The "Mark My Words" Thread

Shane Flanagan isn’t a bad shout. Not a fan of how he comes across personally with his history but as a coach he sh*ts all over AOB from a great height.
 
cowboyman said:
Shane Flanagan isn’t a bad shout. Not a fan of how he comes across personally with his history but as a coach he sh*ts all over AOB from a great height.
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Flanagan is a premiership winning coach, with a consistently high win percentage. Decent family man.

Sure, he got caught cheating. But so did Bellamy. Only Bellamy won a few premierships while cheating. Somehow I can't see people taking issue with the suggestion of Bellamy coming to Newcastle.

Not to mention all the other coaches who oversaw the systemic use of performance enhancing drugs, and routine abuse of the salary cap over the last decade or two.

On paper, Flanagan is the most awarded head Coach the Knights are likely to poach. Why is that a bad thing? It's not like we haven't sucked for 2 decades.
 
Flanagan has a good coaching record so he obviously can coach.

Comparing him to Bellamy is absurd though. Say for instance they were both aware of what was going on at their clubs. There’s a significant difference between paying players extra money to stay as opposed to pumping them full of PEDs to make them play better.

Don’t necessarily agree with him being a better coach than Obi either.
Flanagan missed the finals his first 2 seasons with Cronulla and finished 7th in the 3rd.
We haven’t played brilliant football by any means the last 2 years but have made back to back finals for the 1st time in 20 years which is something.

O’Brien definitely deserves this season to prove his coaching credentials and replacing him with someone like Flanagan or Arthur is a lateral move at best.
 
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The game has changed a lot since his time as coach, we wouldn’t get very far with that grinding Cronulla style of play these days. I’m happy to leave him in the pages of history.
 
That’s a good point James.

That Cronulla comp-winning side had a lot going for it, but scintillating attack wasn’t one of those things.
 
I thought it was my job to be first to call time on any coach we have, but I have to say that O'Brien has made plenty of rookie errors and has been outcoached by most of the experienced old guys on game day, but even so he's got us into the finals twice in a row and seems to be improving a lot of players individually.
If Joey can add the game day nous that O'Brien lacks and O'Brien keeps improving the squad as he has steadily since he got here, I think we are going OK.
 
I'm not death riding OB by any means. I'm happy with what he has done here so far.

But.

He hasn't done very much with our squad in the attitude department and getting the team to believe they can win any game, and getting the squad up for every game. Not all of that is his fault alone, but a coach needs to be able to get the team playing for him and all pulling in the same direction. We have had the same core of players for a while now, fairly set pack, Ponga as our main attacking weapon and you can see some improvement in attitude. Is that his influence or just the squad maturing on it's own though?

Defence has been ordinary. Defence is all about attitude.
Attack also fairly ordinary.

He gets a pass so far, but only because of where we have come from before he got here.
 
As a defensive unit we work a lot better then the years gone by. I actually don't cringe when a half break is made by the opposition. Our attack stinks but that's more to do with our structures then the talent available. His man management is what is getting into finals but it's the polish we lack on game day. One week we attack fine with garbage defence and swap the next week. We need to bring bad and great performances closer together to be any chance of a premiership.
 
Billy said:
I thought it was my job to be first to call time on any coach we have, but I have to say that O'Brien has made plenty of rookie errors and has been outcoached by most of the experienced old guys on game day, but even so he's got us into the finals twice in a row and seems to be improving a lot of players individually.
If Joey can add the game day nous that O'Brien lacks and O'Brien keeps improving the squad as he has steadily since he got here, I think we are going OK.
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Fair thoughts.

Gotta say, how we act with ball in hand in 2022 is an open question. But I'm optimistic.

If I'm making predictions I'm expecting it to be too big a hill to climb in one season. Especially given our lack of seasonal quality and experience in the halves.
 
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It’s abit tough comparing a coach who’s had 6 years of 1st grade coaching experience under his belt with a man who signed to the top job for the first time in 2020.
Flanagan is a great coach but I’d just like AOB to be given some more time
 
2022 Bold predictions
Ponga to win Dally M over Turbo

Knights to spend most of the season in the bottom 8 before scraping in the finals footy in the last round with a win to get through.

Brailey to return by round 21

Clifford to take his game to a another level this year and be close to dally m halfback

Mat Croker to be in the starting 17 by end of the season

Klemmer to leave at the end of the season
 
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