Sack Adam O’Brien

Kurriboy said:
I agree, don't sack a coach based on finishing position alone.

Sack him on the team not being competitive for most of his tenure save 1 run last season.
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Don't get me wrong. I don't Obi is the right man to get us to a premiership. For the sake of contractual KPIs though, I think a finishing position of 12th or higher in a given year is reasonable, based on the fact that the next year could be far improved (and was for us the year before).
 
waynesworld said:
Completely agree that we missed the jump, but I’ve got a feeling they weren’t prepared for Hastings drop off. He looked completely off the pace and a shadow of himself from the season before.

I think the grinding style that they’ve implemented has been off the back of the halves struggling, and it’s really been bleak how we can’t run away with game in the last 20. At the end of the season I think it’ll be really interesting to see when in games we scored our most tries, because it does feel like we’ve just tried to hold onto so many games this year and lost late.

The toughest thing about 2025 is the halves situation isn’t going to change, but I guess our game style will have to adapt. We were the best attacking side in 2023, so the ability is there they definitely just need to refresh the mindset.
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Thing we learnt from last year is that if everyone does there job and if injuries are kind, the forwards and 9 get over the advantage line and give space for adequate halves to get KP/Best/Gagai space. KP is more quality than you need sometimes so just executing a strong forward gameplan, good 9 work will deliver the space required for any of them. I think Sharpe is in the same boat with his speed and so will Schiller. give them some space and tries will come.

I think the team just struggled with the mentality of training hard and playing hard. They did it for one season last year and clearly didn't train hard in post season. Coaching staff need to learn off it too, you need to better the effort from last year in pre season.

There is a possibility we may get Pezet before 25 season isn't there? few chips have to fall I think. I think with O'Sullivan around, it'll be very interesting where we go with our halves and what they are aiming for.
 
The interesting thing about all of this will be to see how the players react in their performances over the last 3 games to go 👍 or 👎 for Adz...if he has lost the playing group, their performances should reflect that...or they will go hard to see that he stays?

In reality, my concern is what is realistically left in the available coaching ranks to pick over, considering the cupboard is becoming pretty bare at the moment - I was a big fan of seeing either Craig Fitzgibbon or Cameron Ciraldo as the Knights coach when Brown was moved on...I always thought Ciraldo in particular had the pedigree and grounding at Penrith although at that stage he was certainly an untested commodity...but he has come through this season as the next big thing.

We actually have the club now setup for success with the Centre of Excellence, a solid financial foundation, a quality back of house with Parr, O'Sullivan and a junior development system that seems to be creating genuine future first graders....but who do we want out of a limited crop of potential coaches that would be a long term solution to move us into a consistent top 4 side?

The next coach we get has to be able to use all of the tools we have built up to get us a premiership window within the next 2-3 years...let's talk through the options?

Do we look at local experienced options like Brian Smith, Madge, Barrett, Morris or Brad Arthur go with new blood like a Josh Hannay, Dean Young, promote from within with a Brain McDermott or go an overseas route with an ESL coach?
 
The knights of old were a talented bunch of footballers. What I see out there now are coached robots. If we get back to what worked for us, creating rather then trying to "bludgeon" teams down to our level we might actually make a first of it and young guys can keep playing their natural game.
 
JOJO82 said:
If this finishing above 12th clause is real then I am absolutely speechless at how mediocre this club is....

They are really setting the bar high saying you need to finish above 12th....why wouldn't you set 8th place as minimum.

No wonder we are always so rubbish.
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Forget 8th, the top clubs eg Storm, Panthers would set 5th-6th as the minimum.

Doesn't sit well with me that our club is happy to be mediocre.

O'Sullivan will need a large broom to clean this up, we've got good juniors coming through but need some old experience proven premiership winners which are hard to find signed.
 
I don’t think any coach would sign a contract saying that if you don’t make the 8 the last 2 years are void. I think the club probably thought there is no excuse for finishing bottom 4 and AOB probably agrees so that clause was put in so they can make a move. I don’t think this year has been good enough either however there clearly has been mitigating circumstances for the performances.
 
MattyM said:
Only difference is we finished 5th last year and are looking to come 12th this year. Bit of a difference.
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Clearly there's a difference. What's your point though? We've certainly underperformed even at 12th. That said, I think a KPI of 12th or higher is a reasonable one, which is my point.

People saying that successful clubs would require a KPI of top 6-8. What coach would bank on the Knights coming that high to trigger contract term extensions?
 
Perhaps the best option for us as a potential head coach is already at the club. Brian McDermott won 4 Super League titles with Leeds.
Not saying that means he's the Messiah and will take us to 4 premierships, but that sort of thing doesn't happen by accident.

Plus, it's not like there's a huge contingent of quality coaches available at the moment. If we were to sack AOB it should've happened a year ago so we could snap up one of Shane Flanagan or Anthony Seibold, who are both leading their teams to likely top 8 finishes.
 
I don’t mind McDermott taking over. What about Willie Peters? I know he was an assistant here previously. He currently has his side top of the table in the Super League. Anyone that follows the Super League know what sort of style his team plays? Someone left field would be Sam Burgess. We just need to get him before Souths does.
 
Extremely unlikely we fall to 13th even if we lose our last 3. Would be relying on wins from the Titans and Raiders and they both play the Panthers and Roosters over the final 3 rounds.

Edit: Actually didn't factor in the Warriors who are 3 points behind and have 2 tough games (Bulldogs, Sharks) but a bye in the final round. Still pretty unlikely but not impossible.
 
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Newygirl said:
Wow that’s actually even worse. So there’s no expectation on him until 2026? Even then, the expectation is achieving the lofty heights of top 13?
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There may be other performance incentives before then (bonus payments depending on results etc). This sounds like a particular incentive where a contract extension is triggered based on ladder result.
 
Every milestone game that comes along that the fans are really up for, the Knights don’t show up.
Now most fans are pumped with this prospect, watch the Knights win their last games of the year comfortably
 
I think my biggest head scratcher with all of this is that the Peter Parr's and Phil Gardiner's of the club are now incentivising him to keep us playing 'Adz-ball' to achieve safe mediocrity for the next 3 years and not incentivising any form of performance criteria on him that sees us progressively climb to the heights of a Penrith or Melbourne Storm.

It sounds like the same sort of deal that saw Brad Arthur stay at Paramatta from 2014 -2024 without 1 premiership to his name. I acknowledge that he had them finishing as high as 3rd (2020) in the season and achieving 1 grand final appearance in 2023 but never seemed to have the ability to get them a premiership win.

IS that going to be a record acceptable to the fans???
 
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