I jumped onto
www.rugbyleagueproject.org to reflect on Madge's time at the bunnies.
After John Lang got them to 9th & 10th following the disastrous JT period Madge was in charge from 2012.
Now Lang had a pretty handy squad back in 2011 - Main names Sam Burgess, Greg Inglis, Michael Crocker, Roy Asotasi, Issac Luke, Chris McQueen (the good version) James Roberts (the other good one) John Sutton, Chris Sandow & Dave Taylor.
So when Madge took over what happened? - cos they made the Prelim Final in 2012!
Well, not a lot actually - in fact Roy & Jimmy left & George B joined but only played 3 games off the bench. So what happened - Enter Adam Reynolds! The only significant move in that 1st Madge season.
They made the Prelim Final again in 2013.
Fast forward to 2014 - What did the Squad look like in just 2 years?
SPEED to burn - In the backs: Greg Ingliss, Alex Johnson, Kirisome Auva'A, Luke Keary, Lote Tuquiri, Dylan Walker, Mobile forwards to balance the Burgess brute force: Api Koroisau, Kyle Turner, Ben T'eo, John Sutton into the forwards.
They smashed the Dog's big men to smithereens.
IN 2015 they made the Qual Final from 7th and thus were never a real chance. Then 12th in consecutive years and Madge is off to England.
Was Madge a development coach? - probably not. He already had the nucleus of a very good team when he arrived.
With Sam Burgess and Greg Inglis in your stable, you'd be pretty happy. Did he need to develop Ben T'eo, Lote? Nope. Plus he had plenty of depth players who'd been around the park - like Joel Reddy & Bryson Goodwin and a young bloke at heart in Robbie Farah. That's not to say that some of the young ones like Cameron McInnes & Angus Crichton didn't benefit from their time at Souffs but arguably McInnes & Crichton were fully developed at Cronulla & Easts respectively whilst Damien Cook & Cody Walker both started 1st Grade in their mid 20s so they had matured certainly but weren't on the radar as Development players.
BTW Reynolds won the Rookie of the year Award in 2012 debuting at the ripe old age of 22 after missing 2011 with an ACL. But the point being that Adam was already a superstar having played NSW U/17s in 2007 then progressing through the Bunnies Toyota Cup U/20s team making the GF in 2010. Madge wasn't in the club at that time.
So, compare Madge's arrival here to his Bunnies arrival - a salary cap mess and players not worth the Dencorub bill vs superstars in Burgess & Inglis. That there was our dilemma - wrong type of coach for the time of our product life cycle!
I guess the expectation at the time was that we needed a coach who would rearrange the Titanic deckchairs. A tough disciplinarian expected to turn broken bums into well-oiled machines or move them on was a task too far. It created disharmony & the Matterson issue really reinforced our reputation as a basketcase club. He succeeded at The Bunnies quickly because he had the cattle.- 4 years of finals and a GF win, not bad!
So the last years at the Bunnies, if reports are true, may have resembled our terrible Wild West expose! But seriously, how many times would you put up with being yelled at?
Apologies for the long post but having got that off my chest I must say I am quietly confident that Sheens will prevail with Ciraldo who may just be the 5-year solution.
Cheers