Warrington Wolves coach slams his players after defeat

The 42-6 humbling at the Be Well Support Stadium was The Wire's sixth in a row, putting their spot in the Super League play-offs in further jeopardy.

As a result of the poor run, it was confirmed later on Sunday evening that Powell had been relieved of his duties as head coach.

Before then, he spoke to the press for what proved to be the final time.

Here is everything he said post-match on Sunday...

Q: There’s been some low points during your spell here but as an individual performance, was that as bad as anything you’ve seen from this side, both this year and last?

DP: I don’t think we did anything that well, to be honest. Wakefield played really well so you give them their credit, but what we did do in the week didn’t translate into a performance.

It was a really poor performance on every level, both with and without the ball.

We started alright but as soon as we had to defend, we were appalling and never really got a grip of the game.

We showed some signs at the start of the second half that we were going to get back into it, but then we kicked poorly and whenever Wakefield had an opportunity, we looked vulnerable.

I won’t make any excuses. We had a couple of players playing well but it’s nowhere near enough when they had a full team playing with a desperation and a will to win.

That’s the most difficult aspect of today.

Q: You touched on it there but you said during the week you were refreshed and enthused by what you’d seen during the week.

It might be a difficult question to answer but why is that not translating into a match day? What is stopping it?

DP: Confidence is one thing because we’ve lost a few games on the spin, but they worked harder than us today. There’s no excuse for that.

If you go onto a rugby league field, you’ve got to put everything into it. They did that to a man and that’s not coming from us at the minute – that’s an individual responsibility.

I haven’t been able to leave anyone in the forward pack out for a fair while, and there’s a couple in there I’d have been leaving out for a few weeks now but we haven’t been able to do it.

I’ve no excuses for that today. I thought it was shocking and I’m really disappointed with what I’ve seen.

The players got a week off in their spare week and we trained really well, but that performance is nowhere near the standard we’d want to be at.

Q: It didn’t seemed to take very much to rattle your players and knock them off stride, leading to quick tries being conceded.

What do you put that down to and is that the most disappointing aspect?

DP: The resilience in the team is pretty poor at the moment.

We had two sets on their line and they keep us out, but as soon as we have an opportunity to defend our own line, we folded pretty easily. We did that all the way through the game.

I spoke about resilience early in the week with the team because that’s one of our main issues. As soon as we get smacked on the nose, we’re leaking a lot of blood.

Q: You’ve said a few times now that there’s peaks and troughs in a season and no team goes through a year completely unscathed and unchallenged.

Is this run beyond that now? Is there something much more serious wrong with this side?

DP: If you’re talking about effort, some players need to look at themselves pretty long and hard.

There’s some things that need to change within the team – we’ve lost six games straight now which is ridiculous.

We probably should have beaten St Helens but apart from that, we’ve deserved to be beaten in all of those games.

We got beat at everything on the field today and the scoreboard told its own story. We’ve gone from being an excellent team to a team that doesn’t look like a team at the moment.

That’s where we’ve got to have ownership from individual players to pull this together.

Q: Is this the toughest period you’ve experienced in your coaching career?

DP: It is because it backs up from last year.

There’s a couple of things I was asked to do when I first came in – create accountability and get rid of the sense of entitlement.

Trying to do those things was a large part of what happened last year but this year has been coloured by that.

It is tough – 100 per cent. This is the job I always wanted but I always felt there were strong things that needed to be sorted out within the club and squad.

Up to this point, clearly that hasn’t been sorted.

As a player, I was always a winner and I’ve always been a winner as a coach and that will never stop, so this hurts pretty deeply.

Q: Are you still the man to finish that job?

It’s the nature of the beast in sport these days that coaches come under pressure when these kinds of runs happen but do you have that confidence in yourself and do you have it from the club and players?

DP: I do think there’s been some difficult things that have happened to us this year, but you can’t keep rattling on about half-back partnerships not playing together and forward pack depth.

It has hurt us, but you can’t keep talking about that when your team isn’t giving the effort it needs to.

I’ve never had a team that has done that before in my life. This team is in and out of that and that’s disappointing.

I’ve always prided myself on consistency within a playing group and generally, my teams have been consistent but we’re not.

Q: You’ve spoken several times about the effort – or lack thereof – from your players. Is effort something you can coach or is it something they have to deliver themselves?

DP: There is effort there and it’s not all our players, but we haven’t got 17 players giving 100 per cent effort on a weekly basis.

If that happens, you don’t get beat because there’s a lot of quality in the team, but individual players have got to play well.

Some of that is confidence or coming back from different injuries, but if you haven’t got effort in rugby league you need to stop playing. That’s the basics of the game.

Q: Is your job now to keep the players’ heads above water or do you have to address this now?

DP: The spirit in the place is pretty good – if you’d have seen the players before the game, you’d say they look good and training has been great.

Keeping the players’ heads above water isn’t an issue but the confidence and drive to win games is an issue.

I think you saw a team out there today who desperately wanted to win the game, and that wasn’t us.

Whilst its players’ responsibility, it still lies with me. That’s my job.

I thought that training week was perfect this week, so you’re thinking “everything is in place, go and do your jobs.” That didn’t happen and that’s hugely disappointing for me as head coach.

Q: Is there a genuine fear now that you won’t make the top six?

DP: If we keep doing that…

We’ve lost away to Wakefield and Cas – Wakefield played well today but for us if we’re wanting to win the comp, it’s inexcusable. You’ve got to be winning these games.

It’s always been difficult to come here, but that doesn’t matter. Just because it’s difficult doesn’t mean to say you can’t do it.

We’ve had a smack on the nose and that’s it, we’re in trouble. It’s bulls**t as a rugby league team that you can’t hold yourself together and do your job.

It’s a tough sport. Get on with it.

Q: Do you still think there is that sense of entitlement within the group?

DP: It’s hard to say what that is but I think as a group, we’re not capable of taking a smack on the chin.

When somebody says to you “that’s not good enough – sort it out or you’ll be out of the team,” I don’t think it’s accepted well enough by certain people in the team.

Some are pretty good – they cop it and critique themselves – but others need to be better because when you go out there, you’re judged.

Part of the job is you accept critique and crack on so that s**t doesn’t keep happening.

Cop it, sort it out, get better and crack on.

Q: Are you a little more confident of getting people in before the deadline.

DP: We think we’ll get one more in – we’ve brought Jordy Crowther in and we’ll get Jimmy Harrison back against Leeds, but three players aren’t sorting that out, are they?

Ultimately, I take responsibility for what we’re doing but players play the game. We’ve got to keep our heads and hold ourselves together.

Q: You’ve identified some of the issues you’ve got there, but what are you going to do differently in the next few weeks?

DP: Ultimately, a coach coaches a team and the players have self-determination about what they’re going to do.

If you look at our training programme before we play on Friday, take a punt as to how much we’re going to do. That’s not going to do it.

Your preparation and headspace going out there is what its going to come down to.

We’ve got seven games left, we’re still in the six but we’re not going to do anything losing games consistently.

Q: Is there a crisis in the team at the moment?

DP: What’s a crisis?

I wouldn’t say it is, but we’re in a situation where we have to turn it around pretty quick.

The crisis is not making the six – this is a long game to get yourself in there and at the moment, our form line has to change pretty quickly or we’re not going to do that.