Former Great Britain wing Brian Carney believes Royce Simmons can count himself unlucky to have lost his job at the helm of struggling St Helens.
The 51-year-old Australian was given the boot earlier this week after a 12-8 defeat at Bradford left Saints with just five points from their opening seven games.
But Carney feels the decision was unfair on Simmons, who saw key prop James Graham join Canterbury Bulldogs in the off-season and has also had to deal with the absence of playmaking hooker James Roby due to injury.
Carney told Boots 'n' All: "I think it's worth pointing out that he was coaching in a Grand Final such a short period ago and was only a fraction off winning. I am surprised and I can't help but feel that this has been in the pipeline a little bit longer.
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"The results recently have been terrible - especially by St Helens standards, but I think if somebody was backed in January to take a team through the season then I don't see what can have changed so much by March."
"As Royce Simmons pointed out, they've been close in many games and there are mitigating circumstances - the departure of the iconic James Graham and the injury to star man James Roby. What we saw was an apparent lack of leadership on the field. That's not necessarily Royce's fault.
"I thought he did very well last year in the absence of Leon Price and Kyle Eastmond and brought two new half-backs through, given to him by Mike Rush incidentally."
Former Wigan star Terry O'Connor highlighted the importance of Roby to the Saints operation, and believes the club now find themselves short on candidates with stand-in Mike Rush adamant he will not be applying for the job on a permanent basis.
O'Connor said: "You heard what Mike Rush said - he doesn't want to coach the first team. His future is coaching youngsters and bringing them through to play for the first team.
"I look at the results that they've had and they got beaten right on the bell by Castleford and lost by one point to Huddersfield, and James Roby played only 20 minutes in those games. He also didn't play against Bradford or Hull either and he's probably the biggest loss for St Helens.
"Everybody's tipping Nathan Brown to be the next coach but Huddersfield have already come out and said: 'Nobody's touching Nathan Brown until his contract expires at the end of the year.' He's already said he's leaving Huddersfield.
"I feel disappointed for Royce because I'm sure he knew he'd be leaving at the end of the season but he'll have wanted to go out on a high."
