The game plan is clear posted it a few times re Flanagan. There are a few sympathising with Madge as there is more to the story. What I’ve heard from people with a good idea is we are asleep at the wheel with scouting and showing up to get deals done with players. Somethings up and it’s not all the coach.
As soon as Maguire comes under the microscope the mantra "look over there" emanates. He is accountable for the atrocious defence and must go.
We had one player miss 11 of the 48 missed tackles against Manly. We have an inexperienced roster not playing as a team, because they not only don’t know each other, but they are still learning to play . I honestly believe this is a true reflection of the entire organisation, and if that’s the case, sacking the coach will not fix it.
Defence is one thing. How do you explain the pedestrian looking attack that we play with each week. My under 10s footy side used to pass the ball out the back line like they do. They cant even draw and pass (Talau). That stuff should be second nature to these guys. We badly need a footy coach not a motivator.
We have a footy coach ......we need a coachable roster that understand the basics of the game,you know,tackle,support,linespeed and hold the ball.....
So these guys are first grade players and they dont know the basics. That will do me. How did they get there then. All our players offer something to this team in my view but the coach needs to find that balance across the team and coach them to their strengths. He is just throwing anyone in there in the hope they will look good. I will put money on it Big Steph would not have started last week if he wasnt picked in the origin camp. He did it because Freddy can see something in him and gives him belief. Thats what most of our guys need.
I think we all agree as supporters we can cop a loss as long as they guys are having a crack. We are not getting better as a team and most individuals are not also. That comes back to the coach.
Isn’t it easy to see, that it’s taken at least 100- 150 first grade games for our current longest serving player to play with the mentality to compete in the NRL.
How can you expect players with less than 50 games to have caught up? We have about 15 of them rotating through our squad.
At a club with a history of performing more consistently and a culture of competivness the improvement of those players may be a bit quicker if they are surrounded by rep players of 200-250 games.
I use Brooks as a real example. So much so that everyone is saying, keep him: sack him: coach him better: let him play his own way etc. but through 5 coaches all of varrying strategies we’ve only seen him lay it all on the line for the club over the last 50 games of his career.
It was only a couple years back that you would question his genuine interest in being a first grader.
And yeah you expect half of our squad to get up to speed to that level without having a history of a competitive culture?
