But if we have the worst recruitment staff because we can't afford to hire anyone but a local boy to help us then that's on the owners not the recruiter.
If we have on field performances that are poor, maybe it's because we have the lowest paid and lowest Calibre assistants in the NRL.
Deny it as much as you want, all failures lead back to Wests Ashfield.
I have an interesting corollary about this with my Premier League team Tottenham.
Historically Spurs are a big-money club ("Big Six") who were always tight with the purse strings. They had a former part-owner and chairman who was very savvy with business but arguably misguided with football spending.
So whilst Spurs were very good at diversifying their business, the on-field results were not consistently there. For example Spurs financed the rebuild of their own stadium and it's arguably now one of the best in Europe, in North London, so they also make money via concerts, NFL matches etc. Spurs have world-class training facilities.
But with football spending Spurs have always been tight. They didn't like to overspend on managers or players, and when they got into recruitment tussles over players they were often beaten by other big clubs who were willing to spend more.
So it was a case of a sound businesspeople who were good at maintaining the bottom line but provably aimless (via results) and restrictive in football spending.
That Chairperson Daniel Levy resigned a season ago and Spurs were almost relegated two years running, which is a disaster for the club.
BUT this transfer window someone has opened the purse strings, and lo, Spurs are landing all their target signings. Not just transfer fees to other clubs, but importantly, personal weekly wages to the players. Spurs were historically thrifty with player wages.
It remains to be seen whether this works out in the upcoming season, i.e. whether they are good signings, but the point is once the spending was increased the players came. You can talk all you want about culture and desirability but money talks, and if you hold back on football Ops spending, you lose out in the long run.
The corollary being: clearly Wests Ashfield can afford to spend more on football ops, but they choose not to.
