've not played in the dry months this year - no games in half of March, April, May, June and July, where generally we're more expansive..
We're setting up for the playoffs (whatever that looks like) where it'll be wet and windy