Adam O'Brien replacement?

I do agree of course that if we do get a new coach, it shouldn’t be with some kind of tear down rebuild mandate - the first grade coach coaches the first grade team and shouldn’t stick his fingers in other pies. His job is keeping the playing group happy & getting them performing consistently & with belief on the field, getting them playing in a way which is the best use of the players available, and extracting improvement out of the playing group, particularly the youngsters under his care.

For my money he’s not doing a good job on all three counts. I get the impression a large cohort of the playing group disagrees with how we should be playing and what we should be working on, let alone believes in him the way players believe in guys like Bennett, Bellamy, even Hasler. I actually reckon he still gives them the hair dryer treatment behind the scenes and the reason it doesn’t sink in is as simple as a lot of them thinking he’s wrong in what he’s yelling at them about. I think the idea that there’s only X number of sprays you can give per year before it stops sinking in is incorrect, some of the all time great coaches are famous for the unrelenting hair dryer treatment - Bellamy, Sir Alex Ferguson, Greg Popovich, etc. The difference is in whether or not you respect the person yelling at you.
 
packo said:
Yes the coaching staff need to do that. Most of us don’t know what goes on at training and behind closed doors, so it’s just speculation. But it’s happens to much that it hasn’t been addressed.

The team is soft. Plain and simple.
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There is your answer. The coaching staff need to be addressing it.

You need your "leadership group" leading the way out there, not contributing to the situation. KP is shocking at fullback, and the safs are phoning it in, klem is out there trying but never see him reving anyone up, Gags is likewise out there on his wing doing his role, same for Friz etc.

The leadership group of players needs to be standing up, taking the team forward and setting the standards. They aren't.

The coaching group needs to be setting the standards that the leadership group buy in to and drive through the rest of the squad.

They aren't.

From top to bottom mediocrity is allowed to thrive, and in fact is encouraged, rewarded even!
 
Poor old Gags must be thinking gee what a basket case. I remember a video in pre-season this year where he's talking about his homecoming and how he wants to help the team get to the next level to repay the fans for all the rough years he was involved in. He leaves a ****show at the Knights, goes away for a couple years to Souths, has a great time, plays finals every year and a GF, then comes back into a ****show again.
 
Ok, Ben stated that playing together from 12 helped with cohesion, I'm not sure if his stats covered that and he did say categorically that modelling the current Penrith side was causing him problems because you just can't get the stats on those early games.

Harvee, agree, players will reach their use by dates and cohesion will give way to creaking joints. Kurriboy, agree, throw a team of reggies players together and stick with them, they aren't going to win a comp after three years together. But this doesn't mean you can't build a club around these principles. Melbourne and Penrith have got their pathways right. We need to get ours right or we will never match these powerhouses
 
There is no magic way.

You can't watch the Panthers, or Melbourne etc and go we need to be like them.

This just leads to trying more things and those things not working and trying other things.

It's like dieting, no diet is going to work if you don't have the willpower and drive to make it work. You will find yourself slacking, doing those little cheating things like this little thing won't hurt now and I've been good so it's ok.
 
I'm pretty sure having a clear plan is better then not having one because it is too hard.

It isn't trying more things, it is being clear on how you want kids bought through. It should be simple and consistent. It needs to be implemented from above and shouldn't be changed with the coach.

Two things it does require, time and patience.
 
packo said:
I feel like AOB has gone from talking a big game etc, blow up, throwing drink bottles to now, cuddling the players and making excuses.

I always get the sense that the players get in the mindset of it being the coaches fault too, same type of players that look to the ref to help them instead of playing the whistle. I think AOB theories are good, but the actual cattle out there are not suited to it.

The first player I’d be looking to bring in is someone to tell KP exactly what everyone is thinking, the club still talks him up and there is no mention of his endless lazy clean up work at the back.

People like Ennis, Gallen have always called him out, and that’s the sort of player we need, unfortunately I can’t think who that would be?
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They should be hiring someone like a slater, minichello to come help him on some of his fullback positioning and work in that area and they can do it. Maybe after 3 qld games working with slater he might pick up a few things.
 
Owey said:
Ok, I'm one who sees what Ben Darwin is saying. Harvee, gee, I respect your opinion on here a lot, but you are missing the cohesion point a tad I think. You aren't going to convince me with 5 weeks of ATTACKING stats that more than 30 years of stats across more than 30 sports are incorrect. Here's what I'm seeing that back up Darwinism:

1) He said that cohesion is mainly seen in helping teams defensively. Helps attack yes, but defence is where you see it most. Penrith and Melbourne are the most cohesive teams in the NRL right now, and the best defensively, so makes sense.

2) Sacking the coach isn't a mistake. Going through three year cycles of sacking the coach, having a new coach come in and saying the playing group is RS, turning them all over again, sucking after three years and repeating the whole cycle again IS a mistake and will lead to continued mediocrity. Listen to what Tim Sheena is saying, he wants stability in the playing group and to promote from within. Wests are willing to back a coach for five years, but will show him the players he has to work with in that time. If the coach is happy to work within that frame work, Wests will improve in that time.

3) Darwin believes the idea that Nathan Brown was a coach who could build a roster is incorrect. Brown did a good job getting our salary cap in order and was willing to go through a lot of pain to get it there. We owe Browny for that. But he isn't willing to back his judgement on players and let them grow in a role, he casts them off quite quickly, constantly chopping and changing his side and always returning mediocre results. Craig Bellamy stands loyally beside the players who show him the required work ethic. That's his strength. Bellamy is much, much better at building a roster then Brown is.

4) Darwin actually pointed to the Knights and Dogs as two teams who were getting to a point where their cohesiveness was going to see improved results. The knights are chopping and changing around the spine atm, but maybe the dogs have reached that point where they are getting to know each other a bit better too?

5) If the lesson from what the Panthers are doing right now and how they are able to promote players from within who look like world beaters isn't a pointer to how cohesiveness works, than I don't know what is. I'm tipping next year after losing Kikau and Korisau that their defence will still be in the top 2 in the comp. Hell, how long do we have to wait for the player drain at Melbourne to see a drop in fortunes? Defensively, they don't miss a beat!!

I'm not going to convince you Harvee on this, but I see evidence everywhere and you won't convince me otherwise either. It makes perfect sense to me.
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Counter to that point is how good the Cowboys defence has been this year and how fast they have turned it around.
 
Owey said:
I'm pretty sure having a clear plan is better then not having one because it is too hard.

It isn't trying more things, it is being clear on how you want kids bought through. It should be simple and consistent. It needs to be implemented from above and shouldn't be changed with the coach.

Two things it does require, time and patience.
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I think we’re all in agreement there.

And yeah I think we all agree it can’t just be “look at what team X did and do that” because the consistently successful clubs do their own thing and it’s a thing which works for them.

Melbourne do a mix of picking the eyes out of other juniors systems for the best talent + take a lot of low risk bets on several players who clearly have some tools but haven’t worked out for other teams. Their player development does the rest.

Souths & Easts always have a pretty good production line of solid first graders in their juniors system, and then have a habit of pulling off the big signings to fill the gaps in the squad. This is especially true of Easts.

Then you’ve got Penrith who are almost the opposite of that, have had absolute bumper crops of star juniors and they fill squad gaps with solid first graders.

What can we say about Newcastle over the years? Letting star juniors slip through the net and debut for other clubs, bringing in kids through the system who almost always look like they’re not ready, filling gaps in the squad with overpaid fringe rep players or established rep guys in clear decline, and lots and lots of injuries. Over the last few years we’ve made some genuine blue chip signings, I think the Ponga gamble did pay off no matter what others might think, but it literally feels like we’re at least 5 good first graders short of where we need to be to properly compete. Where are those players and why have we failed to find them? Is it our development, recruitment, both?

But even factoring all that in, 12th isn’t good enough with the players we’ve got. There are clubs above us right now with even bigger problems.
 
daniels said:
They should be hiring someone like a slater, minichello to come help him on some of his fullback positioning and work in that area and they can do it. Maybe after 3 qld games working with slater he might pick up a few things.
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KP isn't rubbish at fullback because he doesn't know what to do. He is rubbish because he doesn't do what he should be doing as a fullback.

Clocking off on the play because you just don't want to run back and cover is inexcusable. Thats his job.

Handing the ball off to another team mate so you don't have to take that run is also poor. I think it was Burton for the dogs that copped it for doing the same thing not too far back.
 
I really don’t think his work at the back is usually as bad as it was yesterday. He definitely did clock off but probably shouldn’t have been playing. But unfortunately we don’t score points without him so he had to. By the end of the game he could barely move.
 
One thing I think Penrith and Melbourne do better, and probably can afford to, is not chucking kids in too early or discarding them too quickly. We seemed to have an idea over the years of getting kids playing against men to toughen them up, then discarding them when they don't star straight away. Penrith lose Api next year, and he will be replaced from within by a guy who has been there for years, is in his mid 20s, but doesn't have a lot of top grade experience.
 
Ok so thinking about Pongas work at the back I decided to go through all the highlights from NRL.com until round 13, when we played Penrith (didn’t watch)

I have been into Kalyn, and take it back. A few things I took out of just watching 30 minutes of video.

Ponga is easily our best player on the field.

Pongas clean up work at the back isn’t lazy, except for last game (sick) and two other plays I found.

He is most lethal majority of the time at first receiver playing as a half, and his short kicking game is quality. He very rarely provides anything in a traditional fullback in attack in terms of support play.

His positional play is absolutely shocking. However as we all know under the high ball is up there with the best.

R1, R2, no issues, R3, didn’t play
R4, should have cleaned up a kick but sharks knocked on, I put this down to poor decision then lazy as he had plenty of time.

R5 Gave up on a grubber, caught in defensive line on the 5th also leading to a try from a kick.

R6, ambling to push across to help defend.

R7,8, 9,10, 11 no issues. Then there is a bye I think and didn’t look at the latest Penrith game.

Overall it is disturbing how many soft try we let in from pure soft contact, especially one off the ruck defending our line.

On Ponga, I think he needs to shift to play halfback.
 
packo said:
Ok so thinking about Pongas work at the back I decided to go through all the highlights from NRL.com until round 13, when we played Penrith (didn’t watch)

I have been into Kalyn, and take it back. A few things I took out of just watching 30 minutes of video.

Ponga is easily our best player on the field.

Pongas clean up work at the back isn’t lazy, except for last game (sick) and two other plays I found.

He is most lethal majority of the time at first receiver playing as a half, and his short kicking game is quality. He very rarely provides anything in a traditional fullback in attack in terms of support play.

His positional play is absolutely shocking. However as we all know under the high ball is up there with the best.

R1, R2, no issues, R3, didn’t play
R4, should have cleaned up a kick but sharks knocked on, I put this down to poor decision then lazy as he had plenty of time.

R5 Gave up on a grubber, caught in defensive line on the 5th also leading to a try from a kick.

R6, ambling to push across to help defend.

R7,8, 9,10, 11 no issues. Then there is a bye I think and didn’t look at the latest Penrith game.

Overall it is disturbing how many soft try we let in from pure soft contact, especially one off the ruck defending our line.

On Ponga, I think he needs to shift to play halfback.
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He plays like a half, we need to put him there and let him start developing his game as a half. We're probably actually holding him back by not moving him there now. We're waiting for him to develop into a good fullback, but he's almost played 100 games now, if he hasn't got the game down by now, he's probably not going to. I want to see him thrust full time into playing at first, second receiver, kicking regularly, now, it brings him into the game every week and he's only going to get better and better doing it every week. But for some reason, the coaching staff can't see it.
 
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