Yet again the monkey has triumphed.

Despite our best efforts, season after season, and being within fingertips at times to take him down , the Wilderspool monkey still rules at the Halliwell Jones ok.

Have we got what it takes to overcome him. Can we overcome him, or Has he become totally dominant now . I can only see deja-vu.

Why not give him a spanking.

We have a submissive mentality. We are the beaten partner who won't leave and start afresh and we accept it because this is what we have been subject to for generations in this family. We sit here accepting a mediocre existence because we believe there's nothing better on the outside.

I wonder was this the turning point in our future? Will the inner-tiger finally break free and fight for what we deserve?

What we need is Maguire as head coach, Churchill as Director of Rugby, Ghandi on player welfare, Donald Trump as CEO and Michael O'Leary in charge of dealing with players who don't justify their transfer fee.

What a force we'll be.

Let's treat the Monkey to weekend in Hartlepool. They'll sort the little ba$+*+€ out.

We need to become ruthless and instil a winning mentality from top to bottom.

A few things from the top of my head:

-MERITOCRACY - nobody should feel that their position in the 17 is safe;
-burn the "its always our year" flags and hoardings;
-put the Briers / Gregory flags away;
-pack in the daft gimmicks (Sandow's pie smash);
-stop walking round the Golden Square wearing sunglasses in groups line minor celebs;
-don't win away at Wigan only to lose at home to Wakefield the week after; and
-be Shameless in stating our objectives - a win at Old Trafford.

Far too sensible

You appear to believe there is some shame losing to a superior team. There isn't you know.

THIS

Nothing wrong with a bit of banter but this was going way too far. We should be embarrased by that phrase not printing it on a flag. Things like this make it clear to me that a small club mentality still exists within the club and amongst much of the fan base. Ok that's understandable to an extent given where we were only ten years ago, but for a club with realistic aspirations of becoming one of the 'big boys', we need to shake this off now and take ourselves more seriously.

Yep, on balance it is fair to say that Tony Smith was successful at Wire.
He had plans to cope with the opposition, plans to assist the commercial side of things, plans to bring youngsters through, plans to win cup finals, etc, but when the opportunity arose he never had a plan to deal with the Monkey.

Did Tony Smith even appreciate the presence of our Monkey, after all he'd already won a GF, and so perhaps never realised the need to plan for the associated psychological implications .

Maybe the new coach should be someone who first and foremost understands our Monkey situation, and can translate that into a plan to deal with it.

Are we ever going to get it off our back?