Adam O'Brien replacement?

The Artist Formerly Known as Aku'd said:
It’s a good way to deflect the pansy arsed efforts from the Roosters defense. Particularly Willie
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Two very different teams that we have today in Roosters and Knights. I was watching highlights from the 2009 Knights team and we’d all kill for some of that energy and creativity. Everyone in that side seemed to moved more lively, burst onto the ball, support play, offload after offload, LONG bullet passes both left and right, great kicking options and nobody afraid to chance their hand. Was so good to watch.
 
MBQLD said:
Two very different teams that we have today in Roosters and Knights. I was watching highlights from the 2009 Knights team and we’d all kill for some of that energy and creativity. Everyone in that side seemed to moved more lively, burst onto the ball, support play, offload after offload, LONG bullet passes both left and right, great kicking options and nobody afraid to chance their hand. Was so good to watch.
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I used to drive from Sydney watch a game and return same day as a season ticket holder during the Brian Smith days. Even if we lost it still felt worthwhile as was entertaining and there was always effort. Except for one game vs Warriors on a Sunday we were awful and I was filthy driving home. And sat in traffic for hours too.
 
MBQLD said:
Two very different teams that we have today in Roosters and Knights. I was watching highlights from the 2009 Knights team and we’d all kill for some of that energy and creativity. Everyone in that side seemed to moved more lively, burst onto the ball, support play, offload after offload, LONG bullet passes both left and right, great kicking options and nobody afraid to chance their hand. Was so good to watch.
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Trent Robinson was an assistant coach at the Knights then.
 
I honestly feel what screwed us this year was the shellacking we got at home from Canberra in game one. You could see and his comments AOB was pissed and it was from then on in his head we needed to play that “grinding” one out football. And it has not changed since.

Having Ponga out has compounded our problem for being able to play expansive football like last year. It’s depressing because I loved watching us play like that late last year. Surely we can find some balance.
 
Dusting this thread off to complete my post in the game day thread.

Who believes OB has this team performing on par for what we should expect for this squad?

The absolute biggest thing in the NRL is consistency, and intensity.

The roster we have, we should be pushing for 5th or 6th spot, if we get on a form roll we could honestly push for a top 4 spot. I firmly believe this.

So, 4th, 5th or 6th for mine is the par level.

I don't count just barely scraping in to the 8, and just making up the numbers in the finals as a successful season. For mine the only good season under OB was last season.

That winning streak last year was not based on grinding. It was based on exciting attacking football where we could score a try from anywhere on the field. This is the style that suits us.

OB has us playing the gringing style we cannot do, it's not in our clubs DNA as grinding is based on effort upon effort. And when in games that is not working, he continues that style for the 80, like today.

A coach needs to view the roster, and formulate a plan around that, not take a cookie cutter approach and force that on the team.

It kills me seeing other teams with worse rosters than us, improving and showing effot wins games, where we are just plodding along game after game all year. The Dogs loss was an embarrassment and all based on Dogs effort, vs our lack of. It's unforgiveable.
 
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Kurriboy said:
Dusting this thread off to complete my post in the game day thread.

Who believes OB has this team performing on par for what we should expect for this squad?

The absolute biggest thing in the NRL is consistency, and intensity.

The roster we have, we should be pushing for 5th or 6th spot, if we get on a form roll we could honestly push for a top 4 spot. I firmly believe this.

So, 4th, 5th or 6th for mine is the par level.

I don't count just barely scraping in to the 8, and just making up the numbers in the finals as a successful season. For mine the only good season under OB was last season.

That winning streak last year was not based on grinding. It was based on exciting attacking football where we could score a try from anywhere on the field. This is the style that suits us.

OB has us playing the gringing style we cannot do, it's not in our clubs DNA as grinding is based on effort upon effort. And when in games that is not working, he continues that style for the 80, like today.

A coach needs to view the roster, and formulate a plan around that, not take a cookie cutter approach and force that on the team.

It kills me seeing other teams with worse rosters than us, improving and showing effot wins games, where we are just plodding along game after game all year. The Dogs loss was an embarrassment and all based on Dogs effort, vs our lack of. It's unforgiveable.
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Do you really think we are pushing for a top four spot with these halves? I think we’re pretty much playing to our potential this season, or slightly above given how long Ponga was out for.
 
Coach is only as good as the cattle he has, put our best team on the paddock and the area causing most concern is 6 & 7 bring Gamble back fit and ready to go and the emphasis is on 7, Hastings, our best option, alternative Cogger isn’t quite Hastings and Hastings isn’t a top 7. Think our style of play is based on what the Coach sees as a possible good result but unfortunately when it isn’t going well we don’t change it because we don’t have the players to do that. We play like we plan to win by 2-6 but often lose by much more, we have positions that need improvement, 9 is one, we have others but 7 is the crux of the problem. We play like we are planning to run 7-10, in or near thing
 
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Potential wise our roster could push towards 4-6 if everyone is firing but there’s about 7 or sides that fit that description. We’re a quality half (good luck finding one available) and a quality middle with a point of difference away from being a genuine contender.

O’Sullivan comes with rave reviews so he should be aware of what we need and try and work towards it, even if it takes a couple of years. At least it’s not a full rebuild because we’ve got the nucleus of a strong 17.
 
jamesgould said:
Do you really think we are pushing for a top four spot with these halves? I think we’re pretty much playing to our potential this season, or slightly above given how long Ponga was out for.
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This season has been a bit of a write off. And my comments cover the entirety of his time here coaching.

Remember a few seasons back we could have secured a home final, went out and shat the bed and waved goodbye to the home final! And from memory that game was very winnable. And we were very ordinary!

And again, the Bulldogs are in 5th with an ordinary roster.

If you can get your teams attitude right, play to your strengths, sure, landing 5th or 6th is certainly possible, 4th sure I believe it is possible.

But we aren't anywhere near where we should be effort wise, game intensity wise, and strategy wise.

That is on the coach!

As Mozza said, we should be competing for those spots 4-6, and sure there are other teams with the same desires, but we are nowhere near competing as we should be.

People are seriously thinking we can recruit a 7 and we will suddenly be contenders? Not with this coach, not with the standards he allows!
 
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I don’t think we have the talent in key spots to be a top team but at the same time I don’t think they’re getting the most out of the talent they do have because we don’t play to the strengths of the players we have. They play a style the coach is comfortable coaching regardless of the players in the team.

AOB is in his 5th year and he still hasn’t figured out a way to get them to turn up most weeks with high energy and effort. Frankly it’s not surprising they play like they’ve been sedated as i’m sure it’s as boring to play as it is to watch. Passive in defence. Timid and cumbersome in attack. No energy, no support, just a bunch of individuals not a team.

Playing not to lose might jag some wins against bad teams but ultimately there’s nowhere to go when the opposition is better.

He also hasn’t found a way to start the season strong so that when injuries and origin hit later in the year, they’re not scrambling for wins at the end of the year

Ciraldo has turned the Dogs effort, defence and intensity around in 12 months. They’ve recruited a few good players but their spine is still pretty poor and so is their forward pack and yet they still turn up every week and compete hard.

Ultimately they just don’t play at the same intensity week in week out as the top teams. Yes there’s been some improvements in regards to resilience but I don’t think just playing better than the Browny years is good enough.

I know they've have had some bad luck with injuries in the spine over the years but at the end of the day, they’re not making top 4 this year or probably next. So that could be a decade “rebuilding” and for what?
 
Newygirl said:
I don’t think we have the talent in key spots to be a top team but at the same time I don’t think they’re getting the most out of the talent they do have because we don’t play to the strengths of the players we have. They play a style the coach is comfortable coaching regardless of the players in the team.

AOB is in his 5th year and he still hasn’t figured out a way to get them to turn up most weeks with high energy and effort. Frankly it’s not surprising they play like they’ve been sedated as i’m sure it’s as boring to play as it is to watch. Passive in defence. Timid and cumbersome in attack. No energy, no support, just a bunch of individuals not a team.

Playing not to lose might jag some wins against bad teams but ultimately there’s nowhere to go when the opposition is better.

He also hasn’t found a way to start the season strong so that when injuries and origin hit later in the year, they’re not scrambling for wins at the end of the year

Ciraldo has turned the Dogs effort, defence and intensity around in 12 months. They’ve recruited a few good players but their spine is still pretty poor and so is their forward pack and yet they still turn up every week and compete hard.

Ultimately they just don’t play at the same intensity week in week out as the top teams. Yes there’s been some improvements in regards to resilience but I don’t think just playing better than the Browny years is good enough.

I know they've have had some bad luck with injuries in the spine over the years but at the end of the day, they’re not making top 4 this year or probably next. So that could be a decade “rebuilding” and for what?
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We have not had a decent half back since Mullen. Before that Joey.

Everyone we have brought in has been past it or overrated.
 
Can someone remind me when AOB’s contract expires?

I need to know how far we are away from the end of the tunnel.
 
Those commenting on the halves we need to somehow turn us in to contenders, last season we had the best season in a long time, and we still have those halves on the books!

Sure, we have had plenty of injuries this season and hardly had the same spine on the park 2 games in a row, some of that is due to the poor start to the season and OB chopping and changing halves combinations though.

Newygirl is identifying the same things I am seeing, our effort and attitude in games is well below par every week. Our start to the year was poor again. Coming in to this round, we were in the 8, 2 or 3 extra wins earlier in the year and we would be in that 4-6 spot people say we aren't capable of!

So people believe we should not have 2-3 more wins than we do, if the team is playing to potential?

The fact is OB didn't have them ready to go out of the blocks to start the year, hasn't been able to get them consistently delivering effort/intensity each game, and hasn't been able to formulate a game plan we can implement and be effective with. He has taken his mail ordered game plan and tried to make them play that way, it isn't working and he isn't capable of making the required changes to affect any of these areas.
 
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