I'm middle of the road on this, with the wins over a few big scalps masking regular losses to those below us on the ladder, that the above results show we should have beaten. I don't know that I would call it a culture issue, but it is definitely an issue.
When looking at the club as a whole, there is no doubt that the club is in a much improved position and was so when Cleary arrived. As with the previous couple of coaches, inheriting a squad not if his making, unlike them, Ivan had the advantage of at least half the players being off contract and only forking out $100k odd for Sirro to play elsewhere this season. Despite not getting an initial off season, he was able directly monitor and decide on which others to keep whilst starting to mold them for this season without a scrap of pressure.
It must be remembered that Potter and Taylor were appointed pretty well as their pre-seasons were about to start and with little or no wriggle room or say in recruitment, with board members interfering, even directly arranging contracts. Contrast this to a coach given much greater control over his squad and recruitment, there is no comparison to be made, so Ivan should rightly be held more to account than his predecessors.
Our off field 'culture' certainly appears to be much improved, but so it damn should be. Rather than struggling by with a shortage of dollars and a couple of NRL appointed directors having WT hamstrung, the partnership structure is sorted and financially sound. Apart from the lack of premium facilities, which is being attended to, there are no real barriers to WT competing with most of other clubs.
Basically, pretty well all the building blocks were there for a successful season and if we don't make the finals, which is very unlikely, then the season is yet another failure, culture or not.
