With regards to Danny Wards time as coach. Jamie Langley I believe had quite an influence over the team as assistant coach.

markrammond wrote:Hi, I definitely do not subscribe to the view that Hendo had taken us as far as he could. For about five or six years the club was in the bottom four every season and was relegated with 1 win in 27; the rebuild for the Championship failed and we were getting leathered by the likes of Sheffield and Dewsbury, when Grima was removed. The very same season Hendo came in. At this point there were about 10 club trained players, of which only 2 or 3 would go onto have a very good career and a lot of overseas players who would not play. In the first season he pulled off some great wins such as the Leigh home win and took us to the Shield Final; and his squad took us to three top 2 consecutive finishes. I believe that the 2016 squad was the strongest the club has had in the past decade or so. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Lond ... cos_season I am not sure that the 2017 squad was any better, and I did not think Hendo got a lot out of the relatively high wage Props he signed, although finishing second again. Just another 12 points scored across four games in the Qualifiers would have seen us start with 4 wins, but we lost by 2 to Catalan, 2 to Warrington, threw away a win against Featherstone to draw and lost by 5 at Hull KR. Once promotion became impossible we got slammed in the last two games after a win against Halifax. I believe Hendo fell out with the leadership team over lack of investment at this time. The side that Danny inherited had won 18 games from 23, was a convincing second, with a five point gap on third placed Featherstone and had got close to wins againt Super League opposition. Danny's signings such as Matty Fleming, Will Lovell and Daymeric Pelo I did not feel improved the club, only Eloi Pelessier was a great signing. Thus I feel that Hendo's squad, managed by Danny, took us up. Danny did a great job with a thinner quality squad, but it was obviously Hendo who was the architect. I would argue that in 2019, Danny again at times struggled in the transfer market, signing the likes of Nathan Mason and Greg Richards, but like Hendo he was let down by underinvestment at the crucial end of season time, that is a different story. I think Hendo could rebuild the club, and he has experience of the third division as well as the Championship and Super League and has played at different levels, he has the eye for a player, which is what I think we desperately need. Managers we have had who Hughes has lost patience with, have tended to be perceived to have blown his family pot on second rowers and Props who were seen as on more cash than they were worth, and I think that is why he has pressed the trapdoor switch on them, but in a thoughtless way. There is not always better out there. Well we're going to have to agree to disagree - it became pretty obvious to me that while Hendo was a good coach Wardy, when given his chance, was a better one.

markrammond wrote:Hi, I definitely do not subscribe to the view that Hendo had taken us as far as he could. For about five or six years the club was in the bottom four every season and was relegated with 1 win in 27; the rebuild for the Championship failed and we were getting leathered by the likes of Sheffield and Dewsbury, when Grima was removed. The very same season Hendo came in. At this point there were about 10 club trained players, of which only 2 or 3 would go onto have a very good career and a lot of overseas players who would not play. In the first season he pulled off some great wins such as the Leigh home win and took us to the Shield Final; and his squad took us to three top 2 consecutive finishes. I believe that the 2016 squad was the strongest the club has had in the past decade or so. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Lond ... cos_season I am not sure that the 2017 squad was any better, and I did not think Hendo got a lot out of the relatively high wage Props he signed, although finishing second again. Just another 12 points scored across four games in the Qualifiers would have seen us start with 4 wins, but we lost by 2 to Catalan, 2 to Warrington, threw away a win against Featherstone to draw and lost by 5 at Hull KR. Once promotion became impossible we got slammed in the last two games after a win against Halifax. I believe Hendo fell out with the leadership team over lack of investment at this time. The side that Danny inherited had won 18 games from 23, was a convincing second, with a five point gap on third placed Featherstone and had got close to wins againt Super League opposition. Danny's signings such as Matty Fleming, Will Lovell and Daymeric Pelo I did not feel improved the club, only Eloi Pelessier was a great signing. Thus I feel that Hendo's squad, managed by Danny, took us up. Danny did a great job with a thinner quality squad, but it was obviously Hendo who was the architect. I would argue that in 2019, Danny again at times struggled in the transfer market, signing the likes of Nathan Mason and Greg Richards, but like Hendo he was let down by underinvestment at the crucial end of season time, that is a different story. I think Hendo could rebuild the club, and he has experience of the third division as well as the Championship and Super League and has played at different levels, he has the eye for a player, which is what I think we desperately need. Managers we have had who Hughes has lost patience with, have tended to be perceived to have blown his family pot on second rowers and Props who were seen as on more cash than they were worth, and I think that is why he has pressed the trapdoor switch on them, but in a thoughtless way. There is not always better out there. Well we're going to have to agree to disagree - it became pretty obvious to me that while Hendo was a good coach Wardy, when given his chance, was a better one.

They were a very good coaching team, best we've had in a long, long time.

Tony Rea took us to 2 play offs in 3 years.....since then and I include McDermott in this, we've flattered ourselves about being SL standard when we were bottom half 2007-2014/2019.....in TR's case, he found gems like Moran, mclinden, dorn......we even signed a youthful Tommy L before he became a Wigan legend....since then we've recruited/attracted pension seekers like Soward. This is down to the calibre of coaches we've had.....and I suspect Hughes is of the opinion that we have hoards of Louis MS and Clubbs just waiting in the wings.....we don't.
Ward was by far the best London Broncos Coach we had since Tony Rea.

Never been the same since we sacked Tony Currie.

Jumpers for Goal Posts (AKA Chiswick Poly)

Hi, it is difficult to give a definitive answer on who the better manager was between London Broncos managers simply because the assistant has become the manager a lot of times; thus there is not a true separation between eras, for instance

1 Brian McDermott and Rob Powell, with Tony Rea above them
2 Brian McDermott and Rob Powell, without Tony Rea above them
3 Rob Powell and associates such as Mick Howell
4 Tony Rea with a support team of Mike Eccles
5 Joey Grima with a support team of Andrew Henderson and Mike Eccles
6 Andrew Henderson with a support team of Danny Ward; Jamie Langley and Mike Eccles
7 Danny Ward with a support team of Jamie Langley and Mike Eccles, with Tom Tsang doing the reserves
8 Danny Ward with a support team of Tom Tsang and Mike Eccles
9 Tom Tsang and Mike Eccles
10 Jermaine Coleman with a support team of Jy-mel Coleman and Mike Eccles

I would argue that Andrew Henderson was much better at recruitment than Danny and managing within the budget.

One of the key differences at the club over the past 8 years or so was this:

Joey Grima brought through a host of players from the academy into the first team squad, on very competitive wages, of around 30k-40k, very decent for a young inexperienced player. These includes the likes of Joel Wicks, Harvey Burnett, Oscar Thomas and Toby Everett but it is thought the likes of Alex Walker and Matt Davis were thought not to be on this very competitive deal.

Andrew Henderson had difficulty in that he wanted to retain some players from the academy, who by that time might have played 30-50 games but he wanted to pay less than when they started, leading to a bit of an exodus, but he did manage to make very good signings in general, however the squad depth reduced visibly over his tenure. In some ways quite a lot of very good players were on bargain wages.

Danny Ward simply inherited the Henderson squad; his initial additions were of mixed quality - arguably none were an improvement on those from the Henderson days except for Pelissier. In the Super League season he bought well and brought in some very good players, but the longer he lasted the worse a deal he seemed to strike. He also brought through a host of players into the first team squad, but I am not sure the strike rate of quality was as high as could be justified. Danny didn't seem able to retain players, and some who seemed happy to stay were jettisoned such as Ioane and Hellewell which I think was a big error given who was retained or played in their position. I do not think he was perceived as getting value for money from either youth players or experienced in his last season, with a high list of unavailability.

I do not think Hendo would have accepted a situation where a player simply did not want to play on yet left him on the books, as I think Danny seemed to do.

What we don't know is how much influence that Hughes had on retention.

I have heard claims about current and past managers allegedly making remarks about how successful they would be, only to field a comparatively ordinary squad, but if they said what I was told, I would think they would be pushed into it. Like the "Quickly Kevin, will he score?" famous football conversation.

In my view the dream team of all the above combinations was Henderson with Langley and Ward