Adam O'Brien replacement?

jamesgould said:
If you look at AOB’s tenure as a whole, we’ve clearly got closer. We were a basket case for 15-20 years.
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In spite of him, not because of him.

The Knights now have first class facilities, coaching staff and club branding. Newcastle is a gentrified market which if measured by price of land is as desirable a place to live as most metro suburbs of Sydney and Melb.

The club also carries in its ranks arguably the most talented player in the comp. And we're also starting to reap the benefits of a now decade old juniors program.

So I'd contend that our upward trajectory is in spite of and not due to OB. With a better coach we should resemble a regular top 6 team - as this squad is clearly capable of being as demonstrated at the back end of last year
 
Not an Obi lover myself , but I suppose . The warriors **** all over us in the finals last year , Andrew Webster got coach of the year . How are they going ?
 
We stick with coaches too long.

It should be a 3 year gig unless you make yourself unsackable by having the success of a Bellamy or a Cleary.
3 years is long enough to put together your own squad and show you can win a premiership, and if you are close, you get another year, but if you aren't close, you get replaced.
Most clubs do that.
We stick with coaches till they get sick of taking our money and want to do something else.
 
Like Slots said, this whole conversation is pointless because they won’t move AOB on.

The depressing part for me is it feels like we’ve fallen in a hole and sticking with AOB will be like digging deeper to see if that helps us get out. By the end of the contract we’ll too far down for the next coach to do anything about
 
If we keep AOB he needs to change up the plan, change his attitude that we are an ugly side. We have Ponga, and Gamble back. Hopefully Brady not to long. Lucus on the left. KPP on the right looking for the offload. The side is more or less the same.

I don’t know, he needs some backlash and criticism on that comment he made.
 
frankLauda said:
Good point. AOB was one foot out the door until the run. The the club got super excited and signed him another 3 years!
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Which is crazy in itself . Blind Freddy could see it was on the back of Ponga . As I said in the preseason Ponga should always be on Obi's Xmas card list
 
I think our staff around AOB haven’t been great. I did the math zammitt spend half our cap on 7 or 8 players, there isn’t a team in the comp that would be that unbalanced. Let alone the money he spent on KPP and Pryce.

We are in serious need of a solid roster overhaul. AOB should be given a chance to rebuild the roster just like Ricky Stuart has.
 
Billy said:
We stick with coaches too long.

It should be a 3 year gig unless you make yourself unsackable by having the success of a Bellamy or a Cleary.
3 years is long enough to put together your own squad and show you can win a premiership, and if you are close, you get another year, but if you aren't close, you get replaced.
Most clubs do that.
We stick with coaches till they get sick of taking our money and want to do something else.
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I feel like that's what we've done since Hagan and it hasn't worked out well. We've had massive coach turnover ever since.
 
krustykraz said:
If Wests sacked O'Brien and hired a better coach who played a more exciting brand of football they would have to pay O'Brien out.
But they'd they'd make the money back in Ponga #1 jersey sales.

I hope you read this Phil
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Gardener is obviously a smart man ( in the business world anyway 😀) But strikes me as someone who is not going to admit he was wrong
 
Les Misérables said:
In spite of him, not because of him.

The Knights now have first class facilities, coaching staff and club branding. Newcastle is a gentrified market which if measured by price of land is as desirable a place to live as most metro suburbs of Sydney and Melb.

The club also carries in its ranks arguably the most talented player in the comp. And we're also starting to reap the benefits of a now decade old juniors program.

So I'd contend that our upward trajectory is in spite of and not due to OB. With a better coach we should resemble a regular top 6 team - as this squad is clearly capable of being as demonstrated at the back end of last year
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The squad from last year hasn't been on the park this season. Ponga has played 9 out of 18, our 2023 Halves combo of Hastings and Cogger has played 7 out of 18.
 
jamesgould said:
The squad from last year hasn't been on the park this season. Ponga has played 9 out of 18, our 2023 Halves combo of Hastings and Cogger has played 7 out of 18.
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Cogger was definitely not in our run of form 🤣

Also our halves merry go round is mostly on Obi (Gambles injury aside)
 
jamesgould said:
The squad from last year hasn't been on the park this season. Ponga has played 9 out of 18, our 2023 Halves combo of Hastings and Cogger has played 7 out of 18.
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We had KP for the first 8 rounds and were playing ****. The number of halves combos isn’t due to injury. They were all available at the start of the year. It was AOBs decision to play halves musical chairs every 2 weeks. Injuries came later and they actually strung wins together then so they can’t really use that as an excuse
 
A few points,

You can't lay the credit for the success of the club over the OB tenure all on OB. And certainly can't point to our time since AJ retired and go well look how well OB has us going compared.

Since AJ retired we have been a basket case with turmoil galore. OB took over right at the time things were on the up, centre of excellence, wests having taken over, and landing one of the best talents in the NRL and second most gifted player the Knights have had in their history. I'd be concerned if we were not able to muster a finish in the finals with that trajectory.

Secondly, I don't think people are saying fire OB at all costs, but more that OB isn't going to take us where we need to be and there are other options out there that could potentially.

And again, another comment made was getting a coach in that yells at people, I mean there are some definite additional weighting being given to some of the arguments attempting to make an opinion seem more radical. I'm probably guilty of it as well.

Browny took us through the spoon years and the rebuild, in his own words he has said to the affect that he is good at rebuilding a club, if you want a coach to come in and win some spoons he is your man. OB took over from him when we were just starting to pick up and has taken us this far. My opinion is a coach can take a club soo far and then thats it, another coach might be able to take us further.

OB for mine, has hit his peak with us last year. And sure, he, along with the players, got us 10 wins on the trot and our best season in a very long time, but where is any semblence of that attack now? Dom Young left so he was like well now we are ugly?

Injuries sure, but are we playing a brand of football that uses our players talents to bring out their best. Hastings continually turns the ball back inside to a forward repeatedly when nothing is on, or isn't able to create something himself. Hits the lead runner consistently, puts up usless half height bombs that put us under pressure and don't give the chasers time to get down there and shut down kick returns. This has been the way all year. What steps has he taken to resolve this? Or is this coached?

We all watched the team last year ripping 10 wins, and the style we played. This season we didn't/couldn't replicate it. Why? Did he not prepare them well enough in pre-season? Not motivational enough? Why?

Teams with worse rosters then ours, are out enthusing us, out playing us and further up the ladder than us. Why? Who is the person we point at for this?

I'm not content to just lump faith on OB, and hope he can turn it around next year, or the year after that, and enjoy this club we all love coming 7th or 8th and going straight out.
 
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krustykraz said:
Cogger was definitely not in our run of form 🤣

Also our halves merry go round is mostly on Obi (Gambles injury aside)
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Gamble injured, Hastings struggling on returning from injury, and plenty on here were arguing that Cogger should be given a chance, as well. Probably some who are now saying how terrible he is!
 
Kurriboy said:
You can't lay the credit for the success of the club over the OB tenure all on OB.
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Of course not.

Kurriboy said:
And certainly can't point to our time since AJ retired and go well look how well OB has us going compared.
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You can't give him all the credit for our improved performance, but you also can't say he's improved us in comparison to previous years? Surely he is entitled to some small iota of credit?

Kurriboy said:
Since AJ retired we have been a basket case with turmoil galore. OB took over right at the time things were on the up, centre of excellence, wests having taken over, and landing one of the best talents in the NRL and second most gifted player the Knights have had in their history. I'd be concerned if we were not able to muster a finish in the finals with that trajectory.
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Nathan Brown was unable to get us close in those exact same circumstances.

Kurriboy said:
Secondly, I don't think people are saying fire OB at all costs
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I can only point you to @Lefty 's iconic 2023 post 🤣:

Lefty said:
Sack AOB now! Sack AOB now! Sack AOB now! Sack AOB now! Sack AOB now! Sack AOB now! Sack AOB now! Sack AOB now! Sack AOB now! Sack AOB now! Sack AOB now! Sack AOB now! Sack AOB now! Sack AOB now! Sack AOB now! Sack AOB now!
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Kurriboy said:
And again, another comment made was getting a coach in that yells at people, I mean there are some definite additional weighting being given to some of the arguments attempting to make an opinion seem more radical. I'm probably guilty of it as well.
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Definitely not all are saying that, and it's more of a minority. I just don't like to quote the exact comment I'm replying to sometimes because I don't like to make it look like I'm dissing a particular person. So totally not trying to paint a majority in having that view. And it's a valid view anyway, just not one I hold.

Kurriboy said:
OB for mine, has hit his peak with us last year. And sure, he, along with the players, got us 10 wins on the trot and our best season in a very long time, but where is any semblence of that attack now? Dom Young left so he was like well now we are ugly?

Injuries sure, but are we playing a brand of football that uses our players talents to bring out their best. Hastings continually turns the ball back inside to a forward repeatedly when nothing is on, or isn't able to create something himself. Hits the lead runner consistently, puts up usless half height bombs that put us under pressure and don't give the chasers time to get down there and shut down kick returns. This has been the way all year. What steps has he taken to resolve this? Or is this coached?
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All good questions, and as I said I think next year will be the year we get a definitive answer on these things. After his length of time at the club, scraping into the eight shouldn't be enough, we will want to see a top six finish at least, consistent throughout the year rather than relying on a big winning streak. But imo he's got enough credit in the bank for another season. And in saying that, it is not going to be easy to achieve with our current spine.
 
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