What is it that Daryl Powell is doing there - some kind of witchcraft?

Their teamsheet - no offence intended whatsoever - is pretty average in this competition. Imagine if we'd signed Tansey, Lynch, Wheeldon, Mariano in the last couple of years. When looking at halves, the option of Gale was hardly aspired to on here. They lost Huby, Clark and Sneyd in the off season. Yet Powell has these guys working as a solid entertaining unit right now despite injuries and their post Easter energy in the pack yesterday, in defence and with the ball, was outstanding.

Apart from loads of experience, does anyone have insight on what he does that galvanizes a group so effectively?

Mods - this is not intended to be another Radford-bashing thread, more to discuss what specifics Powell is bringing there.

Think it is a good blend of coaching ability and philosophies, man management skills and an excellent supporting crew of experienced and quality ex players.
You're right though no one would be happy with half that tigers squad at hull but yet he has them playing entertaining attacking rugby on the whole and lynch has a new impressive lease of life.

Look at their assistants, Orr and Sheridan, both have played for a range of clubs some of them top ones, compared to Last and Horne (who won't have even been their on Friday) who have only been at Hull.

The point about breadth of experience in a variety of environments is a good one.

The most impressive thing for me though which the commentary team mentioned, was that how with 5 minutes to go and the game won by half time, they were still bulldozing in defence as if it were a cup final. Sometimes people say "you can't coach that". But clearly you can create that environment and expectation. Part of that might be recruiting players who live that ethic, like Lynch.

Will please some on here as they are their "2nd" team....personally couldn't give a monkeys about them or Powell

powell never gets the credit he deserves for the groundwork he did at leeds when he was head coach. fev were always entertaining and competitive under him and it's surprising he was languishing in the championship for so long. He has been a head coach now for a long time (think he was player coach at sheffield for a while even) so will have seen pretty much everything that a coach will have thrown at him so isn't having to make it up as he goes along. cas play a simple but effective game based on high intensity defence and attack. It isn't always pretty to watch but is effective and requires every member of the team to buy into it and execute it on match day. He also has them doing basic things like backing up effectively and looking for a quick ptb. They look pretty organised with everyone seeming to know what they're supposed to be doing pretty much most of the time

I've long said that the measure of a good coach is that you regularly get most of the group of players he works with playing near their optimum and other than a brief spell under sharp, it was really mcrae who last had our team doing that.

The debate's intended to be more about a club/coaching model that yields a team that's greater than the sum of its parts.

Good points. You'd imagine many coaches ask the same though but with differing levels of success. On the "pretty to watch" point, from a personal perspective I'd enjoy seeing the relentless intensity.

I also enjoy watching Cas's intensity. The aggression they ripped into Rovers with was impressive and Rovers had no answer to it.
For me that work ethic is instilled by the coach and requires every player to buy into that which they seemingly do.
Again for me demonstrates good man management skills.

Cas did play well. Mind you have Powell at hull and I'd give him 6 matches before the Get POwell out thread started lol