Opinion Is Ricky Stuart the most overrated coach ever?

[Generalzod]

The man handled himself with dignity in the presser ....

 

[Perth Red]

Disappointing we didnt get one of the all time great blow ups. Id have chipped in to a go fund me page to see Ricky tear some strips off the NRL!

 

[Adam-Albert Casty]

Ricky was pretty classy in the press conference. He barely gets angry any more. Fans are living in the past waiting for a ricky blow up imo.

Like it can happen (47 texers) but its very rare. He is more likely to say we played good when we didnt than get mad at the refs.

And it is a sad day for rugby league as a consequence.

 

[nick87]

Top 2.

And he might be 2.

 

[Marshall_magic]

That argument doesn't really stack up either though- to swallow it you have to ignore 3 straight GF's he made at the start if his career. And no it wasn't because Murray handed him some well oiled machine- the team he inherited from Murray had just finished 6th with a 13-12 record, losing about as often as they won.

And what if good in '16, fell away but came back stronger in '19?

So basically some (two) teams Ricky coached fell over- one of which is the Eels who do nothing but stumble over themselves & he wasn't there long enough to reap the benefits of his bold & innovative projector scheme long term.

The other that fell into a slump is the Sharks- "
Not only was the club in dire financial straits [9] but the Cronulla Sharks club was also tarnished by media allegations about a 2002 group-sex incident involving former Sharks players, player Reni Maitua's dismissal after testing positive to drugs,[10] removal of the captaincy from key player Paul Gallen, due to making racist remarks several unsavoury incidents involving now-disgraced CEO Tony Zappia (including his assault of a female staff member and involvement in an insurance-fraud fan donation scandal).[11]"

To further push his barrow, any bloke who realises that Gallen is a selfish oaf who should just eb doing what he is told- not given the car keys clearly has some insight.

Ricky has finished in the top 4 a total of 6 times in his coaching career (02, 03, 04, 08, 16 & 19). Based on the previous 5 he has made the finals the following year twice and missed out 3 times (03 & 04 the Roosters made the finals, 05, 09 & 17 his teams all missed out).

Since Freddy retired Sticky has made the finals 3 times in 11 season, on the flip side he has finished bottom 2 on 4 occasions.

That said, he surprised me this season, generally Ricky has a year or two at the club before it starts to fall apart, and once it starts going south, he rarely turns it around. He did that with Canberra this year, so maybe he's changing something for the better.

 

[Pete Cash]

Its a club that suits him tbh

We are all a little crazy at the Raiders. Crazy passionate stick fits in well. Like coach skeepe

Also id give him a break for 2014, 2015 at the raiders. Furner (not all his fault) left the place in pretty rough state. Sticky did turn this club around. Can he get us back up in 2020 well history is against him but i genuinely thought we wouldn't make a gf again in my lifetime at the end of 2013

 

[BadnMean]

Here we go again. Why remove the part of his career record when he had a good player?

Bellamy hasn't won a single finals game since Slater retired. It's a weird way to judge a coach. Sheens only won a single premiership without Meninga. But he had Benji, should we ignore '05 because he had Benji. Does a team not need coaching if they have a good player? That seems to be the argument.

Newsflash- every side that wins a premiership has a great player. The fact Stuart won a premiership with the 2nd best 5/8 of the late 90s/early 2000s (Daley was far better) is still credit to him.

 

[Marshall_magic]

Here we go again. Why remove the part of his career record when he had a good player?

Bellamy hasn't won a single finals game since Slater retired. It's a weird way to judge a coach. Sheens only won a single premiership without Meninga. But he had Benji, should we ignore '05 because he had Benji. Does a team not need coaching if they have a good player? That seems to be the argument.

Newsflash- every side that wins a premiership has a great player. The fact Stuart won a premiership with the 2nd best 5/8 of the late 90s/early 2000s (Daley was far better) is still credit to him.

I wouldn't disregard it, but his career numbers are very nicely padded by those 3 seasons. He still had some quality players to work with both at Canberra & Cronulla, yet hasn't produced nearly the same consistency.

A good comparison would be if Bellamy had left Melbourne 5 seasons ago, how long would his replacement be able to carry on the success - and how many players would need to depart before it all went to shit. For the record, in 05 Ricky still had a team that should have been pushing for top 4. There was probably only 2-3 players from the actual premiers that year that would have made it into the Roosters team.

 

[Pete Cash]

He brought those players to canberra though.

Look at the disaster of a side that run out in 2014. A lot of his calls were ultimately proven as correct too. He also learned the lesson from parra and gutted us slowly while the fans were demanding every player out the door and that kept our salary cap under control where he rooted parras.

He is very much a mixed bag but no coach in 25 years has brought the Raiders near this success. Id rather what Stuart has done than just making up the numbers every second year in the finals. We didnt make a preliminary final in the nrl era until 2016. We have made the top 4 four times in the nrl era and half of those are under stick.

 

[bileduct]

He brought those players to canberra though.

Look at the disaster of a side that run out in 2014. A lot of his calls were ultimately proven as correct too. He also learned the lesson from parra and gutted us slowly while the fans were demanding every player out the door and that kept our salary cap under control where he rooted parras.

He is very much a mixed bag but no coach in 25 years has brought the Raiders near this success. Id rather what Stuart has done than just making up the numbers every second year in the finals. We didnt make a preliminary final in the nrl era until 2016. We have made the top 4 four times in the nrl era and half of those are under stick.

The best thing Ricky did was get rid of Milfplod.

 

[Pete Cash]

The best thing Ricky did was get rid of Milfplod.

Mate he tried to give him a million bucks a year lmao. Like I said hes a mixed bag. Milford saved us from ourselves there

 

[bileduct]

Mate he tried to give him a million bucks a year lmao. Like I said hes a mixed bag. Milford saved us from ourselves there

Shhhhh.... I prefer my narrative.

 

[Pete Cash]

I think previous coaches wouldn't have as easily made the hard calls on say campo, where stuart was like take a contract in england baldy

But he also told Vaughan to f**k off so again for his right moves there is always a clanger

 

[BadnMean]

Mate he tried to give him a million bucks a year lmao. Like I said hes a mixed bag. Milford saved us from ourselves there

Which at the time, made sense as our roster was a garbage fire & Milf was sensational in those days. He might have reached his potential if he'd stayed instead of suffering through nonsensical efforts to fatten him up, shift his position & manufacture a controlling playmaker out a livewire running FB-5/8. His failure to thrive is on the Broncos.

It was also a good strategy by going public with the size of the offer., as it forced the Broncos to actually register a contract near that value with the NRL, instead of their usual shenanigans. That's worked handily.

 

[Pete Cash]

Reading this thread i forgot how important the signing of Sisa Waqa was. We had player after player back flip and just getting a reasonably decent first grader to not back out of a contract was pretty big and showing we werent a complete dumpster fire.

Obviously sticks best move has been raiding the superleague

 

[firechild]

Bellamy hasn't won a single finals game since Slater retired.

I quite enjoyed watching Melbourne burst the Parra scum bubble. Are you telling me it didn't really happen?

 

[Walt Flanigan]

Reading this thread i forgot how important the signing of Sisa Waqa

I completely forgot about Sisa Waqa until I saw the replay of the 2012 Grand Final. Then I forgot that he actually played for us until you just mentioned it.

 

[Mr Angry]

Josh Papalii - From 40 minutes of rocks and diamonds to 70 minutes of world class consistency.
Jack Wighton - CC medal winning, rep regular.
CKN - Could not make the Warriors
All the young blokes he has bought through.
The Poms...
Sezer just played a GF.

Which player was not playing to his potential?

Can't coach......pffft

 

[Marshall_magic]

He brought those players to canberra though.

Look at the disaster of a side that run out in 2014. A lot of his calls were ultimately proven as correct too. He also learned the lesson from parra and gutted us slowly while the fans were demanding every player out the door and that kept our salary cap under control where he rooted parras.

He is very much a mixed bag but no coach in 25 years has brought the Raiders near this success. Id rather what Stuart has done than just making up the numbers every second year in the finals. We didnt make a preliminary final in the nrl era until 2016. We have made the top 4 four times in the nrl era and half of those are under stick.

To me, Ricky turning his attention to English talent will be what I remember his Canberra run for. In the last golden run the Raiders had a lot of their success was off the back of Qld talent (Walters, Meninga & Belcher) as well as country talent (Daley & Sticky) as the club was one of 2 alternatives to having to live in Sydney. With an increase in the number of non-Sydney teams they cannot rely on this anymore.

In 2014 he got burned badly trying to sign players like Tedesco, so he went another route with his recruitment which has paid off. The Titans should potentially be looking at this to get themselves competitive again.

To me, his stock has risen a long way in 2019, if he backs it up in 2020 with another top 4 finish I would go as far to say his performance in Canberra is better than his performance at the Roosters.

 

[Marshall_magic]

The best thing Ricky did was get rid of Milfplod.

Almost forgot he was at the Raiders, he's been anonymous since the 15 Grand final.