"He's gone!" The first coaching casualty of 2017 was the St Helens club legend, Keiron Cunningham.
He hadn't been the most likely at the start of the season, the bookmakers had Rick Stone and Laurent Frayssinous as favourites, but it was a second half comeback from Stone's Giants which brought the end of Cunningham as a coach.
Even though his team had been within one match of getting to the Grand Final for the last two years it seems as though their fans haven't been happy with their style of rugby. The fact that they've won three, lost four and now drawn against the Giants doesn't seem to be their biggest complaint. The Saints' supporters, perhaps more than at any other club, want to be entertained.
I went to watch them play in a pre-season game against Castleford in January and left thinking that they'd struggle this year. Admittedly, they didn't have Matty Smith, but even when he returned they haven't looked that much better. The backline last Friday had numbers 1 to 7 on their jerseys and yet didn't look like a formidable combination. Mark Percival has been brilliant, but much of that has been individual displays rather than as part of a team.
There was about a 20 minute spell after half time when the Saints had great field position and needed to score, but could not get over the line. Interestingly, they even had a penalty which they tapped when they led 14-0. It was in a relatively easy position but Mark Percival has always looked to me like reluctant goal kicker. He has succeeded with just 17 of 29 attempts and I wonder if they will try to talk Matty Smith into kicking.
For the past two seasons, it's appeared to me that they will only take risks when they get close to the opponents tryline. In most cases, there was a conservatism that seemed to go against the club's culture.
I can only imagine how hard a decision that this has been for the senior management at the club. One of the club's finest players has the town and team's blood running through his body, but the feeling amongst most fans was that he wasn't the best person to lead the team from now on.
The role and responsibility of a Chairman at a Super League club isn't an easy one. They have to make tough decisions which they believe are for the good of the team, even if they are personally difficult to make. At the end of the 14-14 draw with Huddersfield, the Board of Directors must have asked themselves this question "Would this St Helens squad do better in 2017 if they had a different coach?"
They concluded that it would and so we have a similar situation to the one in 2012 when Royce Simmons was sacked. For the record, Royce was pretty unlucky. He'd picked up five out of the first six points of the season then lost 32-34 against Catalans, went down 17-16 at Huddersfield, lost to Hull and then again 12-8 at Bradford.
The club then asked Mike Rush to take temporary charge of the team and they had a massive match next, Leeds at home, which they won 46-6. Again, they got to within 80 minutes of Old Trafford which is something that's looked unlikely so far this season. Will history repeat itself this Friday? Can the Saints score 46 points against Wigan?
Fans always talk about whether or not the recruitment and retention of players has worked. I recall them signing Travis Burns from Hull KR and then remember that he didn't seem to get in the team. They've recently let Joe Greenwood leave and swapped him for Zeb Taia, only time will tell if this was a good move. Sometimes it is not the coaches fault, other factors come into play, but you only get a limited timeline to impress in professional sport.
I've heard that Sean Long and Jamahl Lolesi will work alongside Derek Traynor as an interim coaching team but I am surprised that Paul Wellens doesn't have greater involvement. People within the game tell me that he has the potential to be a great coach.
Nobody knows who the club will appoint in the future. It's possible that they might appoint David Fairleigh who played for Saints in 2001, or even Paul Anderson who was there a decade or so ago. What I do know is that at present they Rank 8th in terms of tries scored and that isn't good enough for the Saints. It isn't good enough if they want to get to Old Trafford and it isn't good enough if they want to keep their proud tradition alive of playing rugby that pleases their supporters.
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