The Knights last 4 weeks.

[macavity]

I really hope that you are right, and that we are wrong. We said the same 5 years ago.

We haven't had a consistently competitive team since the first half of 2009.

Last proper winning season in 2006.

Any day now we will be sweet.

 

[johnny plath]

We haven't had a consistently competitive team since the first half of 2009.

Last proper winning season in 2006.

Any day now we will be sweet.

Why is the clubs 2013 season disregarded by a lot of knights fans. .you were one game from a gf...if you'd gone one game further would it still be disregarded?

 

[THE CHAMP]

I thought this was settled.
It's the Broncos fault.
End thread.

 

[macavity]

Why is the clubs 2013 season disregarded by a lot of knights fans. .you were one game from a gf...if you'd gone one game further would it still be disregarded?

We had two good games. Not like we were expected to win either or performed consistently that season or the next - it was two good games, pretty much entirely in isolation.

 

[DB]

Haven't looked at then whole thread, but surely a one team town can throw up significant TPA's to get better players in?

 

[Knightmare]

I really hope that you are right, and that we are wrong. We said the same 5 years ago.

5 years ago the Knights were an alright team that usually finished between 7th and 12th and had a bright future with the Tinkler buyout, to be fair.

 

[DiegoNT]

Knights fans are just being incredible sooks. Your team is down at the bottom at the moment but there's always hope. In the last decade Knights have made the finals 4 times. That's equal to the warriors, sharks and raiders. It's better then the eels, tigers, titans and panthers . It's 1 less then supposedly super tpa clubs like roosters and rabbitohs have made. You've won the spoon once, in the last decade so have panthers, titans, sharks, rabbitohs, eels (twice), bulldogs and storm*. Cowboys have finished with the least wins twice, but storm salary cap and bulldogs for and against saved them from the spoon. You've been to a preliminary, which means you've done just as good as the Titans, panthers and sharks have and better then the raiders.
At the moment you are still recovering from the Bennett and Tinkler show (which came close) and will probably have a few years of pain as you have to play a lot of rookies while waiting for the overpriced contracts lf senior players run out. A that's no differential to what teams like souths, bulldogs, cowboys and roosters had to go through. Most of those teams had off field problems as well (no team will ever neat souths 2002-2006 i n that regard). It'll take a few years for the stench of Tinkler to leave the place and the last of benetts brigade to have their contracts run out. Keep your head up, things will eventually improve. Things are shit now and it's not going to change soon, but i think brown has the right approach on field at least

 

[Caped Crusader]

How long are we supposed to go without not knowing what the NRL, the clubs owners and governing body "wants out of Newcastle as a club"? They've owned them for 2 years now - and other than appointing a specialist board to run the club we've seen nothing change, and we've heard nothing of their plans. Everyone likes to just slam Midley, but it's because he's the only one we ever actually see or here from.

The Cowboys are a different kettle of fish mate. I've said before but it's amazing what a player of JT's calibre can do for a club in terms of drawing in sponsorship, media interest, etc. Newcastle were in the same position with Johns. Once in a lifetime players can do a lot of a club.

End of the season imo. After that I'll be concerned if things remain the same from a back of house perspective.

JT or not, they have managed to do it. What about Canberra then? No big names down there and they are investing significant $ into recruitment

This blaming a lack of TPAs I just sounds more and more like a straw man argument each time I hear it given other clubs in similar circumstances proving different. If the clubs location is truely to blame then there's not much to be done is there, may as well just wind the place up and move to Perth/Wellington/SEQ

 

[johnny plath]

We had two good games. Not like we were expected to win either or performed consistently that season or the next - it was two good games, pretty much entirely in isolation.

Fair enough. ..good game is subjective and up to you to decide what you call good. ...but 2013 you had 14 wins 12 losses and a draw and missed the gf by one game. ..i don't see how you cant consider that a winning season. ..is only one less than 2006.

 

[orochimaru]

the last 10 years have been disappointment after disappointment, but i still stand by my team

 

[macavity]

Knights fans are just being incredible sooks. Your team is down at the bottom at the moment but there's always hope. In the last decade Knights have made the finals 4 times. That's equal to the warriors, sharks and raiders. It's better then the eels, tigers, titans and panthers . It's 1 less then supposedly super tpa clubs like roosters and rabbitohs have made. You've won the spoon once, in the last decade so have panthers, titans, sharks, rabbitohs, eels (twice), bulldogs and storm*. Cowboys have finished with the least wins twice, but storm salary cap and bulldogs for and against saved them from the spoon. You've been to a preliminary, which means you've done just as good as the Titans, panthers and sharks have and better then the raiders.
At the moment you are still recovering from the Bennett and Tinkler show (which came close) and will probably have a few years of pain as you have to play a lot of rookies while waiting for the overpriced contracts lf senior players run out. A that's no differential to what teams like souths, bulldogs, cowboys and roosters had to go through. Most of those teams had off field problems as well (no team will ever neat souths 2002-2006 i n that regard). It'll take a few years for the stench of Tinkler to leave the place and the last of benetts brigade to have their contracts run out. Keep your head up, things will eventually improve. Things are shit now and it's not going to change soon, but i think brown has the right approach on field at least

You miss the point entirely.

What people (mostly supporters of the rich clubs, surprise!) seem unwilling to acknowledge is that the goal posts have moved in the past few years.

Economics are now at play - and again it seems most in here don't understand basic concepts. I tried a story, I might need to draw some pictures.

Yes, all teams (bar a couple) moved up and down the ladder in the 00s - because there was a reasonably effective salary cap.

There is no longer an effective salary cap.

The salary cap used to provide reasonable talent equalisation - it no longer does.

All a successful club has to do now is keep finding new TPAs, and they can keep their stars and their depth - and take players from the poorer clubs at will (see Roberts, James and Tapine, Joseph). This increased purchasing power has an inflationary effect on wages for ALL clubs.

This means that the teams with less purchasing power find it pretty much impossible to recruit their way off the bottom - they have to pay a larger percentage of their purchasing power than the rich clubs ("overs") to EVERY player they want to keep. They have to pay "overs" to recruit. Because the market is set by the teams spending the most. This is basic supply and demand.

I await the usual suspects again completely ignoring facts and instead calling us "salty".

 

[Knight76]

I'd just be happy for the team to be competitive on a weekly basis. Not necessarily vying for the title just yet, but entering each game with some hope of winning it.

At the moment, every game we play I don't have any optimism that we can compete. In fact it is more that we are going to get belted.

I'll keep going to games though. Will always be a Knights fan.

 

[coolumsharkie]

The Knights, at this point, have lost an entire generation of supporters. It is, or at least was when I left, deeply uncool to support the Knights in Newcastle. They are rightfully seen as losers, a joke. The 15-20k fans that fill the stadium on game day are about the only people in the region not too embarrassed to admit they attended

Geez man take some heart. We had less than 8k for ages and do you really think that we lost a generation of supporters? As soon as we started winning more than we lost they all came back. I'm sure it's the same for every club.

At least your team isn't trodden on by the media at the slightest hiccup off the ball.

 

[DiegoNT]

You miss the point entirely.

What people (mostly supporters of the rich clubs, surprise!) seem unwilling to acknowledge is that the goal posts have moved in the past few years.

Economics are now at play - and again it seems most in here don't understand basic concepts. I tried a story, I might need to draw some pictures.

Yes, all teams (bar a couple) moved up and down the ladder in the 00s - because there was a reasonably effective salary cap.

There is no longer an effective salary cap.

The salary cap used to provide reasonable talent equalisation - it no longer does.

All a successful club has to do now is keep finding new TPAs, and they can keep their stars and their depth - and take players from the poorer clubs at will (see Roberts, James and Tapine, Joseph). This increased purchasing power has an inflationary effect on wages for ALL clubs.

This means that the teams with less purchasing power find it pretty much impossible to recruit their way off the bottom - they have to pay a larger percentage of their purchasing power than the rich clubs ("overs") to EVERY player they want to keep. They have to pay "overs" to recruit. Because the market is set by the teams spending the most. This is basic supply and demand.

I await the usual suspects again completely ignoring facts and instead calling us "salty".

Souths are accused of having an unfair afavantage due to tpa's, we have guys like goodwin, gray, mcinnes, turner, tyrell and Clark in our top 17. It wasn't that long ago we had guys like asotasi, Sandow, crocker etc on overpaid contracts, and had to pay the same overs that newcastle are now paying for guys like Hodkinson. That's despite having a rich owner. If what you said was true, souths, roosters and broncos would be top 4 every year. Souths and roosters have dropped away significantly, broncos had a mediocre run between 2010-2014. Cownoys and sharks, 2 teams who should suffer the same small market/ lack of tpas that Knights are going through are 2 of the contenders this year.

 

[macavity]

Souths are accused of having an unfair afavantage due to tpa's, we have guys like goodwin, gray, mcinnes, turner, tyrell and Clark in our top 17. It wasn't that long ago we had guys like asotasi, Sandow, crocker etc on overpaid contracts, and had to pay the same overs that newcastle are now paying for guys like Hodkinson. That's despite having a rich owner. If what you said was true, souths, roosters and broncos would be top 4 every year. Souths and roosters have dropped away significantly, broncos had a mediocre run between 2010-2014. Cownoys and sharks, 2 teams who should suffer the same small market/ lack of tpas that Knights are going through are 2 of the contenders this year.

Again, the past has no relation to the future in this regard. The goalposts have moved. The game has changed.

You completely ignore this point. Again.

And I am not saying that the 10 or so clubs who have access to TPAs are going to finish 1-10 every year - I am saying that without a change, and without their own TPAs, there is no way for a club like the Knights to contend - and given how far off the pack we are, we are probably too far gone right now to even win more than 3-4 games a year in the foreseeable future.

Let me ask, on a related point - if the Knights somehow developed the next Andrew Johns with their youth policy - could we keep him? When a big club offers 1.2m a year (with 400k of it on the cap), are we to tie up 20% of our cap in one player? What sort of squad could we put around him?

 

[DiegoNT]

Again, the past has no relation to the future in this regard. The goalposts have moved. The game has changed.

You completely ignore this point. Again.

And I am not saying that the 10 or so clubs who have access to TPAs are going to finish 1-10 every year - I am saying that without a change, and without their own TPAs, there is no way for a club like the Knights to contend - and given how far off the pack we are, we are probably too far gone right now to even win more than 3-4 games a year in the foreseeable future.

Let me ask, on a related point - if the Knights somehow developed the next Andrew Johns with their youth policy - could we keep him? When a big club offers 1.2m a year (with 400k of it on the cap), are we to tie up 20% of our cap in one player? What sort of squad could we put around him?

I know newcastle can't contend for the foreseeable future.
There are always going to be big teams that have unfair advantages, whether it's the same handful of clubs it is now can't be guaranteed.
They will have to lose talented juniors, they'll have to go years without finals, it's going to be slow rebuild but I'm confident I'll see a competive Knights again. Nobody said it'll be easy or even fair.

 

[Knight76]

We don't even need TPA's in the game at all. If a player gets a big enough profile from the game, he will get offers of sponsorship outside his club. As long as the club has nothing to do with the deal then fine. The entire players payments from the club go on the cap. And none of the private sponsorship.

The top players will rise to a point where they are advertising nationally, meaning the club they play for will not matter as their profile will still mean they will attract national sponsorship.

The emerging players will struggle to attract sponsorship, the middle rung players will be able to get some sponsorship from local companies that the elite won't touch as their price is too high.

Again, as long as the club has no involvement in arranging or facilitating these deals I see no issue.

I honestly don't have an answer beyond this. No matter what the system, clubs will work a way around it.

Maybe have a player rating system completely separate to monetary considerations. Each team can only have 100 points of talent at the club. A talent cap.

 

[DiegoNT]

How would a talent /cap points system work?
Would Hodkinson be worth way more points then adam Reynolds or sezer because his players origin? Would auva'a or linett be on more points then james roberts? Would you get points for playing tests? Would a samoan player like ben roberts be worth equal points to cronk? How do you factor in age? If you have someone judge players and assigned points who does it? Imagination if you get guys like daley and Fulton judging all nrl players the same way they have unearthed this generate of bluesy players

 

[perverse]

I know newcastle can't contend for the foreseeable future.
There are always going to be big teams that have unfair advantages, whether it's the same handful of clubs it is now can't be guaranteed.
They will have to lose talented juniors, they'll have to go years without finals, it's going to be slow rebuild but I'm confident I'll see a competive Knights again. Nobody said it'll be easy or even fair.

Right, fairness isn't something we should aspire to then? That's actually your position?

Just dump the cap completely, then.

 

[DiegoNT]

Right, fairness isn't something we should aspire to then? That's actually your position?

How will we ever get the comp completely fair? Every club has its ups and downs, it's advantages and disadvantages, it's good periods and bad. Years of great management and bad. 4 years ago it was unfair that newcastle had a billionaire owner that could go out and buy the comps best ever coach and buy a bucket load of established players