Sack Adam O’Brien

Look at the way Penriths NSW Cup team is playing against a full strength Dogs team.

Its not about the troops, its the coach. Bennett demonstrated this last week.

For some reason, when we had injuries, everyone just bought hook line and sinker the idea that we shouldn't expect them to compete.

AOB was an average coach. Good defensively. Good brining juniors through. Good and relationship management. And very very poor at everything else.
 
Les Misérables said:
Look at the way Penriths NSW Cup team is playing against a full strength Dogs team.

Its not about the troops, its the coach. Bennett demonstrated this last week.

For some reason, when we had injuries, everyone just bought hook line and sinker the idea that we shouldn't expect them to compete.

AOB was an average coach. Good defensively. Good brining juniors through. Good and relationship management. And very very poor at everything else.
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Also helps their nsw cup team is good. Ours is stone motherless second last again.
 
Kurriboy said:
Just watching the presser now.

Key moment for me was when he said when he arrived there was a real air of optimism to the joint. Now though that optimism is gone and it's turned from optimism to pessimism. He can't turn that around, he recognises that, so he's going.

I still think we kept him a few seasons too long. He came in after Brown, got us in to fighting for the 8, our defence is better than it's been in a long time save the last part of the season, but he topped out at that, couldn't take us to the next level we need to be going to.
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We unfairly also never gave him the squad to prove if he could do something special. Some of that is on him granted but our roster has been out of shape for 15 or so years. Only now are we starting to see players paid somewhat correctly
 
Beatell said:
We unfairly also never gave him the squad to prove if he could do something special. Some of that is on him granted but our roster has been out of shape for 15 or so years. Only now are we starting to see players paid somewhat correctly
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Win a GF sure, I agree.

But fight for a top 4 berth or even make one no, I don't.

He had the squad to fight for top 4, he underperformed imho most of his time here, squandering starts to seasons and leaving us having to go on a winning spree to get in to the top 8. The fact we did 4 times, shows if we got out starts better, we could have pushed up in to or very near the top 4.
 
Long Suffering said:
The money they are paying for that under performing hack Brown
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Jesus Christ we've just spent years bashing AOB left right and centre, can we take a break from the negativity and bashing individuals. He's gone, let's just be optimistic, hopeful, excited for the future, The bloke hasn't even set foot on the field at McDonald Jones and ya calling him a "hack". Who gives a rats *** about his parra performances, let's just judge him next year then make our minds up. No use complaining about it, what's done is done.
 
On another note, just watched the full presser from AOB and wow, he honestly has done a decent job. I think he can hold his head high, have we reached our ceiling under him? I guess it looks that way, but did we achieve some great things under him? absolutely!
2020 being our first finals series since 2013 was huge, then to make it back to back!
Then let's remember 2023 coz that back end of the year was the best feeling Ive had as a newy fan since 2002!
Brought us so many good memories and 4 finals from 6 years is a pass mark from me. Thank you AOB, you've gained my respect
 
If we were basing AOB success on grand final wins then he was always going to fail because nobody was beating Penrith and Melbourne over the last 4-5 years...
I think AOB did a good job and for what ever reason being him or the fact that the club itself was a mess, he couldn't take us to that next level. It's a good thing he is moving on and I look forward to next season, new team set up and new coaching staff ohhhh baby it's exciting time!
 
Junior said:
On another note, just watched the full presser from AOB and wow, he honestly has done a decent job. I think he can hold his head high, have we reached our ceiling under him? I guess it looks that way, but did we achieve some great things under him? absolutely!
2020 being our first finals series since 2013 was huge, then to make it back to back!
Then let's remember 2023 coz that back end of the year was the best feeling Ive had as a newy fan since 2002!
Brought us so many good memories and 4 finals from 6 years is a pass mark from me. Thank you AOB, you've gained my respect
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He had a 43% win rate.

He did a good job if your definition of a good job is to avoid taking the club backwards. Because thats what he oversaw, the club went sideways for 6 years. In fact, we were a better team when he took the reins than we are today.

And I don't blame him. He did his best. I blame the club and I do genuinely attribute blame to fans who took 6 years to figure that out. We had a generational talent fall into our lap and we ****ed it. It'll take me a while to forgive the club for that. You can count on one hand the number of clubs in the comp dumb enough to do what we've done
 
Les Misérables said:
He had a 43% win rate.

He did a good job if your definition of a good job is to avoid taking the club backwards. Because thats what he oversaw, the club went sideways for 6 years. In fact, we were a better team when he took the reins than we are today.
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By sideways, do you mean that 2020-2025 is comparable to 2014-2019, or that we were on this trajectory and any coach would’ve seen us make the finals 4/6 seasons?
 
waynesworld said:
By sideways, do you mean that 2020-2025 is comparable to 2014-2019, or that we were on this trajectory and any coach would’ve seen us make the finals 4/6 seasons?
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Nah, I mean specifically, that we had just as capable a footy side the year that Brown left as we have today. And honestly, that's being charitable to todays team.
 
Les Misérables said:
Nah, I mean specifically, that we had just as capable a footy side the year that Brown left as we have today. And honestly, that's being charitable to todays team.
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Surely you could acknowledge the 6 seasons of results under AOB were better than the 6 prior? The state of the team is probably a fair point, however I’d suggest that’s more to do with bungled recruitment gambles more than AOB’s coaching and that the 2026 squad has some exciting talent in it.
 
The roster Brown had in 2019 was one of the best we’ve had since Joey retired - it was way better suited to the last year of the pre-six again era - and he absolutely beefed it as far as I’m concerned. That roster was our best chance to do something in a long time.
 
I don't think people are placing enough weight to the poor roster that Obrien had for the majority of his tenure. I am not sure how much say / influence he had but it is telling that the players we are getting rid of / not renewing right now are all signings from the last few years. Pretty clear sign we got it all wrong, and these guys were all on good coin but underperformed. Hetherington, elliot, kpp, pryce, cogger, hastings, brailey (more injury related) and gamble. From memory (someone please correct me), but all these bar Brailey were signings early in adams tenure, and they are all cap killers I.e half million $ plus signings who only gave minimum wage impact to the team.
I understand we have had ponga, but we haven't put much around him. Im not convinced that was adams fault, and I suspect its the previously sacked recruitment managers.
 
A bit rough on Adam Elliott there who's been good when fit but yeah undoubtedly you can't say he was handed an elite roster.

These things are tricky though. I think there has been an element of him knowing he has a limited roster and coaching accordingly, but I think he sort of went too far in making it pretty clear he thinks there are a lot of brickies in his side and players can internalise that. "He has us playing like this because he doesn't think we're that good." That has led to poor utilisation of a lot of the best talent.

It's a really really tough gig being an NRL head coach though. He's clearly not awful. I think we landed on someone in that "competent, but with issues" range. If he does get another head coaching gig he might do okay somewhere with a better spine already in place & where the players have very little discipline and poor defensive standards.

Also with these things, honestly, some coaches are just a great fit somewhere and a disaster somewhere else. The exact same coach overseeing one of Canberra's greatest ever seasons right now led Parramatta to their worst season ever just before that.
 
Les Misérables said:
Look at the way Penriths NSW Cup team is playing against a full strength Dogs team.

Its not about the troops, its the coach. Bennett demonstrated this last week.

For some reason, when we had injuries, everyone just bought hook line and sinker the idea that we shouldn't expect them to compete.

AOB was an average coach. Good defensively. Good brining juniors through. Good and relationship management. And very very poor at everything else.
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What rubbish you dribble sometimes. You got what you wanted so just be humble with your win.
 
waynesworld said:
Surely you could acknowledge the 6 seasons of results under AOB were better than the 6 prior? The state of the team is probably a fair point, however I’d suggest that’s more to do with bungled recruitment gambles more than AOB’s coaching and that the 2026 squad has some exciting talent in it.
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Obviously the 6 seasons prior were worse. But that's half my point, Brown did his job. Stripped us down, rebuilt us and left with a 20 y.o. Ponga from which any heights were possible. That's trajectory.

The only positive to come of the last 6 years is that we've brought through juniors. But all in all we've gone sideways since Brown left.
 
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Jar head said:
I don't think people are placing enough weight to the poor roster that Obrien had for the majority of his tenure. I am not sure how much say / influence he had but it is telling that the players we are getting rid of / not renewing right now are all signings from the last few years. Pretty clear sign we got it all wrong, and these guys were all on good coin but underperformed. Hetherington, elliot, kpp, pryce, cogger, hastings, brailey (more injury related) and gamble. From memory (someone please correct me), but all these bar Brailey were signings early in adams tenure, and they are all cap killers I.e half million $ plus signings who only gave minimum wage impact to the team.
I understand we have had ponga, but we haven't put much around him. Im not convinced that was adams fault, and I suspect its the previously sacked recruitment managers.
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The bookies always had us missing the eight every season, and there was a reason for that.
 
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