Published at 11:05, Thursday, 02 August 2012

ONE famous coach said: “The difficulty for coaches is that one minute you’re drinking the wine, the next you’re treading the grapes but sometimes there are no grapes left to tread.”

Shaun McRae, who spoke these evocative words, is a highly successful Super League coach but, being of a viticultural nature, I’ve a good idea what he means: there’s a thin line between success and failure, winning and losing.

Which is why my thoughts turned to Sean’s fellow Aussie Don Gailer before last Sunday’s make or break clash at Rochdale.

Now The Don is a pretty tough cookie, but going into the important game at Spotland, he could be excused for thinking what the future might hold for him if Whitehaven lost their most important match of the season.

Haven turned in their best performance of the campaign to run out impressive 31-12 victors and the brickbats from the bad defeat at Barrow suddenly turned to rich plaudits for the players – and coach.

So much so that the travelling army of fans were singing Don’s name; a first certainly for him and a rarity among successive Whitehaven coaches.

The Don, accustomed to firing from the hip in his post-match press talk, betrayed a rare trace of emotion to Radio Cumbria’s John Cox who was moved to tell listeners: “Don took a lot of risks today, he’s been under pressure, they were criticising him right, left and centre but he took the big decisions and they came off big style.”

I know Gailer would love to spend another season at Whitehaven, he has never shied from criticising or praising individual players publicly – no doubt to provoke the right response where necessary.

And in praising Haven’s buy-of-the-season Jamie Rooney after his brilliant performance at Spotland, Gailer made the telling comment in a separate interview with colleague Martin Morgan: “We communicated and I told him (Jamie) it was a big important game for the club, the players and probably for me and my hopes of staying here.”

The win has saved the team’s bacon, promotion virtually assured, but will it be enough to convince the Recre directors that Don is the man to lead Whitehaven into the Championship proper next season?

Haven won’t win a £50,000 prize for winning Championship One but if they finish the campaign in real style it will be hard not to offer The Don a new deal. Especially if fans are still singing his and his team’s praises if they beat high-riding Doncaster at home on Sunday.

The match-up between Rooney and ex-Super League rival Paul Cooke should be worth seeing alone.

Published by http://www.whitehavennews.co.uk