Your forgetting Nathan Brown's context, Bennett left us a flaming wreck after the tinkler era, our cap was hilariously bad overpaying people like the Sims is my favourite example.
He basically had to torch us with Mooney and rebuild using never was's and young kids. (Josh Starling and Brock Lamb as examples.).
He even said early on he would never be there to see the success and when O'Brien came in he was given a competitive roster.
No not forgetting the context at all. It was a bad situation no doubt, but there's no excuse for walking in and saying right from the start you'll be getting the wooden spoon.
No excuse for winning only one game in a salary cap comp, not even the Tigers have been that bad
He still had the likes of Mullen, Rochow, Smith, Gags, Sione, Aku, Hodkinson - most of which had been to a prelim a few years earlier with Wayne.
There was a bunch of games they only lost by a few points they possibly could've won but how much belief do you think a team had in themselves when the coach walked in and said they'd be last, just to save his own ***. Even if he thought it, you don't say it out loud.
Regardless of how inexperienced Holbrook might've been at the time, I'm sure he would've at least tried to instil some belief in them, young as some of them were.
Everything’s worked out but I think 2016-17 were bad years made even worse by a really bad coach, whose only real skill appears to be his ability to convince people he’s not