@ said:
Every possible thing on Cleary gate has been discussed fifty times. Basically there are two options.
1 we keep him for two years or more
2 we do a deal with Gus the fat toad
Iam one of the few that have no problems with him staying just the two years and finishing the re build. On the other hand I am okay with starting it fresh with a new guy.
The one thing that must happen…..This has to be resolved very very quickly so the place can return to normal business. One last thing...if Cleary stays, both him and the club have to do plenty of repair work and not a 30 second prepared statement
I agree.
Does nobody think it's a bit ironic that most on here were happy to sign NC as halfback from 2020, but a significant number of those folks wouldn't want to keep Ivan if he had signed somewhere else from 2021? Is Nathan Cleary not going do his job at Penrith in 2019 if he's going to the Tigers a year later? Would Ivan not do his job at Tigers if he was leaving a few years later?
In fact for me, the idea that it's 2 years from now and not 1, that's even more stability; yet some people think that is untenable.
The point I continue to make is look at the current contract situation for all NRL coaches - very few of them have their futures sewn up beyond 2020, which is the Ivan situation - only Bellamy, Green and Robinson, and they are all extensions done in 2018.
Every other coach has contract ending 2019 or 2020 - Bennett has an option for 2019?
So whilst you might make an argument that having a coach sign elsewhere in advance impacts recruitment in a way that signing a player in a similar timeframe does not, what player can truly sign a long-term deal with any club and "expect" that the coach doesn't change?
If you sign for Tigers right now for 2 years, that's the entire length of Cleary's current contract. If you sign for 3 years until end 2021, then you skip over him by 1 year and you know he's leaving. But that would also be true of most clubs - signing a 3-year deal 2019-2021 for 13/16 NRL clubs would mean you have no assurances that the current coach will still be there when you finish up.
And then with the way coaches get culled these days, not even short-term player contracts have any guarantees that a coach will see out his contract.
What would actually be worse would be if we cut Cleary right now, in terms of assuring players, because most of them have signed on for terms equivalent to Cleary's coaching contract. So yes maybe the speculation impacts future signings, but what of Matulino, Packer, Matterson, Mbye, Farah, Benji, Brooks etc. - real current players, not future speculative players - who all signed on with the understanding that Cleary would be the coach for the term of their contract?
I agree that I'd like this sorted for certain as soon as possible, publicly, but not for future signings, for the stability of the current roster.