There are only 3 great coaches in the NRL. Bellamy, Robinson and Bennet. As BennyV stated earlier the general standard of coaching is pretty poor. This is where some arguments break down I think. Mary is not a good enough coach for my liking. But honestly once you exclude the three above the average standard drops so far that he fits in with the generally poor pack. That’s not to say there’s not others above - guys like Maguire, Seibold for example. But there’s plenty others that are at least as bad as Mary, and that’s where the arguments are. Saying that ‘any other club would’ve something something’ is almost always false. You can find plenty of examples of other coaches doing just as much dumb shit.
There’s plenty of fair criticisms to make of Mary, but there’s plenty leveled on here that either don’t stack up, or are at worst about things that most other coaches do as well.
The Host debate for example - he’s a long minute second rower. And he’s been behind 3 better long minute second rowers. So he didn’t get to play in his best position. There’s not a lot of ways around that.
I can already hear the distant cries of ‘acceptance of mediocrity’ coming from the distance, but again - I want a better coach. I also don’t want a worse coach (they do exist coughkearneycoughstuart and until proven otherwise coughhasler) And disputing the merits of a particular criticism does not an apologist make.
You make a good argument but you miss the point regarding coaches and in particular McGregor.
The real issues:
1. His qualifications to coach FG - If you compare McGregor's CV against all the other coaches, he is the least qualified to coach a FG rugby league team let alone St. George which has one of the largest fan bases in the comp.
2. Since McGregor's appointment, the premise that he would "learn on the job" gets skittled every season we fail to progress as a team and a club. Never once have we achieved a top 4 finish let alone win a premiership. 5 years and counting.
3. Apart from Bellamy, Robinson and Bennet you could comfortably add McGuire, Siebold, Hasler, Flanagan (and even his replacement), Cleary and others that offer more to their respective clubs than our bloke does.
When you also consider that our coaching brains trust of Hornby and Young have no other coaching experience, the whole coaching function is questionable and often found wanting.
So let's take the emotional name tags like "Imposter", "mediocrity" and so on out of the discussion.
We simply have a dysfunctional coaching arrangement that was perpetrated by the factions within our club.
That is not good enough in my eyes. We can do much better and we should strive to have the best of the best at our club.