He did what he was asked to do, steady the ship. Asking him to win the grand final from the position he took over is a bit harsh.

However i still have issues with him not using Gaskell. The boy is an obvious talent and one we were in desperate need of

To me the season was over, dead and buried the instant that Royce was forced out a quarter of the way in. We never stood a realistic chance of winning anything without a proper coach in situ. To me we then either needed to a) get a short-term appointment in a la Anderson or Noble (painful as that may have been) or find a bundle of cash to spring Brown early or b) accept our season was fatally compromised and use the last 20 games to prepare for next year, give some kids a run out and try out some different tactics and attacking schemes to see how they went. Instead we did the worst possible thing of plodding on, expecting a non-coach to give us a shot at the title, with the exact same 17 senior players playing the exact same 6 man rugby every week, leaving most of our youngsters to rot in the stands and the ones that were on the pitch shivering on the touchlines waiting for a rare sight of the ball. There is no escaping the fact that this season has been a complete and utter waste of time, talent, potential and resources at all levels of the club.

There are a lot of interesting views on this post. However a couple of things are clear

1. When Mike Rush took over, the club were rudderless, motivation was low and the majority of fans were in full 'whinge' mode.

2. A lot of the young players seemed unsure of their ability, status in the club and role on the pitch.

3. There was no one coming to the fore as a natural leader on the pitch, some good mature players but no dominant leader.

4. The club perspective seemed to be let's get this season out of the way and concentrate on the next one.



In view of that Mike did a decent job, but he isn't a coach, neither is Keiron, yet!

We acheived third, and, I believe if we had carried on with the expansive football we played in the first half of the semi, would have been looking for tickets for the Grand Final. However there in lies the problem, the game plan was changed by an inexperienced coach and it failed. Mike has never stated his need to be a coach and whatever role he now goes back too, he will give 110% for St Helens (although I'm not sure about Chief Exec!).

Agree with most of whats been said but nobodys mentioned bringing in Josh Jones this season and what a find he is?

Don't think he'd have got his chance under Royce

Of course he'dve come in under Royce - Royce would have been just as short of 3/4 options at the time as Rush was and he showed far more willingness to give youngsters a chance over the course of his tenure than Rush ever did... The only way Jones wouldn't have played under Royce is if Wheeler had come on by leaps and bounds and I very much doubt that could have happened this season except under a far more accomplished coach than either of the one we had in the post.

Jones probably would have got splinters in his @rse being the 17th man if Royce had stayed.

I don't remember any centres sitting on the bench last season.

It was a mixed bag, but better than the shambles he had been left with by Royce.



Royce did very well in his first season, but then so did Hanley, in fact hanley did much better and lasted a far shorter time in his 2nd season. Royce was given 1/4 of the season and took us to 10th.



The only issue for me was the half back issue, everything else that was done benefited the team.



Foster had to be dropped, the fans had called for this for weeks as we could all see him losing his grip on the game. Wheeler was not going great guns either. The initial move to put defensive players in their prime positions did what was needed, but as a part timer waiting for the next guy to take over, there was never going to be a longer term philosophy.

He did what he had to do - steadied a ship that had fast been sinking - and in that sense he has to be considered something of a success.



My main criticism would be that he has not allowed us to play with the shackles off often enough; the few times we have done so, with the forwards offloading and Lomax, Roby, Wilkin, Wello supporting, we have played some real good stuff. Had we seen more of this, I'm sure we'd have picked up more points in the regular season and may have had more success in the knockout comps too.



Playing the 'safety first' rugby we've had for the vast majority of the season really exposes the lack of creativity in the halves.

A few weeks ago on radio merseyside, Rush said that he has ambitions to become a CEO. But he did say that it would be a "rugby CEO" because he wasn't really interested in dealing with balance sheets and stuff like that. I imagine that he will do things like contract negotiations, etc.



Plus saints tweeted: "For all those asking, Rushie is remaining at the club and will take on a senior role within the organisation".



I think that he has done a great job considering the state we were in. Of course he has made mistakes along the way. He is an inexperienced coach. E.g. Flannery should never have played centre in the match the other night. But you can't fault his effort and determination. With regards to the style of play, it's not surprising that he went back to basics and concentrated on defence. I just don't think that he had the knowledge, experience and confidence to coach the players to play an open and expansive attacking style. I very much expect that Brown will be able to introduce the structures and systems that we need in order to do this next season. I hope so anyway. But thats just my opinion.

Royce used to take a reserve back as his fourth sub, so that if an injury occurred there was minimal disruption.

Unfortunately, the young backs who were selected (for example foster, wheeler and makinson) would end up only getting 5 or ten minutes at the end, leading to much frustration amongst the supporters that we were essentially trying to compete when using one less player.

...not to mention the CC semi-final where he picked a barely fit Wheeler (who'd only just returned from yet another injury) as the back on the bench even though if he had been needed to come on and replace an injured player he'd have probably struggled to manage more than 10 minutes himself...