Exsilium
Coach
- Messages
- 10,337
No he's not a step back. He had a far inferior squad to this year's one at Penrith run 4th in 2014, beat the reigning premiers and consecutive minor premiers in week 1 then push all the way close to making the GF. He's made a GF before, at a club that told him he was free to bugger off mid season. He's a massive upgrade on Griffin.
Anyone who rips on him as being not a premiership coach, he never had a chance. He ran into Manly during their dynasty years, although during that time he regularly beat a salary cap cheating Storm side (and in finals too). Look at the pack he took to the 2014 GF qualifier. Who the f**k is Sam Anderson? Matt Robinson, Lewis Brown, Nigel Plum...geezus. He's a top drawer coach who can resurrect crap lists and cultures, get them firing and then consistently gets results. Six seasons with us, made finals 4 times, only times he didn't were a) because our CEO cheated the cap b) Sonny Fai died. I cried for 5-6 years after he left and we named dunce after dunce to replace him, then refused to re-hire him when he indicated he was keen.
I still believe he'll win a premiership sooner rather than later. Dunno how anyone doesn't rate him, unless they're not paying full attention.
I hear ya but I just can’t agree with you that he’s top shelf....yet... but I will agree that he could improve with a better squad, just not ours. Our squad is not a top 4 certainty but I believe we are a top 5-8 team all day. We played very boring football under him and got through on talent, luck and arsey plays. Much the same as what we dish out nowadays.
And for the record we only scrapped past the roosters and got out enthused by the bulldogs.
Lastly, Don’t ever speak I’ll of Nigel Plum. He’s a legend of the game.