Adam O'Brien replacement?

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In all seriousness we will most likely have Obi for at least season 2024 and the likelyhood of him staying longer will no doubt rest on performance and where we finish on the ladder.
If, again most likely, we sign up, don’t lose any of our current best 17 and have Pearce-Paul and Pryce arriving and improve our hooker situation then we will be an improved side especially if we get most of season out of Brailey. The loss of Young will be a huge deficit in point scoring and hopefully we get a suitable replacement with goal kicking a bonus.
We have been competitive in many games with a few close losses and with a few changes, new faces, we should turn those type of games into wins so I am confident we will be better in 2024.
Unfortunately we have the rest of 2023 to suffer due to oversights by those in recruitment
 
It's funny how sometimes your season can be derailed by the loss of a hooker
I remember Des when he lost that hooker in manly due to a court case and the season went bad from there.
 
I would say we’ve had 4 bad games this year. Parra, Sharks, Dolphins and Roosters. All the other games we have competed. We have just been unlucky not to convert some of those close games.

In hindsight the Ponga experiment was the wrong decision. Loss of Braiely was a big blow.

There’s still a fair chunk of games to go so let’s see how we go.

So I don’t think you want to change AOB right now. I think play out the season at see how we fair. I don’t think he has been great but I also think he hasn’t been that bad.

I’m really glad they extended Phoniex’s contract. He will be a good back up hooker, and you never know he might make his way into the halves. Or play that utility role.
 
slotmachine said:
I would say there isn't a market for AOBs services so he would take anything offered, but I see the knights recruitment team offering long term deals and player options to blokes who would otherwise be playing for maitland, so you could be right.
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yeh what's the go with that ya reckon? player managers having too much power ?

There was a kid Shibasaki I remember had like 3 year deal with a player option, as just one example, Mann , Fitz , I think even Crossland with similar deals in the past. Crazy ****. These players arent even in demand ffs.
 
Lefty said:
We are in a strong financial position now that Wests have come onboard. We have a good home ground and a near new centre of excellence. We are a one city team and we still have many passionate supporters. We have a healthy number of juniors and work is being done to sort our junior development.
So our club has an excellent base.

I believe Peter Parr is doing a good job as Director of Football.

However our first grade team has just been making up the numbers for nearly 20 years. We have some talented players e.g. Ponga, Frizell and Gagai and some good players such as Best and Marzhew, but we have many players who are underperforming and we have had very limited success developing our juniors in recent years. Many of the juniors that have left our club are now playing well elsewhere.

The reason why our first grade team has underperformed for so long is the big unanswered question about the Knights. I think Brian Smith damaged our culture and it has never fully recovered. I don’t think any of our first grade coaches have been able turn things around since then.
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A bit like his time at Parra
 
I'm not convinced replacing OB is the way to go at the moment at least.

This season, we have been improved in attitude in most games. Given the stat that something like 6 games we lost and scored the same number of tries as the opposition, or even more in 1 case, says we are competing, just being let down by some goal kicking and maybe icing some more chances when presented.

If we did replace him who do we get now that Flanno and Hasler are signed. I can't think of a coach I'd want here that is available, outside of Madge. We need an established, experienced coach that is going to set high standards at the club and hold the players to that standard.

It has to be a tough balance to get perfect. Someone mentioned (maybe Harvey), that people want a hard task master here and they don't think that approach works, pointing to the Storm and saying everything they see the Storm seems a happy workplace, suggesting Bellamy isn't as tough as he comes across.

I believe he is every bit as tough as he comes across. A bloke that sits in a press conference and says publicly that if these players can't do what I'm asking I'll get some that can, isn't likely to change his tune behind the scenes.

I believe he is a tough coach that expects professionalism from his players, dedication and understanding of their role and commitment to achieving it. But, at the same time I think he balances that out with the father figure role meaning the players want to play FOR him.

Same thing for Bennett, his main asset is his players want to play FOR him!

The only question I have of OB and whether to replace him is, is he motivating the players to play for him, for the team and themselves. And, is he setting the standards expected of the team and individuals and holding players to it!

Get those 2 things right and the results will take care of themselves.
 
Kurriboy said:
I'm not convinced replacing OB is the way to go at the moment at least.

This season, we have been improved in attitude in most games. Given the stat that something like 6 games we lost and scored the same number of tries as the opposition, or even more in 1 case, says we are competing, just being let down by some goal kicking and maybe icing some more chances when presented.

If we did replace him who do we get now that Flanno and Hasler are signed. I can't think of a coach I'd want here that is available, outside of Madge. We need an established, experienced coach that is going to set high standards at the club and hold the players to that standard.

It has to be a tough balance to get perfect. Someone mentioned (maybe Harvey), that people want a hard task master here and they don't think that approach works, pointing to the Storm and saying everything they see the Storm seems a happy workplace, suggesting Bellamy isn't as tough as he comes across.

I believe he is every bit as tough as he comes across. A bloke that sits in a press conference and says publicly that if these players can't do what I'm asking I'll get some that can, isn't likely to change his tune behind the scenes.

I believe he is a tough coach that expects professionalism from his players, dedication and understanding of their role and commitment to achieving it. But, at the same time I think he balances that out with the father figure role meaning the players want to play FOR him.

Same thing for Bennett, his main asset is his players want to play FOR him!

The only question I have of OB and whether to replace him is, is he motivating the players to play for him, for the team and themselves. And, is he setting the standards expected of the team and individuals and holding players to it!

Get those 2 things right and the results will take care of themselves.
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Great read, fully agree. I think the players are playing for obi this year. Everyone wanted us to compete last year, I really think we are this year.

I really don't think Bellamy has to rant and rave to get his messages across. I think he is straight down the line and sets the standards, but I think he leaves it to his player leadership group to really drive home those standards. Contrast that with Madge in the west's doco, and he was the only voice you could hear in the dressing room. I really think that the player leadership groups are so underrated. The swans were the first franchise I heard of that really drove standards in this way and they and the Storm are the industry standard franchises for mine.
 
Yeah what I was trying to get across re: Bellyache is that he knows how to balance things. Of course he pushes his players hard, real hard, but he also makes most players who play under him really wanna work for him. They feel like he believes in them, genuinely wants to get the best out of them, every player feels important and valuable, etc. If Bellyache is giving a player or playing group grief, they’ll feel like it’s because they’ve let themselves down, fallen short of what he believes they can achieve, etc. He’s tough, for sure, but there’s a softer side to what he does too, and he probably delegates more to assistants and even to senior players than any other coach besides maybe Bennett. Another very successful coach, not coincidentally I’m sure.

Madge very much comes across as a drill sergeant type, just all aggro and hair dryer treatment all the time, and has a notorious reputation for scheduling extra training sessions when he’s not happy with his players, like one year at the Tigers he fought the player’s union on the point of whether he was allowed to make the club keep fronting up for training every day over Christmas break I believe, like he’s really really full on. I can imagine him trying to cancel player holidays after we copped that hiding to Parra a few weeks back.

My point was, I’m sure a lot of you might see that and think - well that sounds great, we need someone to come in and cane these soft pricks, maybe then they’ll aim up, etc etc - but I reckon it’s a “be careful what you wish for” situation. It worked at Souths, with a playing group led by a really experienced core of guys primed to make a run at the comp, so motivation wasn’t really a problem, but they fell off a cliff immediately after they did get that premiership. And he got some decent results at Wests for a very short time before the milk went sour. I reckon if we took him on as coach, it’s inevitable that he loses the dressing room at some point, it’s just a question of how long before that happens.
 
Kurriboy said:
Given the stat that something like 6 games we lost and scored the same number of tries as the opposition, or even more in 1 case
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Four. Panthers, cowboys, broncos, roosters.
Also I wouldn't be painting the roosters or cowboys games as a good things.

Agree madge isn't the answer though. I do think the players are behind AOB but in year 4 I still don't think he's a great coach tbh. Stuff like how he uses the bench, tactics etc are still diabolical. I don't know how anyone can watch the last ten minutes of the the roosters game and think yep, this is a well coached side.
 
I think our close game record is the fact we’re such a new team. This spine has been together since the start of May, Hastings and Gamble only started playing together before that in Round 2 (in game).

You can see when the pressure gets turned up and they’re under fatigue they go into their shell. It’s so frustrating to watch and kills us now but next year those results will even out and then in years to come we will win those games. It’s annoying that we’re in year 4 of AOB, but it also feels like year 1 of a new direction to me given the new halves and style of play this year compared to previous seasons.
 
slotmachine said:
Agree madge isn't the answer though. I do think the players are behind AOB but in year 4 I still don't think he's a great coach tbh. Stuff like how he uses the bench, tactics etc are still diabolical. I don't know how anyone can watch the last ten minutes of the the roosters game and think yep, this is a well coached side.
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I’ve got plenty of criticisms of AOB, but I’ve always thought his bench management is pretty good? Or rather I’ll frequently find myself thinking, “They need to get D Saf back out there” and then about 30 seconds later there he is, or X player needs to come off now, and off that dude comes.

He’s definitely got his blind spots (Phoenix the obvious one, but I reckon Kurt’s fitness isn’t all there atm), but I’ve never thought of him as a coach with “diabolical” bench usage - Ricky Stuart and Justin Holbrook would be the first that come to mind for me who match that description.
 
HarVeeGee13 said:
I’ve got plenty of criticisms of AOB, but I’ve always thought his bench management is pretty good? Or rather I’ll frequently find myself thinking, “They need to get D Saf back out there” and then about 30 seconds later there he is, or X player needs to come off now, and off that dude comes.

He’s definitely got his blind spots (Phoenix the obvious one, but I reckon Kurt’s fitness isn’t all there atm), but I’ve never thought of him as a coach with “diabolical” bench usage - Ricky Stuart and Justin Holbrook would be the first that come to mind for me who match that description.
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I’m surprised by this post. Myself and other posters on here have commented that AOB’s bench management is consistently bad. It is one of his weaknesses as a coach.
 
Lefty said:
I’m surprised by this post. Myself and other posters on here have commented that AOB’s bench management is consistently bad. It is one of his weaknesses as a coach.
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You can win or lose the game before it even begins based on those 4 selections and then how they are used. It’s great having your top 13 fit and healthy but if there’s no impact or spark off the bench then it counts for nothing. Alternatively, if you have some spark on the bench but you don’t use them at critical points correctly then it’s a fruitless exercise. The best coaches know when to pull the trigger and the worst consistently get it wrong. AOB gets it wrong a lot.
 
Lefty said:
I’m surprised by this post. Myself and other posters on here have commented that AOB’s bench management is consistently bad. It is one of his weaknesses as a coach.
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I guess I just disagree.

I’ve noticed the late game fatigue, but you only get 8 substitutions. You can’t take them all off.

I don’t think I’ll often look at the names on the bench and think “ah yep, 15 more Jack Hetherington minutes, that would have solved everything”.
 
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