Adam O'Brien replacement?

After 14 rounds the Knights only average in the mid thirties for average set distance with only a couple of games breaking the forties (saints, tigers). most teams are in the low to high forties. Basically the Knights are mostly rucking the ball out from their own half , using conservative one out plays. They take very little out and ask few questions of the opposition defence. Typically they use lightweight players for the first couple of runs from their own end, Gagai, Mann, Tuala, Ponga, Lee who usually get monstered. Oppositions know that the Knights are not going to throw any football at them in the Knights own half, so can compress their defence with little to worry about.
Use the forwards, saving them by using lightweight players is not working, especially when you are not creating any field position. Sometimes they may try to shift it wide, but usually only after the fourth tackle. They usually are kicking on the last from well inside their own half.
With the attacking players the Knights have, why are their so low on metres gain per set? Conservative coaching.
 
Martin Lang’s twitter quote of AOB and his opinion to that quote says it all. The joker makes a fool of himself every presser with deflection and excuses. He simply has no idea how to coach. Simply can’t believe he has lasted this long as a head coach.
 
Waynesworld just bought up Arthur in the gameday post, pointing out that Parra stuck by him after winning a spoon and have had some level of success since.

Obi has taken us to two finals appearances in a row. Thats no mean feat at this joint. Yes, everyone at the club has been signed or resigned on his watch. But seriously, did he sign Randall and Clune to be our first choice hooker and half? Or did he sign off on them thinking, if I need to get three or four weeks in a row out of them, they are handy players? Our back up half who ended up being first choice has actually had more games on one leg then two. That's half his spine. His other half has gone through something off the field that has clearly left him rattled, and Ponga's form before his contract as settled was so sketchy.

This certainly hasn't been a year that has built on the last two. But what coach would have us firing with that disruption to his spine?

I have one issue with Obi's coaching at the moment, and that is the Safs have dialled it in all year and they haven't been dropped or shown significant improvement.
 
Honestly, I am sick to death of the mediocre years. It is much more appealing to me that we are realistic about the issues the team has faced this year and try to reset for next year rather than moving on to the next guy who has a three year plan and continuing the cycle.
 
He is a supposed defensive specialist and has said so himself that they spent a lot of the off season focused on defence. That was evident for all of 3 games and nothing since this year. When down 20-0 I think it was the commentators said the Knights had more tackles in Penriths 20m line then they had on you guys.

Delaying your trip to Hawaii by a week the last two years isn’t all that impressive when you see how easily they were bundled out of the finals by other blow ins that never stood a chance against the big boys in the top 4. Like I said it’s just delayed the inevitable and holding you back from actually improving.

Payten has shown in 1 off-season how it can be done with a much younger and less experienced roster. Everyone and I mean everyone we’re laughing at the roster and the chances of the Cowboys this year on this forum and look how that’s turning out thanks to an actual coach.
 
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Not convinced yet that it’s time to sack the coach more a case of needing to build a better squad and that needs to be done by someone that knows the current squad, who to keep, who to let go, who do we purchase to improve the overall quality of the team. Not convinced that Obi is up to the task but I don’t want someone new coming in and making wholesale changes for the sake of it.
If anything we should consider bringing in an assistant to Obi and getting rid of any in his staff that have failed to improve things.
We should be getting rid of players that have not improved or failed to make 1sts despite our injury crisis.
A problem we do have is players signed for 2023 that we should be moving on but if we see players such as Barnett, Lee, Sue, Musgrove, Saulo, Momoisea and Crosslands, 7 gone and replace them with better players and repeat at end 2023 we can then reassess our coaching options
 
The annoying thing about our team is that we pretty much don't do anything as good as the top teams.
Our line speed in attack and defence is non existent and embarrassing
We can't tackle effectively and allow way to many offloads
If anyone makes a tackle bust or line break they are on their own because no one backs them up
In attack no one runs lines, it's all one out stuff and way to predictable
There is no cohesion and and it just looks like they are going through the motions with no real expectations of winning
The players look confused as to their role and what they are expected to be doing in attack and defence
Young has the enthusiasm you would expect of the more seasoned team members as well as Thompson and Croker and that is embarrassing as well

Even if you are not overly smart as a coach surely you would just follow the blueprint that has been laid out by the Storm and Panthers and do the basics first and foremost
 
cowboyman said:
Delaying your trip to Hawaii by a week the last two years isn’t all that impressive when you see how easily they were bundled out of the finals by other blow ins that never stood a chance against the big boys in the top 4. Like I said it’s just delayed the inevitable and holding you back from actually improving.
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Souths belted the team in 3rd the week after beating us and narrowly lost a prelim to Penrith, and the next year Parra came within a bee’s **** of knocking off the eventual premiers…
 
Frank McWilliams said:
Not convinced yet that it’s time to sack the coach more a case of needing to build a better squad and that needs to be done by someone that knows the current squad, who to keep, who to let go, who do we purchase to improve the overall quality of the team. Not convinced that Obi is up to the task but I don’t want someone new coming in and making wholesale changes for the sake of it.
If anything we should consider bringing in an assistant to Obi and getting rid of any in his staff that have failed to improve things.
We should be getting rid of players that have not improved or failed to make 1sts despite our injury crisis.
A problem we do have is players signed for 2023 that we should be moving on but if we see players such as Barnett, Lee, Sue, Musgrove, Saulo, Momoisea and Crosslands, 7 gone and replace them with better players and repeat at end 2023 we can then reassess our coaching options
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Are you AOB? Get rid of the assistants that AOB picked himself? It’s his 3rd year now and most if not all players have signed/re-signed with the club under his rule.

The excuses some make for him here AOB would be proud of them as if they were his own excuses.
 
HarVeeGee13 said:
Souths belted the team in 3rd the week after beating us and narrowly lost a prelim to Penrith, and the next year Parra came within a bee’s **** of knocking off the eventual premiers…
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But they didn’t. 74-40 aggregate in 2 finals games against fellow 5-8th opposition. Sheshh.
 
waynesworld said:
Can’t wait for these goalposts to be moved if your Cows get done in Week 1 of the finals.
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Won’t be moved at all, if we lose I’ll own it and say what I saw like I always have. I know we won’t be conceding 37 points in the game that’s for sure.
 
Owey said:
Waynesworld just bought up Arthur in the gameday post, pointing out that Parra stuck by him after winning a spoon and have had some level of success since.

Obi has taken us to two finals appearances in a row. Thats no mean feat at this joint. Yes, everyone at the club has been signed or resigned on his watch. But seriously, did he sign Randall and Clune to be our first choice hooker and half? Or did he sign off on them thinking, if I need to get three or four weeks in a row out of them, they are handy players? Our back up half who ended up being first choice has actually had more games on one leg then two. That's half his spine. His other half has gone through something off the field that has clearly left him rattled, and Ponga's form before his contract as settled was so sketchy.

This certainly hasn't been a year that has built on the last two. But what coach would have us firing with that disruption to his spine?

I have one issue with Obi's coaching at the moment, and that is the Safs have dialled it in all year and they haven't been dropped or shown significant improvement.
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For my money there’s underlying issues with our structures with ball in hand which don’t just disappear when we’re at full strength. Maybe only Canterbury moves the ball slower than us and I reckon we score fewer tries than anyone bat Canterbury where there’s more than 3 passes in the scoring action. Even Wests can a set sweeping play of some kind which leads to points, if not at a high rate, at a rate which would help us out in attack so much lol.

But even the stuff we do which does work - eg Kalyn attacking short sides, Clifford running at opposing halves, bringing Best onto the ball after an offload etc - we just don’t seem to have a plan to bring that stuff into play, to work ourselves into a position on tackles 1 and 2 to run the play effectively on 3, and we never know when to pull the trigger.

I think it’s more than a personnel/injury issue at this stage, guys just don’t seem to know where to be, what lines to run, where their passes should go etc and it has only gotten worse year on year.

Yeah we won those games at the end of last year, but we mostly won ugly against some pretty bad to at best middling teams.

I firmly believe most teams have only a set number of “big” efforts in them per season, and if you’re burning those efforts to grind out narrow wins over meh opposition, you will run out of them before you have to play the real sides.
 
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