Sack Adam O’Brien

Kurriboy said:
To me thats an even more damning stat against OB, because the Brown years we truly had an awful roster and righlty took out the spoon.

When OB took over the roster was improving and the team also.

Yet he still couldnt manage improvement in attack.
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Not too much change between 2019 and 2020 ... Brailey the main signing, Blake Green and McCullogh came in as mid-season signings due to a lot of injuries. Lost Buhrer, SKD, Ramien and Nathan Ross from 2019. The 2019 squad was highly rated before the season started. 2018 too, to a lesser extent, when we signed Pearce and Ponga.
 
jamesgould said:
No doubt you'll have some reason this is wrong, but here's the number of tries we scored with Ponga at the club during Brown and AOB's seasons in charge:

2018, Brown, 24 games: 73 tries
2019, Brown (and Woolf for a couple), 24 games: 79 tries
2020, AOB, 21 games: 78 tries
2021, AOB, 25 games: 80 tries
2022, AOB, 24 games: 70 tries
2023, AOB, 26 games, 121 tries
2024, AOB, 21 games, 65 tries

Looking at 2020 and 2021 compared to 2018 and 2019 our attack really didn't change much at all. I'm not saying it has been great under AOB, but it was far from good under Brown either.
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I have the worst memory as far as past players and coach experiences. I was listening to Aku Uate on Andy Raymond’s podcast talk about Bennett getting the Knights to within one game of the grand final and it unlocked the memory! I honestly forgot all about that and just assumed he was garbage for us… then you mention Wolf and how terrible Brown was for us.

Swear I’m getting dementia
 
MBQLD said:
I have the worst memory as far as past players and coach experiences. I was listening to Aku Uate on Andy Raymond’s podcast talk about Bennett getting the Knights to within one game of the grand final and it unlocked the memory! I honestly forgot all about that and just assumed he was garbage for us… then you mention Wolf and how terrible Brown was for us.

Swear I’m getting dementia
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Nah it is very easy with the Knights to forget most of that Tinkner and NRL owned era, it was such a terrible time. I had to go back and check those figures and signings, mainly because I didn’t remember them either. But I do think Brown is looked back on with rose tinted glasses for some reason, so wanted to show that.
 
Brad tighe said:
Honestly our issues are deeper than AOB I’m not convinced sacking him changes this club.
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Agree. But we have brought in Parr and O'Sullivan so have started to make changes, OB should be another change, and more importantly getting Gardner and his cronies away from the club as they seem to be big contributors to the culture there.

Then at the same time clear out the deadweight on the roster.
 
on this whole kpi thing. Regardless of where we finish this year he still has a contract for 2027 it doesnt make the contract null and void, what it does if the kpi isnt met is it reduces (i dont know by how much) the payout he recieves should he be sacked.
That infomation has come from the club today via andrew webster.
 
Les Misérables said:
He needed to go 2 or 3 years ago. His first season with us was the exposè of his coaching.

We were immediately better defensively. Immediately. And that's what impressed most people. But it was just as evident that our attack went backwards, we all of a sudden forgot how to unlock Ponga the way Brown managed to easily do. Everyone made the assumption that we had new systems and the attack would click soon enough. And it never happened.

Its been 5 years of the most asinine and boring attacking footy in the clubs history, save for 11 games last year where we gave the ball to our world class centre/wing pairings and let them cook.

We're not a serious club. If we were we wouldn't have persisted with 5 years of an average rookie coach. It's unconscionably wasteful.
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Yep first year he said we just have to get our defence right than I'll focus on attack ?
Waiting waiting ????
 
Brad tighe said:
Honestly our issues are deeper than AOB I’m not convinced sacking him changes this club.
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At the end of the day, the responsibility is with the players. Our roster isn't great, and many of our higher paid players are not delivering. A side with these problems is never going to consistently do well.

People love to blame the refs and the coach for all our problems, but only the players can take some responsibility and turn it around.
 
Just re the Brownie/AOB comparison....both of them have done some good things for the club in moving us forward both structurally, playing roster, back of house capability, etc. BUT what both of them have also given us is this:

* a very poor coaching/game plan strategy based on a 'safe', rigid, predictable, unwavering, boring, risk averse approach that kills a team's capacity to develop and assert attacking dominance on any opposition - we might get the illusion of 'attacking' dominance with regularly controlling good field position in possession for reasonable periods of a game.... but you can almost see the defence getting ready for the 98% predictable end over end chip bomb (by AOB) or kick for touch in the Red Zone ( by Brownie) on the last by about play number 4?!
* a handbrake on any sort of heads up, off the cuff, on the fly or adlib skills/talent being applied by our attacking structures in general play. I think it is more evident now, that we don't have a controlling/organising player like a Pearce who was our on field general to manage 80-90% of the attacking structure as a platform that the top tier sides have. And, in truth, that is because there is nobody of that calibre in our squad who has the respect or trust of the team to deliver that role. The only variability we have is 'give it to Ponga' and see what happens

So , in both instances we've gone with the principles of safety first, predictable football that most journeymen can do to get us into a grind, focus on possession control and field position, move us into the red zone for the potential to achieve scoring opportunities, whilst minimising opposition scoring opportunities. And that is generally where things stop for us because we seem fairly bereft of what to do once we get into the red zone....and that is also where our level of sophistication generally also seems to end as far as game plans go

BUT there are then 2 things that every other team does (and that we don't seem to do) when they analyse us and understand our game plan...

Firstly, they set counter strategies to pick our rigidity apart and leverage flaws in that level of predictability to turn our lack of flexibility against us to create pressure and errors. They do this through discipline (good and consistent defensive line speed, controlling/dominating the ruck in both attack and defence... and by doing all of this, they more readily control the overall tempo of the game.

Secondly, they have the ability to both walk and chew gum at the same time....they can play the same high percentage game strategy but also have counter measures to change things up(i.e. vary the game tempo), and they have variability and free their players up to play heads up football and pivot from their structure and create a bit of 'chaos' among the certainty (i.e they vary their predictability)

So, in both instances, this flexibility and counter-strategy that is afforded by other coaches who also empower their teams/on-field leaders with 'permission' to colour outside the lines, is not something either Brownie or AOB seem to be able to bring to the table as a coach.

From my assessment, both AOB and Brownie have both used the same theory base but neither has demonstrated the coaching capability/skill set to develop or implement the sophistication of strategy and counter-strategy at an NRL level that should make the Knights a more consistently competitive force in the NRL than they are.

And as a club unfortunately, this will continue to be the case for us fans, while ever they set a benchmark of not finishing lower than 12th as a pass mark for our coaches, players and supporting staff.
 
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jamesgould said:
At the end of the day, the responsibility is with the players. Our roster isn't great, and many of our higher paid players are not delivering. A side with these problems is never going to consistently do well.

People love to blame the refs and the coach for all our problems, but only the players can take some responsibility and turn it around.
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Is it not the coaches job to get the best out of the players, deal with underperformance in various ways, motivate the team and provide an environment that fosters these good performances?

We're back to the if only we had better players argument, yet here is the Bulldogs fighting for a top 4 spot! Do they have better players than us do they? Or just better attitudes?

The responsibility lies squarely with the coach. Saying anything else just invites more and more mediocrity to continue.

The players have their responsibility don't get me wrong, but if the players aren't performing, that is on the coach to deal with!
 
jamesgould said:
At the end of the day, the responsibility is with the players. Our roster isn't great, and many of our higher paid players are not delivering. A side with these problems is never going to consistently do well.

People love to blame the refs and the coach for all our problems, but only the players can take some responsibility and turn it around.
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I would question the point about our roster not being great, on paper at least. We have a generational Dally M winner at FB, we have a winger who has scored over 20 tries in a season, 2 Origin level centres and several rep level forwards. That roster should be top 6.

Injuries to key players have impacted this season but not as much as our low risk, boring as hell style of play. As Nutty says, we need to be able to deploy different game plans based on who we are playing, what we need to get out of the game, the weather conditions, etc. Our failure to do that is down to AOB and his coaching team.
 
Brad tighe said:
Honestly our issues are deeper than AOB I’m not convinced sacking him changes this club.
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Neither am I convinced. But what I do know is that if we don't sack him we're guaranteed to stay where we are.

If the downside risk of attempting to better ourselves is that we accidentally damage ourselves I'm comfortable with that. Being stagnant as a bottom 8 club is unacceptable.
 
jamesgould said:
No doubt you'll have some reason this is wrong, but here's the number of tries we scored with Ponga at the club during Brown and AOB's seasons in charge:

2018, Brown, 24 games: 73 tries
2019, Brown (and Woolf for a couple), 24 games: 79 tries
2020, AOB, 21 games: 78 tries
2021, AOB, 25 games: 80 tries
2022, AOB, 24 games: 70 tries
2023, AOB, 26 games, 121 tries
2024, AOB, 21 games, 65 tries

Looking at 2020 and 2021 compared to 2018 and 2019 our attack really didn't change much at all. I'm not saying it has been great under AOB, but it was far from good under Brown either.
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I'm not making the argument that Brown was a good coach or even a better coach than AOB. I wouldn't make that argument tbh. But in terms of attack Ponga was getting better quality ball as a 19/20 year old under Brown than he has under AOB.

That's totally anecdotal. But it's what I saw. The thing I was most disappointed by during AOBs first season was how we seemed to move away from what had obviously worked so well for Ponga. Perhaps what it was replaced with works better, who knows. But I stand by what I saw at the time.

I appreciate that try stats in isolation appear to undermine my recollection of things but at the same time there's more to it than try stats, such as Pongas age, the improving squad around him etc.

Anyway, the point I was making in my previous post on this was that AOB seemed to be offensively underwhelming as a coach compared to Brown.
 
A few things have happened since Parr has been here, losing Dom young, signing Jack Cogger, AOB crazy contract clause and not looking after Ron Griffiths. Non of these decisions inspire me with confidence going forward. Ron G and Dom Y are possibly the two best people we recruited recently and they weren't locked in. I can see Pryce and KPP leaving along the same lines as Dom, both have a ton of unlocked potential. The storm converted Josh King into a starting forward in a very competitive team, imagine what they would do for our developing players. I really think we struggle to get the best out of players whereas 25yrs ago it was the exact opposite.
 
Les Misérables said:
I'm not making the argument that Brown was a good coach or even a better coach than AOB. I wouldn't make that argument tbh. But in terms of attack Ponga was getting better quality ball as a 19/20 year old under Brown than he has under AOB.

That's totally anecdotal. But it's what I saw. The thing I was most disappointed by during AOBs first season was how we seemed to move away from what had obviously worked so well for Ponga. Perhaps what it was replaced with works better, who knows. But I stand by what I saw at the time.

I appreciate that try stats in isolation appear to undermine my recollection of things but at the same time there's more to it than try stats, such as Pongas age, the improving squad around him etc.

Anyway, the point I was making in my previous post on this was that AOB seemed to be offensively underwhelming as a coach compared to Brown.
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Well it definitely didn't improve under AOB anyway, apart from the blip last year. So I agree really haha.
 
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