2023 Preseason thread.

Looks like another long season ahead as the rebuilding phase continues. I find it hard to believe the management can get the Girls team up and running and super competitive in such a short amount of time as well as the Jersey Flegg, it really makes you wonder what's up with our first grade squad/ coaching.
 
sherpa said:
Looks like another long season ahead as the rebuilding phase continues. I find it hard to believe the management can get the Girls team up and running and super competitive in such a short amount of time as well as the Jersey Flegg, it really makes you wonder what's up with our first grade squad/ coaching.
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In their defence there is a big difference between the girls and men's game, with the nrl limiting marquee signings and length of contracts as they try and build the women's game.
 
www.newcastleherald.com.au

Newcastle Knights in a race to fill vacant positions on high-performance staff

Newcastle are yet to announce replacements for former high-performance manager Hayden Knowles or assistant coach Willie Peters.
www.newcastleherald.com.au www.newcastleherald.com.au

Article says Knowles and 3 guys he brought with him have left.
Says we interviewed many good candidates for the jobs and applications closed 3 weeks ago.
Says we can't announce anything till contracts are finalised - but it sounds like the positions are filled.

also talks about us still wanting an experienced assistant coach
 
www.newcastleherald.com.au

Knights rookie eyes first NRL preseason after shock debut

The 19-year-old debuted for Newcastle against Canberra in round 23.
www.newcastleherald.com.au www.newcastleherald.com.au

Article about Oryn Keeley being one of "a host" of young players about to start their first firstgrade pre-season.
The article doesn't name any others.
I'd like to see James Johnson, Max Bradbury, Brock Creacen, Cal Burgess, Mitch Henderson, Riley Jones, Cooper Jenkins and maybe a few others.
 
So the staff we need to replace.
Assistant coach Willie Peters
Director of performance Haydon Knowles
strength-and-power coach Harry Harris,
strength-and-conditioning coach Patrick Lane
wrestling consultant James Te Huna.

It's hard to know what impact replacing Balin Cupples and his staff with the above named guys had, but it wasn't positive.

I suppose we'd be too proud to bring back Cupples, even though we are technically still paying him since we had to pay him out for '22 and '23.

so we can't go back to what we had when we made the finals, so a new plan.
 
tbh this isnt that big of a deal. There are a million strength and conditioning guys for very limited jobs in this field. We'll find someone easily, we got knowles last year who was touted as the best - just about finding the right person.
 
My impression of Knowles was of a guy whose best skill was self publicising.
Very good at talking himself up, and our inexperienced coaching staff ate that up in my opinion.

Same story with Zammit in my opinion.

I get the opposite impression of Parr. All his interviews are about how lucky he's been to be in the right place where others achieved a lot of success. He's not claiming much credit - which makes me think he doesn't need to - his results speak for themselves.

I have a lot of confidence that Parr will make the right decisions with appointments for this year, or move them on pretty quickly if they don't work out.
 
Billy said:
My impression of Knowles was of a guy whose best skill was self publicising.
Very good at talking himself up, and our inexperienced coaching staff ate that up in my opinion.

Same story with Zammit in my opinion.

I get the opposite impression of Parr. All his interviews are about how lucky he's been to be in the right place where others achieved a lot of success. He's not claiming much credit - which makes me think he doesn't need to - his results speak for themselves.

I have a lot of confidence that Parr will make the right decisions with appointments for this year, or move them on pretty quickly if they don't work out.
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I think AOB falls under the category. We all bought into the systems/teams he had been a part of and assumed he would bring the same professionalism here, but that has simply not been the case. In hindsight hiring someone to coach an NRL team who actually hadn't actually coached a team would appear to be a major blunder. So far my impression of Parr is on hold as in the past I like many others have had my opinion of people they have hired and their failure to do their job leaving me very apprehensive.
 
frankLauda said:
Well the same couldn't be said for Graig Fitzgibon. And Payton didn't take long to find his feet. But yeah it's more of a risk compared to someone like a Hassler. Interesting to see how Cilardro will go at the dogs.
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These three have way better credentials than AOB. They all played in the NRL at a high level and went on to successfully coach lower grade teams. I'm not a Des fan as such, but it would be interesting to see what he could do with the Knights.
 
AOB the professional assistant with the ego of a Wayne Bennett having achieved nothing. Payten at least had a very successful coaching career in lower grades before trying his luck with FG.
 
www.newcastleherald.com.au

Who is Brian McDermott, the veteran coach linked with Knights assistant job?

The Knights have been seeking a new assistant to replace Willie Peters.
www.newcastleherald.com.au www.newcastleherald.com.au

Article on Brian McDermott.
Says he has been coaching since he retired from playing in 2003.
In 2002 he played against the Knights in the World club challenge and won.
Says he coached Danny Buderus to an English title in 2011.
Says he coached SBW in the Toronto Wolfpack side that went OK in the ESL till the money ran out.
 
Yeah he did a pretty amazing job with the Wolfpack, that's the main thing I remember him for coaching wise.

As a player he was very tough and uncompromising.

Could make a good head coach for us if we start the season poorly ...
 
I obviously don't know a lot about the personalities of either O'Brien or McDermott, but my first thought is that they don't seem to have a lot in common.
O'Brien and Siebold both seemed to be students of the game who nerd out on technical issues, so they were a good fit, but my impression of McDermott is that he is more likely to want to get in the boxing ring with the young guys like Mal Rielly did - but maybe that's just a false impression and he'll be at his computer looking at stats with the rest of them.
 
Billy said:
I obviously don't know a lot about the personalities of either O'Brien or McDermott, but my first thought is that they don't seem to have a lot in common.
O'Brien and Siebold both seemed to be students of the game who nerd out on technical issues, so they were a good fit, but my impression of McDermott is that he is more likely to want to get in the boxing ring with the young guys like Mal Rielly did - but maybe that's just a false impression and he'll be at his computer looking at stats with the rest of them.
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Perhaps Paula Abdul was right and opposites do attract! 😜

 
An interesting decision for Ron Griffiths.
In the women's game, we have Tarsha Gale starting well before the season kicks off - the Harvey Norman NSW cup which runs for about half the season, and then we have NRLW.
Jesse Southwell qualifies for all of them.
Last year we had a very strong Tarsha Gale side who lost the GF by 2 points because Jesse Southwell was unavailable due to commonwealth games selection.
The question is, how much footy do we want her to play. If she makes the finals in all grades she could play somewhere between 30 and 40 games and win 3 titles in the year, but i say we need to look after her a bit better than that.
 
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