The Impact of Brian McDermott

Thieves Like Us

Thieves Like Us

Steve Walters
I’m wondering if anyone has the inside track on how much impact Brian McDermott has had this season and in what areas? I listened to a few interviews he gave at the start of the season where he sounded very humble and talked about how he was spending his time getting to know the NRL. I would imagine as the season has worn on he has grown his influence on the playing group as he has gotten more comfortable in his role.

Thoughts?
 
Adam Elliot spoke of him bringing new defensive structures to the team that have started to kick in and it’s working well. Playing group like him and buying into it. Think it was on Marty Johns Sunday night football.
 
Blake Green has had a pretty obvious impact.
As far as I can tell, before the Canterbury game O'Brien had his head on the chopping block and decided to let Green have a go at reorganising the attack, and Hastings took up a different role on the left and unlocked so much attack.
I'm sure the changes involved more than just moving Hastings, but whatever was done saved our season.
McDermott is clearly respected and liked and has put some confidence into a lot of the squad as well.
 
They didn’t totally restructure the attack in the space of one week. They just changed Hastings and Gamble’s roles somewhat. They’re still working to similar parts of the field, trying to win quick rucks using the same players in the same way, and running the same/similar shapes to what they have been all year.

Here are the potential reasons:

-Hastings had aggravated his ongoing issue with his kicking foot and they were looking to reduce the load on it - have a look at his stats on the NRL site, and you’ll see that before the 66-0 game his average kicking metres per most weeks were much higher than what they’ve been since. Putting Gamble on the right gives him better kicking angles as a right footed kicker.

-Gambler unlike most five-eighths plays better on the right than on the left. Hastings does not appear to have a preferred side so it’s easy enough for him to play on the left.

-Hastings was already staying on ball and moving over to the left side a lot, as with KP back that tends to be where the team is more dangerous, which meant Gamble was being marginalised a bit. Stationing Hastings on that side as the default lets the team as a whole flow into their shapes quicker, as well as empowering Gamble to be a bit more of a decision-maker in attack.

You could argue that overloading the left with Jacko and KP “unbalances” the attack, but plenty of great teams have been way better at attacking one specific side of the field than the other.
 
HarVeeGee13 said:
They didn’t totally restructure the attack in the space of one week. They just changed Hastings and Gamble’s roles somewhat.
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I didn't say they totally restructured.
I said whatever tweaks Green put in place worked.
I don't even know exactly what was changed, but It is obvious that the halves have different roles and it's working for us.
 
‘Restructured’, ‘reorganised’. ‘Tomayto’, ‘tomahto’.

You said that the week before the Bulldogs game O’Brien thought he was going to be fired and as a desperation solution he turned to Greeny, the assistant coach who’s been identified as the guy who handles the attack for the entire season and said, what? “Okay Blake, I’m going to let you do your job now”? I just don’t think that would have been the process.

If what you meant to say was that they did some very minor tinkering, such as what I suggested above, that’s not how what you said reads at all 😂

They don’t have different roles now. Swapping sides is more about enabling them to better fulfil the roles they’d already been given since KP moved back to fullback. Jackson’s heat map would still have him making the most touches of the three, with the bulk of them in more central positions of the field than the other two. And whatever changes they made I’d say it’s highly unlikely they drew it up and changed it all in the space of the maybe one ball work session they had that week.
 
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HarVeeGee13 said:
‘Restructured’, ‘reorganised’. ‘Tomayto’, ‘tomahto’.

You said that the week before the Bulldogs game O’Brien thought he was going to be fired and as a desperation solution he turned to Greeny, the assistant coach who’s been identified as the guy who handles the attack for the entire season and said, what? “Okay Blake, I’m going to let you do your job now”?

If what you meant to say was that they did some very minor tinkering, such as what I suggested above, that’s not how that reads at all 😂

They don’t have different roles now. Swapping sides is more about enabling them to fulfil the roles they’d been given.
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From the different articles over the last few months it's clear that Green played a big part in whatever changes were made, and my eyes tell me the Canterbury game was when they started. It's also clear that we were approaching other coaches and O'Brien knew it. I don't know if he would call it a "desperation solution", but O'Brien was clearly looking for a new approach and Green was a big part of finding one that worked.
You must be missing cowboyman to argue with.
You seem to be making a habit of misconstruing posts and looking for an argument.
 
Anyway, clearly the right move, whatever the reasons. I’m pretty confident the GPS heat map data they had would have shown Gamble swinging out to the right a lot and Hastings occupying the space between the uprights and the left scrumlines more than he was when KP was playing five-eighth. In most teams the halfback plays on the right and the five-eighth on the left, but reversing that is clearly working better for us.

The thing they would have needed to do a lot of work on in training before they formally switched sides is defence, Hastings would have done the bulk of his drills besides Friz and Gagai to that point.
 
Thieves Like Us said:
I’m wondering if anyone has the inside track on how much impact Brian McDermott has had this season and in what areas? I listened to a few interviews he gave at the start of the season where he sounded very humble and talked about how he was spending his time getting to know the NRL. I would imagine as the season has worn on he has grown his influence on the playing group as he has gotten more comfortable in his role.

Thoughts?
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To address the actual topic, I’m sure he had an influence, as did many other things. Success has many fathers, failure is an orphan. As a guy who’s seen it all as a head coach, the outhouse and the penthouse, he probably helped AOB in a mentoring capacity.
 
Thieves Like Us said:
I’m wondering if anyone has the inside track on how much impact Brian McDermott has had this season and in what areas? I listened to a few interviews he gave at the start of the season where he sounded very humble and talked about how he was spending his time getting to know the NRL. I would imagine as the season has worn on he has grown his influence on the playing group as he has gotten more comfortable in his role.

Thoughts?
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Joey gave a glowing review of the impact that Brian McDermott has had on the squad this year in a recent conversation he had at the end of a recent game (I think it was the Sharks win).

Joey not only highlighted his coaching and playing career but his background for 5 years in the Royal Marines that underpins his no nonsense approach to fitness, discipline and respect for self and each other. He talked about him being hard as nails and doesn't take ******** or excuses...sounds like he has been the perfect pick up to compliment the rest of the coaching staff.
 
I have heard the Johns boys both speak about how great a coach Malcolm Reilly was back in the day and I think McDermott is of a similar style. Hopefully he hangs around at the club for a long time.
 
Toohey said in his article this week that Brodie Jones credits McDermott with improving his middle defence.
You can't find reliable stats for Brodie's defence now because they drop him into all sorts of positions - he even did time at centre a few games ago - but in the early rounds he was only defending as a middle and you could count his missed tackles on a butchers fingers. I think I counted something like 50 tackles without a miss over a few games - and he doesn't make soft tackles.
McDermott was a prop and I think middle defence might be his "thing".
edit - in his first 7 games this year Brodie made 140 tackles and missed 3. I think he played as a middle off the bench in most if not all of them. The most he missed in any game was 1.
 
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The point is successful teams have passion, they want to win, they want to play for eachother. You don't foster passion in an environment devoid of fun.
 
Joshhh said:
The point is successful teams have passion, they want to win, they want to play for eachother. You don't foster passion in an environment devoid of fun.
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Do you think the storms and penriths success over the years was built on fun. Come on.
 
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