On Wednesday morning Hull Kingston Rovers issued a short statement advising that head coach Chris Chester had been stood down.
Chester’s assistant Willie Poching will now take temporary charge for Friday night’s home fixture against St Helens.
Less than six months after leading Hull Kingston Rovers out at Wembley for the Challenge Cup final for the first time since 1986, Chester finds himself out of a job.
The rumour mill started on Tuesday afternoon and by late evening it was sweeping my Twitter timeline like a forest fire – in my experience these rumours are generally true and this was confirmed on Wednesday morning.
A few questions:
Is it the right decision? Are three games enough to judge him on?
What about the number of injuries the squad has? Is Chester the only man responsible? Who will replace him?
Whether the right decision has been made by chairman Neil Hudgell and his board will only be judged in a few months when a new coach has been installed and whether the effect is a positive one or not.
Supporters can only see what happens on the pitch for 80 minutes on a weekend and are never really privy to what is happening behind the scenes. Are the players happy? Do they respect the coach? What is his man management like? Does he motivate them? Is there unrest in the camp? Have the board lost confidence?
There are a whole host of questions that we don’t know the answers to that will have had some bearing on the decision made by Hudgell – a decision he will not have taken on a whim.
From this supporter’s point of view the performances so far this season have not been surprising – with the squad we have I was expecting us to struggle and was pleasantly surprised with the Round 1 performance against a strong Castleford Tigers side.
The Round 2 defeat at Warrington Wolves was hardly a shock – it is getting bad, though, when my 12-year-old son says a 30-point defeat isn’t too bad.
With one point from two tough opening games last Sunday’s home game against Wakefield Trinity Wildcats was already being billed as a must-win game in some quarters.
Whether that was the case doesn’t really matter. The fact is it was a game we all expected to win and win fairly comfortably.
That didn’t happen and the team turned in a fairly hapless and frustrating performance that was greeted by a chorus of boos at the end of the match – believe me, it takes a really poor performance for Hull KR fans to boo their team. But I think the fans were actually looking at the bigger picture and were venting their frustrations at the situation the team is currently in.
Forget the injuries and suspension of John Boudebza, it is clear the players on the field, apart from a small minority, do not seem interested.
The fact is that they don’t seem well coached at the moment, there are a lot of dropped balls and poor passes and the attack seems to lack imagination, cohesion and inspiration. The one thing we could do for the majority of last season was score tries – that now seems to be a struggle even though we outscored the Wildcats three tries to two on Sunday and bombed twice as many chances.
I’m not sure how Chester can be judged three games into a season when he has not had the opportunity to field his full strength team, but I do know that the ultimate responsibility for results and performances drops at the head coach’s door. It was also clear to see before the season started that our squad was paper thin both on numbers and in quality.
If your team ends the previous season 10th in a 12-team league you would say that they need to strengthen considerably – this Rovers squad is weaker than it was last year and was left desperately short on numbers in the event of an injury crisis.
That injury crisis has bitten very early in the season and a 27-man squad, which includes one 16-year-old unlikely to be involved this season, is virtually down to the bone.
We had Terry Campese, Shaun Lunt, James Donaldson, Josh Mantellato and Kevin Larroyer unavailable for the Wakefield game through injury with Boudebza serving the second of a four-game ban with a couple of others playing injured – this all left Chester short on options.
More injuries were picked up in the Wakefield game with Liam Salter re-injuring the shoulder that he had operated on in the closed season, Ben Cockayne was already suffering from a rib injury which curtailed his involvement on Sunday and Chris Clarkson and Albert Kelly both picked up knocks.
No good news whatsoever.
The amount of injuries we have at the moment leaves us barely able to name a 19-man squad for this Friday’s game against St Helens and, undoubtedly, some players will be taking the field with painkilling injections.
The number of injuries we had last season was one of the reasons Chester overhauled his backroom staff for this year.
The players’ new style preparation and management was designed to prevent an injury crisis. Maybe in a tough sport like rugby league that’s just not possible.
What the team is currently lacking both on and off the field is strong leadership.
Last year’s star man, Albert Kelly, is clearly struggling with second season syndrome and the weight of expectation on his shoulders – he, and the supporters, desperately need to know when club captain Terry Campese will be back on the pitch alongside him.
However, as good as Campese is, all of our woes will not just disappear when he, hopefully, returns to the fold. There are big problems that need fixing and these were not all down to Chester.
He has had a very experienced assistant, Poching, alongside him for the last 15 months and modern-day legend Jamie Peacock is the club’s rugby manager.
Poching’s appointment at the end of 2014 was hailed as a major coup.
The former Samoan international had spent a number of years assisting Tony Smith at Leeds Rhinos and Warrington Wolves and was used to being in winning environments.
He has been held responsible by some Rovers supporters for the team’s poor defence, rightly or wrongly, and his retention, while possibly temporary, has not gone down too well.
It may seem unfair dragging JP into this as he only joined the club full-time in January but he has been involved with the club regularly since he was appointed last March and is responsible for recruitment and retention.
As I mentioned earlier, the recruitment for 2016 has been poor leading to a weaker squad than we had last year when finishing 10th.
Peacock’s appointment was lauded as a stroke of genius by the supporters and others within the game and he has made some bold statements about his intention to take Hull KR forward – now is the time for him to stand up and start producing.
All he has been responsible for so far is reducing the number of Hull-born academy players in the squad and bringing in players who can’t make the grade at Leeds Rhinos.
The last time we removed our head coach, back in July 2014, Chester moved from his assistants role and took charge of the team that hammered St Helens 40-10 in our very next game – he was then handed a three-year contract. But the end of our season was a disaster and we missed out on the playoffs and performed badly in the Derby at the KC Stadium.
I’d love to see the players respond to the change in coach like the class of 2014 on Friday night – we desperately need a positive performance let alone the two points.
I don’t see Poching being the board’s choice to replace Chester long term. There is no need to panic and he may hold the position for two or three games but who will become the next head coach of Hull Kingston Rovers?
A number of names spring to mind instantly.
I have just ruled out Poching and Peacock has unequivocally expressed, many times, that he does not want to coach.
Former Leigh Centurions head coach Paul Rowley will surely be near the top of the list even though he has no Super League coaching experience. He failed to get the Centurions into Super League last year despite having by far the strongest squad in the Championship – the way they capitulated in the middle eights was worrying for such a talented squad.
Former Hull KR favourite James Webster has Super League coaching experience at both Hull FC and Wakefield as assistant to Richard Agar and as head coach of the Wildcats himself. He also had a spell as Rovers coach back in 2005 in between the reigns of Harvey Howard and Justin Morgan.
Webster was one of the main architects of the club’s resurgence and still lives in the area. He is currently head coach of newly merged City of Hull Academy and would be a popular choice among supporters.
And what about Justin Morgan himself.
The team has gone downhill since he left and, as yet, he has not had another head coach role in the game having left Rovers at the end of the 2011 season. He spent one year as an assistant at Canberra Raiders before being employed as a video referee for one year.
Since then he has spent two years as an assistant at Melbourne Storm under Craig Bellamy. He is currently getting ready for his first campaign as an assistant at New Zealand Warriors.
Morgan left the club on good terms with the fans and is still friends with Neil Hudgell. While it is not always recommended to return to your former hunting grounds in case you ruin your reputation I am sure his appointment would be seen as a positive one, especially having gained a further three years’ coaching experience assisting in the NRL.
Former England coach Steve McNamara may well view the position as an outstanding opportunity.
Even though he has recently signed a new two-year extension as an assistant to Trent Robinson at the Sydney Roosters, he is a Hull lad and may see this as the perfect opportunity to both break back into Super League and to come back home.
I can guarantee that this would not be a popular appointment with the vast majority of Hull KR fans and not just because he is a former Hull FC player.
For a variety of reasons rugby league fans never warmed to McNamara as England coach and his coaching abilities are still viewed negatively from his time at Bradford, even though I think he did an excellent job with England.
I am sure the likes of John Kear and Brian Noble will also be mentioned although I believe those two have had their time as top level coaches and Iestyn Harris may also throw his hat into the ring.
I’m not sure who it will go to and I am certain there will be other names keen for an opportunity.
I would like to see an experienced coach who can inject some passion back into the team and have them playing confident and attractive rugby league again – my choice would be one of Webster or Morgan.
Finally, good luck to Chris Chester and thanks for getting us to Wembley – I hope you are back in the game soon.
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