Yes we are backwards on 2024 in both squad and performances.  Our recruitment was nothing short of atrocious for a club that was already provably behind Wigan and Hull KR in 2024. How they thought they would close the gap with those signings beggars belief.  Chambers is not inspiring me on the recruitment front even if he is Mr Warrington. (Either he's responsible for new talent acquisition in which he is failing, or it's a puppet appointment which he has accepted).


Also I'm beginning to think that perhaps Sam Burgess is not the messiah we all hoped for. I'm not calling for his exit but neither am I thinking we must extend his contract past October 2026 unless we get a tangible achievement - and I'm not talking about a 4 game cup. Seems the Burgess effect is wearing off. We don't look well coached in 2025.  He won't be doing his NRL coaching prospects any good for sure with this output. He is getting surly in front of the camera when interviewed and it starting to wheel out the same phrasing following defeats. Clearly he is not a hugely effective communicator (outwards) and the prestige and aura will only last so long. Then we get the feeling we are not a happy ship. Rumours abound of fall outs, players misbehaving, players we know are dropped for disciplinary reasons etc. Not a recipe for success is it?

I know we are all desperately wishing to see something "click" and us turn into world beaters, but I fear we are deluding ourselves. There is just something in our club that persists decades, coaches and individual players. Call it culture or whatever. Something is missing. Sure we can make playoffs, but then that's your lot. Promise then inevitable failure. Sort of "meh", "there or thereabouts" (it's always "thereabouts" by the way). It's clear to me the players play when they want, and they seem to like the trip to Wembley (easier to win and doesn't require consistent effort over 8 months). They like making noises about Grand Finals but deep down I don't think any one of them either believes they can win one or are committed to do everything and anything it takes to do so. 


But that's OK. They owe me nothing, nor me them. They can keep their embarrassing gimmicks, self congratulatory back slaps, banging the drum in the changing room, giddy talk about emulating NFL clubs marketing(!), beatification of mollycoddled players as legends, and employment for all the old boys in comfy jobs. Following all the hype the club perennially, collectively, and conclusively fail when it matters and yet have the gall to look confused as to the reason why and promising "this is not the standard we set". It's exactly the bloody standard we set.  We are the also rans, the Tottenham Hotspurs, the Williams F1, the Tim Henman's of this world, plain and simple. What's worse is that the club are in denial. 
 
I only keep engaged as the Wire are a link to my late Dad and it reminds me of the time I used to watch them home and away in the 80s and 90s when as a young boy I was proud to be associated with them. I'm not proud anymore. 

That was heartbreaking wasn't it but a few years later, 2004 onwards I guess, we found ourselves with the money, facilities, and recruitment to compete with the top teams which allowed us to raise our expectations (rightly).

Following the false dawn with a protracted Cullen period, we appointed a quality, proven coach in Tony Smith and things started to take shape. The 2009-2013 period i thought we were building into one of the dominant forces of SL, playing sublime rugby, then it sort of all went off the boil as the squad quality slowly dropped and Smith lost his way, grew a beard and started signing project players (Gary Wheeler, Ryan Bailey et al).  We had a bit of a go 2018/19 but again faded.


As of now we still have the money and facilities but not the squad or the culture/desire to win a GF. 

I always expected Price's reputation to get better with the passing of time when people forget what it was like.

If you just look in the record books, he had 4 years, got to 3 finals, won a Challenge Cup and had league finishes of 4th twice and 3rd twice. In terms of league position that's the only time apart from 2010-13 under TS that we've been top 4 for four consecutive seasons. We were garbage the year before he took over (TS last season) and we were even worse the year after he left (Powell's first). So on paper he was pretty good in the history of Wire coaches.


But that doesn't tell you the full story. It's like when you see that table of most successful England football coaches by win percentage and Fabio Capello is top. 


Price had four years but only really about one and a half where the fans were feeling good. That first year as Wires71 says was good progress given where we were the year before. Price brought better organisation and a defensive toughness. The black mark against that season was the Wembley final against Catalans when we took 20 minutes to get off the bus and the game was gone. 


Then in Price's second year we won 11 of our first 14 SL games then 5 of the last 15. That halfway point of the second year was the turning point in the whole Price era. Our Challenge Cup win came in that second half, and the win in the final against Saints was IMO the greatest 'big game' performance I've ever seen from Wire, given the occasion, the opposition, the pressure we withstood. Absolutely incredible. But a week or two after that win there were already people on here saying the Challenge Cup had 'papered over the cracks' and Price had taken us as far as he could. You could see we were in a spiral that we couldn't get out of. Blake Austin had started that season like a house on fire and was front runner for Man of Steel at the half way point then teams worked him out and that massively neutered our attack. 


The third and fourth year were a bit weird because of covid, we had a decent winning run when games restarted after the first lockdown and were played in front of empty stadiums but we never looked like we were in the calibre of Saints or Wigan or Catalans and we went down easily in the first round of the playoffs. That happened to us three times in a row and by the end we had low expectations of doing anything in the playoffs. 


The rugby wasn't very exciting under Price either but the most frustrating thing was that after half way through his second year we never looked like we had anything new. We knew when we came up against somebody good we'd fall short. We knew if we went behind in a game we wouldn't come back. We had good enough players to win more games than we lost but there was no Plan B against a team who had worked us out. 


The Cullen era was far more enjoyable than the Price era despite the results on paper not being as good. We had a few games every year where Wilderspool or the HJ was rocking and we'd win playing exciting rugby against a top team. We never had any memorable moments under Price apart from that backs to the wall win at Wembley. 

In terms of the Price era it looked to me that the players performed in some games despite SP and not because of him. I can never really forgive him for allowing the signing of Luther Burrell. I appreciate he may not have instigated it but he could have prevented it. 


In terms of this year. We heard before the season started that Burgess mentioned a transition year. I don't know how true that was but I thought it it was true I was looking forward to seeing more of Green, Thomas, Whitehead or even Harthill as a look towards the future. Not too sure what Max Wood did wrong in his recent spell in the team unless he picked up an injury. it will be interesting to see how we cope without Williams. When you look at Wigan last year had about an 8 game spell with both French and Field missing they managed to keep picking up results. I mean might be wrong but just can't see that happening here. 
Burgess' demeanour had definitely changed. Looks like he is trying to turn into his mentor (Wayne Bennett). 


Defensively we have big lapses that just weren't there last year. We beat Saints with 11 men on the pitch last year. If that happened now most teams would stick 50 on us. I think we miss Nicholson more than we probably thought we would and Russell is no replacement. 
In attack we hear how Martin Gleeson is a genius but I am just not seeing it. Apart from the big shift play with Dufty on the end or individual brilliance from Williams I just don't see much variety in attack. Last year we had little plays through the middle with Walker, Williams and Dufty combining against tired middles but have seen very little of that. Against Hull last week their big blokes (Herman, Assiata, Ashworth) had done big minutes and was perfect for picking them off down the middle but we just didn't spot it. 
It looks like we are low on confidence and when that happens individuals try and win the game on their own.  But confidence players like Dufty go into their shell a bit. The way to regain the confidence is if your defence is solid. Last year our goal line defence was up their with the best in the league but now we only need to give away a penalty or drop a ball and handover possession and if a team has a set or two in our 20 I am not confident in keeping them out. 


So a bit like my school reports. If he applies himself he could get a job driving a van but lacks concentration and easily distracted. 

Excellent post. Spot on with the analysis of the first 18 months vs the last 30 months. In that latter period you just knew we were not of the standard to win the title or even compete in the pressure games and you just had to wait until the board realised that too. In the end they just let his contract run out. Dull rugby and no hope of winning the prize.  I think the players also chose their games then too.  

The truth is that Price was just not very good. He got sacked from st george Illawarra after 2 years  losing 2/3rds of his games, then a whole 4 years with us and that was the end of his head coaching career. His results in the final 2 1/2 years were poor and so was his legacy in terms of squad and young player progression. 


We should have sacked him after blowing out of the playoffs at home, in identical circumstances for a 2nd time running in September 2020. This isn't hindsight as I said the same at the time. 

Yes if I remember right you were one of those who was saying even in 2019 after winning the Challenge Cup that things weren't right and it was papering over the cracks. 


But also I soured on Price quite early which is unlike me because pretty much every other Wire coach I've held belief in for too long. I was arguing for Cullen, TS and Powell on here long after others had given up on them and were calling for a change. My standard argument was to be careful what you wish for...change isn't always for the better (I was burned on this by the DVDV to Plange/Anderson transition). But with Price, even I could see that he'd run his course pretty early on and I felt we'd be treading water for the rest of his time in charge, despite the fact that our league position was always 3rd-4th.


The other thing I remember from the Price era was at the end of every season lefty goldblatt would post a long critique of all the things that were wrong, lack of leadership, players in comfort zone etc, and he was saying the same thing every year. That's not a dig at lefty, it's a reflection of the fact none of the issues ever got sorted out. We were the same team with the same limitations throughout Price's reign. 


Now...the big question for this year is, are we repeating the same pattern with Burgess that we did with Price. Improvement and encouragement year 1 and losing at Wembley then stalling in year 2. There are some ominous signs but I'm not writing Burgess off early like I did Price. Sometimes you have external factors that affect things and I don't feel like we're a busted flush at this point. We'll see how things develop.