Adam O'Brien replacement?

Owey said:
So that Tiger Town doco. The biggest take out from that was how much of a lone voice Madge was. It was basically his voice for 8 hours or whatever. Adam Douhei tried to support him but it was mainly documenting how Madge lost the changeroom.

Leadership groups are so important. Madge can coach, he won a comp at South's with Sam Burgess and John Sutton driving standards home gor him.

I think Bellamy got lucky in some ways that Cameron Smith particularly, along with Cronk and Slater came through as he found his coaching feet. From the sound of it, Smith used to temper Bellamy's, well, temper. When Bellyache would get too emotional Smith would take the **** and defuse the situation. Then it became Smith, Slater and Cronk driving standards on the field and in training. Players answered to them, they were the ones being critical in video sessions. I you deviated from the game plan, Smith would want to know why you had undone the work they had put in over a 15 minute period setting up a target for a hero play. It meant that the players were shaded somewhat from Bellamy's emotions, allowing him to set standards, communicate these to the leadership group and they'd all be on the same page communicating them to the wider group. In some ways the leadership group may have allowed Bellamy to survive in a way Madge didn't at the tigers. A strong leadership group is now at the forefront of Melbourne's strategy, even though that trio of great leaders has moved on.

So what is the leadership group at Newcastle? KP isn't a student of the game like the Melbourne trio. I think he is very passionate and knows his game a whole lot better now, but I don't think he is one to demand standards out of others. Friz and the Safs are noted to be very quiet. Leo was added to the leadership group this year and strikes me as someone who could be a steely eyed standard setter as he matures. Hastings is emotional and no longer a rusted on first grade member. Gags is super nice from the sound of things. For mine it needs to start with KP. He needs to realise that anything he achieves at newcastle is through the guys he plays with, and to expect better from them. Thompson can be that guy driving forward standards one day, but out side of that I don't see who is going to take the heat off any coach we have. Obi having players scared of him smacks of Tiger town for mine.
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I think the leaders as much as we have them at the moment are Gagai, Friz and probably Elliot, but as you said, not the greatest natural leaders.

KP probably should l, he just comes across as too chill to give anyone a spray.
 
I've posted before about our lack of effective leaders at the club setting the standards. We just don't have any. That is a failure of recruitment and player development. The Safs were meant to come through and be our alphas, they are honestly a joke just happy to collect their salary. KP is too quiet etc, we just don't have anybody there to take the leadership role and set standards.

OB, honestly when he arrived I was hopeful even though he is rookie coach, that he had learned his cradt well. But he is learning head coaching is very different to assistant coaching. And unfortunately he has come to a club with deep rooted problems he has no idea how to turn around. It's hard to coach a team with chronic depression and anxiety and thats what this team plays like, that stuff is deeply rooted in the club.

We need an experienced, hard nosed standards driving coach.

OB talks about putting the fun back in to the footy but losing aint fun, playing boring high percentage football aint fun. He talks about the Dogs and Dragons enjoying their footy as they don't have an expectation after poor seasons last year. The inference there is because we went ok last year, the players can't cope with that expectation and not delivering. The message has gone from early season the players are ready and pumped to go out there and show what they can do, play in front of our great fans etc, to the players can't cope with expectation.

Thats literally his job to harness last seasons performances and build on that, bring the squad through to this year with confidence and attitude. Other clubs who make the 8 most years deal with that expectation.

I doubt OB knows why or what triggered that 10 game winning streak last year and I doubt he has any clue on how to trigger it again. FFS he is going to go back and watch tapes about what we were doing then!

We are a club with deep rooted standards problems, helmed by a rookie coach who has no experience with this, having come from two clubs that do not suffer from lack of standards ever, always high effort, always high performing. And he has no clue how to make our club like theirs!
 
He’s talked plenty of times about playing in front of big home crowds being a lot of pressure too, because the players don’t want to let them down. Absolutely ridiculous, most sides dream of playing in front of huge supportive crowds like we do, AOB sees it as some huge burden that stresses the players out and sends them to therapy.

Now making the eight last year has pushed them over the edge as well. Absolutely incredible list of excuses he comes up with for them. 🤣
 
AOB had never head coached a side at any grade before he came here and shown he doesn't know how to fix the club's issues. In fact the issues have gotten bigger.

I just don't think he's a NRL level head coach. Assistant coach at best for I think for him. He's got a fair few mates eg Bellamy, Seibold, Arthur, Ciraldo that are all head coaches so he will probably end up with one of them at some point. But it's definitely time for the club and AOB to cut ties.
 
Newygirl said:
Excellent points completely agree.

I remember Cameron Smith one time talking about their relationship and he even said to Craig “sometimes I’m not sure if you made us, or we made you” which I thought was very interesting.

Either way, clearly they aren’t what they are without each other.
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Frank Ponissi as head of football at Melbourne drives the standards as much as anyone, he would be a great signing for us
 
Part of the issue with standards is a little bit of bad luck. Mitchell Pearce, as flawed as he was as a player, was unquestionably the leader and standard setter while he was here, until he killed that with his off-field indiscretions. We had him signed on for 2022 before he asked for his eleventh hour release at the end of 2021. For this reason we missed any chance to do any proper long-term planning in terms of scouting a replacement or to throw out hat in the ring for Reynolds or even Chad Townsend - as much as I mock Chad, at this stage how can you argue against the proposition that when a guy makes it to 200+ games as an NRL halfback, it does in fact say something about him as a bloke? About his resilience, persistence and professionalism.

Ever since Pearce left us in the lurch we've been chasing our tail looking for his replacement, leading to desperate "well we need SOMEONE who can play halfback" moves like paying half Klemmer's wages to push a player trade through for a guy with a long history of character concerns. I still believe Jackson Hastings to be a more intelligent player than Pearce on field but yesterday was definitely the "okay, what's doing?" moment. He played like he didn't want to be there.
 
Strange, Hastings has altercation with Pryce at training then both have poor performances on Sunday.
They played a couple of games together in Cup and by all accounts clicked.
Maybe all just coincidencies
 
Someone was saying that knights don’t get the same media attention as Sydney clubs, I suspect that’ll change drastically in the next week or 2. Especially after our schlacking we will receive against the dolphins this week.
 
MBQLD said:
Someone was saying that knights don’t get the same media attention as Sydney clubs, I suspect that’ll change drastically in the next week or 2. Especially after our schlacking we will receive against the dolphins this week.
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It'll hurt even more to have to listen to Wayne rub it in during the presser..

'I told everyone when I left that it would take 15 years to fix the joint'
 
jamesgould said:
He’s talked plenty of times about playing in front of big home crowds being a lot of pressure too, because the players don’t want to let them down. Absolutely ridiculous, most sides dream of playing in front of huge supportive crowds like we do, AOB sees it as some huge burden that stresses the players out and sends them to therapy.

Now making the eight last year has pushed them over the edge as well. Absolutely incredible list of excuses he comes up with for them. 🤣
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Yep even last week when some guys were bagging OBI I said we don't want to go there West won't pay him out . And that may be the case , but they must be having second thoughts now . A season that promised so much , virtually over after seven weeks . Very depressing . Think I need a week out of here , nothing good to say about the Obi or the club. In years to come don't know how the Saffs could turn up to old boys day
 
MBQLD said:
Someone was saying that knights don’t get the same media attention as Sydney clubs, I suspect that’ll change drastically in the next week or 2. Especially after our schlacking we will receive against the dolphins this week.
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That was me, and I dearly hope so. I want the blow torch turned on the Knights hard!

We are a complete rabble and other than West Tigers, I can't think of a team I would place beneath us as the more hopeless basket case. And they cop it from the media and fox etc routinely.
 
I didn't agree with the club signing AOB after that run....but in his defense he had the team humming at the back end of last year.

Not his fault that the players go out there and don't put in any effort...it's been happening for years and we have churned through coaches but same thing.

We should have made a play for Flanagan when we had the chance.
 
JOJO82 said:
I didn't agree with the club signing AOB after that run....but in his defense he had the team humming at the back end of last year.

Not his fault that the players go out there and don't put in any effort...it's been happening for years and we have churned through coaches but same thing.

We should have made a play for Flanagan when we had the chance.
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Of course it is his fault.

The number 1 person responsible for the clubs performance is the coach.

End of!
 
Kurriboy said:
Of course it is his fault.

The number 1 person responsible for the clubs performance is the coach.

End of!
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So what you are saying is that with all the coaches we have gone through it has never been the fault of the players?

Makes sense because the coaches are the ones out there not putting in any effort, dropping the balls, giving away penalties etc.
 
JOJO82 said:
So what you are saying is that with all the coaches we have gone through it has never been the fault of the players?

Makes sense because the coaches are the ones out there not putting in any effort, dropping the balls, giving away penalties etc.
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The players deserve ridicule, but the buck stops with the coach.

Your post summary, Not coach fault players don't put in, had plenty of coaches and still same result, anyway flanagan would have been the answer!
 
I think a decent coach would come in and realise there is a culture problem, weed out the bad ones and bring in proven guys or leaders that can bring the guys up to standard in the attitude department. AOB been here how many years and we still have attitude problems. Yes its the players fault, but his job was to sort that and build the culture.
 
JOJO82 said:
So what you are saying is that with all the coaches we have gone through it has never been the fault of the players?

Makes sense because the coaches are the ones out there not putting in any effort, dropping the balls, giving away penalties etc.
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If the players respect the coach they will go above and beyond on the footy field. Every single player is capable of having an off game but being generally unhappy translates to poor performances in every aspect of life including a solid 80mins of football. It really is up to the coach to maintain a healthy environment and identify issues and rectify them as they pop up.

Showing up with the clip board and watching tapes and running drills is just a tiny part of the job. Investigating why your alpha male forward is struggling to crack 50m for example and then doing something about it is a much bigger part. That might mean finding out if he’s got some drama going on in his life, an injury, poor mental health or a bad attitude. Then doing something about it.

So ultimately it is an issue that the coach is responsible for.
 
For all we know maybe the coach did try when he first got here and maybe at the time he could have been an excellent choice but he is was untested in the main seat.
Even under Browny we had a disgusting culture which he didn't make any better so I guess OB really did have a big job ahead of him and we have gotten a little bit better but for some reason either the players just aren't buying in or maybe it is just the coach being terrible at man management. There is something that is just wrong and It's really showing.
 
MBQLD said:
If the players respect the coach they will go above and beyond on the footy field. Every single player is capable of having an off game but being generally unhappy translates to poor performances in every aspect of life including a solid 80mins of football. It really is up to the coach to maintain a healthy environment and identify issues and rectify them as they pop up.

Showing up with the clip board and watching tapes and running drills is just a tiny part of the job. Investigating why your alpha male forward is struggling to crack 50m for example and then doing something about it is a much bigger part. That might mean finding out if he’s got some drama going on in his life, an injury, poor mental health or a bad attitude. Then doing something about it.

So ultimately it is an issue that the coach is responsible for.
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So the 10 game run they were going above and beyond and now they decided we don't respect the coach
 
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