O’BRIEN OWED KNIGHTS FANS AN EXPLANATION
Adam O’Brien sells himself short.
At his best the Newcastle coach comes across as an extremely down to earth and likeable bloke with an old-school footy mentality, not unlike his former Melbourne mentor Craig Bellamy.
But too often when O’Brien is standing in front of the camera it’s like he’s trying to either to act too tough or too angry.
O’Brien once again did himself no favours this week with his naive pre-match media conference on Wednesday, when he stood there and refused to answer questions about Dylan Brown.
Surely it wouldn’t have been that big a deal to make just a few short comments in the lead up to the game against the Dolphins.
After all, everyone else has already had their say on what is undoubtedly one of the biggest signing stories in the game’s history, including Knights legends Andrew and Matthew Johns along with Cooper Cronk, who have all questioned the decision to offer Brown a staggering $13 million over 10 years.
No doubt O’Brien has his reasons why he thinks it will work.
And if this is the signing that he believes could reinvent the Knights as a genuine premiership force, why would he want to hide from it?
Obviously someone also forgot to tell him that down the M1 at Parramatta Brown himself had already confirmed the story with his own statement on social media followed by a media stop.
O’Brien also may not realise that instead putting the story to bed for now, all he has really done is guarantee this will now drag into next week where the same reporters will be back asking the same questions.
He did a similar thing recently during a pre-match interview with Fox Sports’ sideline reporter Niko Pajarillo, when O’Brien didn’t want to talk about the potential make up of his halves this season.
O’Brien needs to cop the tip that when he is talking in front of a camera that he is actually talking to his own blue and red army as much as he is the media.
I often wonder if he’s trying too hard to be like his former Melbourne mentor but focuses too much on the cranky Bellyache we see in the coaching box.
And not enough on the Mr Knockabout Bellamy who also doesn’t mind sharing a joke and a laugh at his media conferences, while giving good honest answers to the majority of questions.
DOES COGGER NOW HOLD KEY TO O’BRIEN’S FUTURE?
The forgotten man in the Dylan Brown to Newcastle story is Jack Cogger.
It will be interesting to watch how Cogger responds when he runs out against the Dolphins.
Imagine being an NRL halfback and getting told this early in the season that his club has paid such massive overs to a five-eighth from another club to come and do his job next year?
I guess the irony here is that if the Knights don’t play finals footy this year you couldn’t guarantee Adam O’Brien’s job is safe anyway.
We all know that Cogger showed when he was at the Panthers that he was good enough to come on in a grand final and help change the game as Nathan Cleary’s halves partner.
