Adam O'Brien replacement?

Rough Night said:
Well, I'm not sure of our spiralling attack demise being over 3 years but definitely this year. Letting Pearce go without an equivalent replacement, supplemented by a young yet promising 5/8 was the dumbest decision of AOB's career. That decision certainly highlighted his inexperience for me. No top 4 coach would've done that; period.
The only way AOB should (can) stay is if we wrangle a dominating 1/2 that can teach him how we should attack. If we don't, I give AOB 8weeks into 2023 season. Unfortunately, that'll mean another god damned rebuilding media spin by the club.
In my profession, we would rather be proactive rather than reactive. Rip off the band-aid now and we'll duly heal and reinvent ourselves over the off-season. Just sayin'...
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Even with Pearce, were we not a boring and predictable team?

Its not the squad.
 
Rough Night said:
Well, I'm not sure of our spiralling attack demise being over 3 years but definitely this year. Letting Pearce go without an equivalent replacement, supplemented by a young yet promising 5/8 was the dumbest decision of AOB's career. That decision certainly highlighted his inexperience for me. No top 4 coach would've done that; period.
The only way AOB should (can) stay is if we wrangle a dominating 1/2 that can teach him how we should attack. If we don't, I give AOB 8weeks into 2023 season. Unfortunately, that'll mean another god damned rebuilding media spin by the club.
In my profession, we would rather be proactive rather than reactive. Rip off the band-aid now and we'll duly heal and reinvent ourselves over the off-season. Just sayin'...
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Very hard though because the really ball-dominant 7 is to a certain extent a thing of the past in the NRL. Pearce would usually touch the ball 70+ time per game and sit on the ball both sides of the ruck, and the list of players who've played 7 like that this year is very short: Nathan Cleary, Daly Cherry-Evans and Jackson Hastings is pretty much it. And there's definitely an argument that Hastings is better at 13.
 
Les Misérables said:
Can only laugh when I see suggestions of giving AOB more time. More time for what exactly?

Does anyone really think next season will be any different to the last 3? Serious question. Is there anyone on this forum that actually believes next year we will begin attacking with proper shape, speed and purpose? All of a sudden, out of absolutely nowhere after 3 years of the most predictable, low energy and thoughtless attacking football we've seen from any team in the modern era. Despite having made no material improvements to the squad.

Our only real option is to change coaches in search of new ideas. Because the current ideas clearly aren't working, they've taken us backwards.
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The funny thing about all this is, our first 2 games of the season (after a full pre-season) had all the hallmarks of significant development, direction, improvement and effectiveness on last season(as shown by the results table above). That was even with the impact of being short on quality halves and our lack of depth in general, outside our first string squad.....

What we've had since then is 20 or so weeks of complete and abject failure to solidify and sustain that development within the playing group and coaching staff.

To me there is a real need to do a frank and honest review of this season by Parr, who will be in the perfect position to gather all the information without preconceived ideas (because he hasn't been here).

I'd like to see him make a neutral assessment and initiate what he believes needs to happen to turn this around...as one of the best in the business, it is exactly what he is being paid for and what his skill set is all about.

Until that happens, I'm prepared to give him the time to do his job and make those calls before I evaluate what needs to happen and which personnel need to be moved on to get this club turned around.

It is a given that AOB has to be a key part of that review and is likely to be in the firing line but I'd like to give Parr the chance to do his job properly and apply his skill set based on what he finds and assesses will be the best way forward.

If that includes a change of coach, I'm good with that...BUT I want him to make that call, with all the facts and to have the bigger solutions mapped out because I don't believe JUST getting rid of our coach is going to be the panacea everybody on here thinks it will be.
 
Still_Nutty said:
The funny thing about all this is, our first 2 games of the season (after a full pre-season) had all the hallmarks of significant development, direction, improvement and effectiveness on last season(as shown by the results table above). That was even with the impact of being short on quality halves and our lack of depth in general, outside our first string squad.....

What we've had since then is 20 or so weeks of complete and abject failure to solidify and sustain that development within the playing group and coaching staff.

To me there is a real need to do a frank and honest review of this season by Parr, who will be in the perfect position to gather all the information without preconceived ideas (because he hasn't been here).

I'd like to see him make a neutral assessment and initiate what he believes needs to happen to turn this around...as one of the best in the business, it is exactly what he is being paid for and what his skill set is all about.

Until that happens, I'm prepared to give him the time to do his job and make those calls before I evaluate what needs to happen and which personnel need to be moved on to get this club turned around.

It is a given that AOB has to be a key part of that review and is likely to be in the firing line but I'd like to give Parr the chance to do his job properly and apply his skill set based on what he finds and assesses will be the best way forward.

If that includes a change of coach, I'm good with that...BUT I want him to make that call, with all the facts and to have the bigger solutions mapped out because I don't believe JUST getting rid of our coach is going to be the panacea everybody on here thinks it will be.
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In other words, we should sacrifice another season, another year of wasted careers, players losing interest, our club falling further out of favour with sponsors, marquee players etc. And all for what? To absolutely confirm that AOB isn't as capable a coach as we'd hoped?

That's not how hungry and successful organisations operate.

I should add that while the first 3 rounds of this year were exciting, the wholesale derailment thereafter is the evidence that the playing group is capable of such football, but the coach is failing to get it out of them. 3 good games a season isn't acceptable.
 
Les Misérables said:
Exactly, so why didn't it change once he left?

We've got Brailey, Milford and Ponga in our spine and we play like 2016 Knights with ball in hand. At what point do we start asking questions about the coach 😂
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I’m not saying the attack would have gotten way better with more time, but we kind of actually don’t have the three of them. They played a grand total of 70 minutes together this season.
 
Les Misérables said:
In other words, we should sacrifice another season, another year of wasted careers, players losing interest, our club falling further out of favour with sponsors, marquee players etc. And all for what? To absolutely confirm that AOB isn't as capable a coach as we'd hoped?

That's not how hungry and successful organisations operate.

I should add that while the first 3 rounds of this year were exciting, the wholesale derailment thereafter is the evidence that the playing group is capable of such football, but the coach is failing to get it out of them. 3 good games a season isn't acceptable.
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Didn’t say AOB won’t or shouldn’t be gone at the end of the season…but we got Parr in to do a job and I want him to do it properly - if that includes a clean out of O’Brien (and others) once he’s had chance to review, I’ve got no problem with it.
 
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HarVeeGee13 said:
I’m not saying the attack would have gotten way better with more time, but we kind of actually don’t have the three of them. They played a grand total of 70 minutes together this season.
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Lets be honest though, even if they were all playing together there'd be a marginal improvement in the attack but we'd still suck in all the same effort areas.

Its an effort thing. They give AOB 60%. They always have. He can't get them up.
 
Les Misérables said:
Lets be honest though, even if they were all playing together there'd be a marginal improvement in the attack but we'd still suck in all the same effort areas.

Its an effort thing. They give AOB 60%. They always have. He can't get them up.
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This, our biggest issue is effort.

Coaches need to be able to get players playing FOR them, and for eachother, not just running out for the money.
 
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