Benji 2025 and Beyond

[Feline Carrier]

They've moved him on before. Twice.

The media will take his side. Who gives a shit if we actually sign a coach who had coached in the NRL in the last 5 years and actually served an apprenticeship.

We will squander a good recruitment period to keep a "club son" who has shit on us twice before when things didn't go his way.

I'd have thrown the kitchen sink at Unca Wayne. He had an affinity for Benji and could have worked with him for a future in coaching. A stupid move not to entertain it.

 

[Magpie_Magic]

Anyone got stat's success rates of teams with players binned/sent and the amount of backs we turned over/ lost during games necessitating reshuffles?

Seemed early on we were routinely losing backs during games.

 

[innsaneink]

Yvonne and friends on FoxLeague put up a graphic of our incoming signings.

The entire panel, including Brandy and Cronk spoke about how they will improve our roster.

Luai
Turuva
Skelton
Royce
Bird
And Horsbrough (likely)

Things will be better next year in that aspect and perhaps Luai alone will be all it takes to drive some standards that Benji may or may not appear to drive.

They did that last night too and Corey Parker said the thing is theyre all attacking players bar maybe Bird and possibly Horsborough....attack isnt what we need to focus on and fix, defence is the crucial issue thats killing us, fix the defence or at least improve it and that goes a long way to alleviating our next biggest problem which is discipline
Morris needs to follow Farah out the door

 

[innsaneink]

I think the result was a complete reflection on that attitude.
The whole team must be divided at the moment, you have your senior guys just grafting away trying to stay in the contest as best as possible where as the young guys are told just have fun don’t worry about the fundamentals of Rugby league.

Benji telling them to ''just play footy'' imo tells me he'd already checked out somewhat...either that or he was out of ideas or just didnt really give a shit.
To come out and publicly admit it I think tells us a lot more than we all may think...or maybe he really doesnt have much of a clue on coaching as many of us think

 

[Oldman]

Let’s look at Friday nights backline
2x half’s that are teenagers
2x Centre’s that are reserve graders at best

2x Wingers (1 leaving & 1 imposter)
1x fullback that is not NRL ready

I don’t care who the coach is with that backline no one is going to succeed.

I’m happy to support Benji as the coach for the next 2 years and I will be expecting to be reminded of this after any big losses next year in and around the winning games.

 

[innsaneink]

20 something sin bins for the season certainly didn't help our defence

Generally it was our defence which contibuted to many of those binnings...
If you dominate and win the ruck you dont need to infringe to barely compete

 

[innsaneink]

I put it to you both.
Is there an indication that Benji wants to be a first grade coach? Or the coach of the first grade Wests Tigers team.
It’s very Freddy Fittler like.

There was an indication he doesnt wanna be one in last nights admission it was his fault telling them to ''just play footy''

 

[Tucker]

Let’s look at Friday nights backline
2x half’s that are teenagers
2x Centre’s that are reserve graders at best

2x Wingers (1 leaving & 1 imposter)
1x fullback that is not NRL ready

I don’t care who the coach is with that backline no one is going to succeed.

I’m happy to support Benji as the coach for the next 2 years and I will be expecting to be reminded of this after any big losses next year in and around the winning games.

Who picked those players?
WTF are you talking about?
Benji isn’t the victim here….LMFAO

 

[Telltails]

The coach is always the target whether he has a spine with three teenagers or a squad that were grandfinalists the previous year. No one knows that better than the coaches themselves and the players who have their fate in their hands.

 

[J.T]

Who picked those players?
WTF are you talking about?
Benji isn’t the victim here….LMFAO

Out of curiosity, what backline would you have picked? There is a fair case for Naden potentially being there given his NSW Cup form has been ok, although he let us down a number of times in first grade earlier this year. Im struggling to think of anyone else who should have been there out of those that were available but i could be forgetting someone

 

[Tucker]

Out of curiosity, what backline would you have picked? There is a fair case for Naden potentially being there given his NSW Cup form has been ok, although he let us down a number of times in first grade earlier this year. Im struggling to think of anyone else who should have been there out of those that were available but i could be forgetting someone

For this particular game there wasn’t too many options.
I was more referring to the roster in general.

 

[Robbie's Love Child]

Who picked those players?
WTF are you talking about?
Benji isn’t the victim here….LMFAO

Who else could he pick Alex Lobb, Naden, he doesn't have any other options. Some people think he has superstars to choice from on the roster, lets see how he goes next year with a stronger roster before crucifying the bloke. The team has improved and the signs are positive.

 

[palms]

I'm in the not sold bucket on Benji. Ill give it a few rounds next year with Luai to see how the shape improves because we were running around like headless chooks with seemingly no game plan.

Where does he go to with our defence because that is the number one headache and has been for some time. That is a mentality where I can fault Benji and assistants..look at how the Bulldogs have improved with no superstars in their pack bar potentially Kikau.

 

[Tiger_claws]

I don’t think sacking Benji will help but the recruitment of assistant coaches and s & c staff should be a priority. I was disappointed with a couple his selections for the Parra game. You could also tell that we treated the game as a novelty and Parra treated like a final and thats on Benji as well. People saying we should get Madge back, the comp goes for longer than 6 weeks so not sure how his style of coaching goes after that period. The head coach spends more time babysitting than coaching. The assistant coaches do majority of coaching so its so important we get that right. Giving a job for the boys ie Farah under Benji and Snoopy Collins during Madges reign doesn’t cut it anymore. I was hoping we picked up either Steve Antonelli (very experienced Cup coach) or Steve Murphy (Eels blue shirt) both highly regarded and respected but both are heading to Souths next year. I would like to know how many games we used the same spine, the same centre/wing combination (on either side) this year. So many factors that contributed to us getting the spoon and yes some poor team selections by Benji was one of these factors. I do agree though that if we don’t see improvement early next year he could be in trouble to hold his job. I honestly don’t think many other coaches would’ve improved us this year with the same circumstances.

 

[bptiger 0]

Then the NRL put another nail in benjis coffin, API got three weeks , for that tackle , seen others get away with nothing , they must really hate us , not saying it was wasn’t bad but 3 weeks bullshit

 

[bptiger 0]

I don’t think sacking Benji will help but the recruitment of assistant coaches and s & c staff should be a priority. I was disappointed with a couple his selections for the Parra game. You could also tell that we treated the game as a novelty and Parra treated like a final and thats on Benji as well. People saying we should get Madge back, the comp goes for longer than 6 weeks so not sure how his style of coaching goes after that period. The head coach spends more time babysitting than coaching. The assistant coaches do majority of coaching so its so important we get that right. Giving a job for the boys ie Farah under Benji and Snoopy Collins during Madges reign doesn’t cut it anymore. I was hoping we picked up either Steve Antonelli (very experienced Cup coach) or Steve Murphy (Eels blue shirt) both highly regarded and respected but both are heading to Souths next year. I would like to know how many games we used the same spine, the same centre/wing combination (on either side) this year. So many factors that contributed to us getting the spoon and yes some poor team selections by Benji was one of these factors. I do agree though that if we don’t see improvement early next year he could be in trouble to hold his job. I honestly don’t think many other coaches would’ve improved us this year with the same circumstances.

Antonelli coached my young bloke back in the day and we coached together at Glenmoore park many years ago , he’s a good bloke

 

[GNR4LIFE]

Then the NRL put another nail in benjis coffin, API got three weeks , for that tackle , seen others get away with nothing , they must really hate us , not saying it was wasn’t bad but 3 weeks bullshit

Oh yeah, they really hate us Good grief 🙄

 

[bptiger 0]

Oh yeah, they really hate us Good grief 🙄

U get out of the wrong side of the bed 😡

 

[Tucker]

Who else could he pick Alex Lobb, Naden, he doesn't have any other options. Some people think he has superstars to choice from on the roster, lets see how he goes next year with a stronger roster before crucifying the bloke. The team has improved and the signs are positive.

Benji has been here for over 2 years. During that time decisions were made to sign and not sign players, to let others walk and to bring the youth through.
He was involved in these decisions and it’s resulted in a pair of spoons. The reserves he had to choose from for Friday night are a by product of the poor planning this club is renowned for when it comes to recruitment and player depth.
It is not poor Benji….it is we reap what we sow.
Will he have a stronger roster next year? Slightly\maybe.
Has the team improved as you claim? I don’t think so. They’ve just ended the worst defensive season in this clubs history and their attack wasn’t great either. Their discipline was very poor most of the year as well.
Are the signs positive? No. Getting flogged like that at home will not bode well for those still staying here. It may change the mind of others who are yet to re-sign to boot.
Luai must feel sick that he signed on here….probably just as Api did 2 years ago Id suspect.

 

[Tucker]

Then the NRL put another nail in benjis coffin, API got three weeks , for that tackle , seen others get away with nothing , they must really hate us , not saying it was wasn’t bad but 3 weeks bullshit

The NRL didn’t do that, Api did. Our defensive coaches did. Benji did.