OK Lets Debate in True Democratic style

[njg4haven]

Lets consider some things while voting e.g 1 try from making 3rd place ( no bonus point at home to Leigh )
Long term injuries, aging squad, etc

[recre]

Lets also consider, how we play, treatment of certain players, the signing of Baldwin, playing travellers before locals irrespective of form. We had injuries last year should we not have learnt a lesson or two from that? Everyone also new the age of the squad last year, again lessons to be learnt i.e. lets blood some youngsters when we have the chance, well we could have if a certain somebody actually started to acknowledge them. The big one for me was also how the fans also swayed him in making Sice return, should he actually have been dropped in the first place (a coaches decision for definite but a coach lives or dies by those decisions).

[kellsladbornandbred]

Correct decision wrong timing, either should have been after the Blackpool Final hammering or not announced until season was fully over, wouldn't have stopped the BOD from tentatively searching for a replacement discreetly  and if done/planned well signings could have been recruited to coincide.
But this would have had to have been done Proffesionally and very Buisness like!

[justonelilpoint]

First of all the decision had to be made,DR forced their hands and wanted to know
Im also pretty sure the BOD wouldnt have announced it till season was over and im gauging that by way Des sounded on radio...so was it a John Cox and  Radio Cumbria 'scoop' or did DR want to go public with it himself ?

[Chorley Blue and Gold]

I've gone for 100% correct! Why though?

IMO DR has not actually been too far from the mark with what he has achieved in terms of results, however I do believe that he should have done better during both years. My big gripe with DR is the things that he has done or not done as may be the case in order to move the club forward, for example:

1. The style of rugby that we now play is poor at best, 5 drives and a kick, often that is poor too.
2. The hiring or lack of hiring of good players to move the squad forward.
3. The inability to use the younger players in a constructive and forward thinking way.
4. The reliance on too many travelling players.
5. The poor development or lack of development of an aging squad.
6. His lack of connection with the fans. Very distant it seems.
7. His distance from the coal face on match days. How many away games have I been too when DR sits at the back of an empty stand. It just sends out the wrong vibes for me.
8. His poor relationships with a number of senior players. I know there is always two sides to every story but what has gone on this year in out sink with our club (Lester, Gary, Seeds)

At the end of the day DR is probably a great bloke, however I just think that he has made too many poor decisions that are not in keeping with our community and friendly orientated club. Just the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I would however like to thank DR for all his efforts and wish him all the best for the future

P.S the timing of decision and its release were awful in many ways and not just for DR. The club, the fans and the players.

[Full80mins]

100%correct, just bad timing.

Very poor game plan that's just seems to be getting worse as time goes by.
I know that at the end of the day the coach is paid to get results, but the way in which he's getting results is why attendances are dropping and will have continued to drop if the current standard occured next season.

[hensingham boy]

right decision,wrong time.but then again that wasn't the bod's fault.rotherham wanted to know so they told him

[Keith]

Dave Rotherham was the assistant coach at St Helens when the Saints were playing very attractive RL, so he has been involved in good attacking, entertaining RL.     That of course was with international players and top class SL players, so maybe he felt that Haven didn't have right type of players to play fast open RL, swinging the ball about willy nilly, etc,.     Maybe he saw Haven's strengths being in the forwards!!!

[whitehavenRLforever]

Well  I  voted  for  him  to  go  although  I  will  say  his  record  over  the  2  season's  wasn't  bad.

For  me  though  the  2  things  that  annoyed  me  about  him  was  he  rarely  gave  the  young'uns  a  chance.  Bringing  in  Baldwin over  someone like  Ford  is  a  joke.  2nd  was  his  tactics.  The  team  showed  very  little flair  and  with us having  2  of  the  fastest  wingers  in  NL1 why  did  they  hardly  ever  get  a pass.

[recre]

Dave Rotherham was the assistant coach at St Helens when the Saints were playing very attractive RL, so he has been involved in good attacking, entertaining RL.     That of course was with international players and top class SL players, so maybe he felt that Haven didn't have right type of players to play fast open RL, swinging the ball about willy nilly, etc,.     Maybe he saw Haven's strengths being in the forwards!!!

Keith, Havens strengths are the forwards. At times I just wish they would play like forwards, at times we've been camped under our own posts and all we get is Broadbent taking it from acting half back, next two tackles are the same but taken in by the wingers, then Broadbent has another go, we then may have a bit of difference when a forward may take it in but it will be more than likely another back then we'll kick it downfield and hope for a mistake. That is set after set, match after match, that must be the gameplan and its not difficult to work out, watch any video of a Haven game over the last two years, for 5 minutes and you'll see it. Our recent sucess has been built round a big uncompromising pack, rugby league is still a game in which a pack that gets on top will generally boss and win the game (I'm sure you'll agree with me on that). I'd like to see our pack allowed to get back to doing what they've done so well over the last few years not this namby pamby stuff thats dished up now. St Helens still win games by the pack getting on top, I think it was last season and Saints actually took the ball in from acting half back more than any other Sl team, once they get on top then you see the fancy stuff come out.

[havenbeachbum]

So it seems like all us knowledgable Kells End Internationals are in agreement  DR had overstayed his welcome,allbeit that there is some question of the timing of his sacking. This echoes the converstion which was unanimous throughout the season both on the terraces and on the exit road out of the ground ( when the experts analyse what went wrong). So the question is why did it come as such a surprise to those fine readers and commentators of our beloved game John Cox and Alan Irvine.

It has been a bold move to sack a coach who on paper doesn't seem to have done too bad. The next brave decision will be to acknowledge that the team needs a drastic overhaul and we must say goodbye to older players who have been good servants but just can't perform consistently at this level of intensity. I think Aaron Lester was the best hooker I have seen at Whitehaven but he had gone past his sell-by date and his performances became mediocre and it was right to drop him. When i first saw Gary Broadbent as a kid playing for salford I thought he was class and i still do defensively. There is no doubting his 100% commitment but I'm sorry to say when he links up in the centre he kills every attacking move stone dead. David Seeds the clubs record try scorer has had a great career. His sidestep caused mayhem with opposing centres in his younger days combined with his explosive accelaration Whitehaven were very lucky to hang on to this class centre. But laterly although his tackling is still as agrssive as ever he is inclined to try that one dummy too often which means that his flying winger Calvin doesn't receive fast ball and isn't given chance to show his potential and does'nt receive the ball with that 1/2 second advantage. Lee Roy has had a great season after a quiet one last year but lets face it he is also getting old. The bull, well tackling machine he might be but he couldn't burst his way out of a paper bag. Speaking of not being able to burstout of a paper bag reminds me of Simon Baldwin. I read on this website he was getting ?700 a game. Please tell me this isn't true.Howard has also been a great servant to the club but he also is one of our senior staesman and can't have long left . I honestly beleive we need a major overhaul and we could easily get our fingers burnt as we experiment. The alternative is we we stay as we are and be remembered as the nearly men.

I had an interesting conversation with a member of the board 2 yers ago. I said what motivation is there for our team to play their best  and secure promotion to superleague when realistically most of them will be playing themselves out of a job. He siad he thought that most of our team would be retained and we could probably get by with 2 or 3 new signings. I hope that man has now realised that it was never going to happen. Probably not!

[Maca]

very good post.

[kellsladbornandbred]

Havenbeachbum most of what you say is right on the spot but lets be realistic, WE (HAVEN) do not have a sugar daddy nor do we have up and coming U21s who at this moment look like superleague prospects, so we have to make do with 2 or 3  hopefully good signings this coming season and keep hold of the likes of Gary Broadbent, Howard Hill and David Fatiolofa, if the rumours are right and we have secured Mark Edmundson, Rossi, and Liam Finch and Tanni Lavulavu and Dexter Miller, these hopefully will improve the team when you consider who they will be replacing.
Lavulavu without a doubt will be a massive improvement over Simon Baldwin, Rossi at stand off by all accords will give us more speed and hopefully more creativity than Carl Rudd and Leroy by the way I am not knocking these two as both have had a  decent season in my oppinion albeit in a mediocre team,
Liam Finch will probably go in to center and replace Seedsy and has all the credentials to become a great player, Mark Edmundson will give more aggression and go forward than Steve Trindall, and Dexter Miller can Play either center or second row surely a massive improvement on Ricky Wright.
Still would like to see a good replacement for Steve Maden and looking locally Nicky Beech would give us speed on both wings and if Finch is on his way here he may be tempted to come up and travel with Finch and Broadbent, but that would probably depend on Barrows success or lack of it in the play offs
All we need to add to this is a Coach who can coach and give us the game plans to play to
Dreams

[Keith]

Just looking at the voting at the top it shows 59.6% in favour of the boards decision which means that 40.4% out of the 47 that voted didn't agree with it, which is basically the same as 4 directors out of 7 (57.14%).   Either way it looks to be a close call!!!

[recre]

Keith, the voting is rather misleading as the board really only had two decisions. It was either extend his contract or not, I cant see any of the board admitting that there were more people at fault, so by that you can say that there's only 25% who disagree with the boards decision (the old lies, damn lies and statistics).