Quote Hessle rover="Hessle rover"Morgan did play boring rugby sometimes, but what would you take, Morgans boring but effective winning rugby, or Sandercocks more unpradictable losing rugby. Morgan had passion which Sandercock has none. An all important ingrediant to winning games in my opinion.'"
Morgan's 'effective winning rugby' at this stage last season....22 league points and 9th in the league. We finished 7th but needed to win the final game to avoid being 9th - we won it by just 2 points at home to Cas. This season hasn't turned out how we hoped but it really hasn't been so much worse than last year if at all. It's ending up disappointingly of course but blaming it all on the new coach ...well if that's what you need to do.
Sandercock is absolutely passionate about his rugby you really couldn't be more wrong on that score. His commitment & dedication really is second to none. You've got to be patient and give him a chance with something more like his own team next season. He might surprise you, I think he will.
Morgan did a great job for Rovers this isn't about having a go at him. On reflection I think our recruitment for 2012 has been the biggest problem and most of the signings were made by neither Morgan nor Sandercock. Paea has been good, Mika looking the part before his injury, the others not consistent enough or good enough, we wouldn't have been much worse playing kids. McDonnell is a talented player but he seemed to lose his appetite after he didn't get his pay rise or maybe he got fed up with the abuse from more than a few idiots.
For me the worst signings have been Withers & O'Hara. They maybe haven't been quite the worst players but we signed them not because we really wanted or needed them but because they were available off quota. Whatever anyone says we wouldn't have signed them otherwise. I think he have learned that lesson, I hope so.
We've also had some 'big' players like Clinton & Webster looking like they are winding down and others like Galea & Green unavailable more often than not. It looks like they'll all be departing and given their contributions this season it'll probably be better for Sandercock to simply have them out of the way.
I could mention the fixture list loaded early with away games and players missing before a ball kicked I don't think that helped Sandercock either - but yes I am borrowing the Hull FC book of exuses there I suppose.
Still with so many senior players offering so very little and signings of limited value maybe you can see my point that the coach isn't the one you should be pointing the finger at.
Of course any coach is ultimately judged on results and Sandercock has another year left on his contract to improve matters. He's probably the most intelligent coach in Super League (do any of the others have a masters degree in economics?), he has an encyclopedic knowledge of Rugby League, connections with influential RL people in Sydney and has shown himself to be a workaholic in the cause of Hull KR. If the U16's are playing on a cold Wednesday night in Wakefield he's there encouraging them, taking notes letting them know he's interested. This time, next time, every time. Now that is [ireal[/i passion.Not knocking Justin but he'd have delegated that one.
I'll be honest personally I would extend Sandercock's contract right now, tie him up for 5 years. The high cost, dead wood is leaving the club, we have the best crop of youngsters for 2 generations and they and the others left who have a future with the club are getting 'one to one' coaching of a quality they haven't known before. Let Sandercock go and we'll have had the learning curve and someone else gets the dividend. Will his work pay off by Sunday and guarantee us a win? Idiots reply on a postage stamp.
