I never thought I’d be writing this.
But getting rid of McGregor when the club did was a big mistake. Young had no idea and the club lost games to low opponents and got smashed. Finals hopes easily crushed.
Then they appoint Griffin who has a tough approach that gets people off guard and already has with McInnes, and maybe even more.
Now I know Mary isn’t a popular guy on here. And I’m sure he himself would even admit he’s not a top notch coach. But he has passion, he cares and he loves his players. And I am confident not one player he coached during his time at the club had a problem with him. In 7 years not a problem. And that’s his job. He shouldn’t be looking to create tension with players. It’s his job to work with the team.
We have a coach now who hasn’t even been here for a year and has already ruffled feathers with a player, the most important player. Griffin hasn’t even respected the club captain enough, he gave up and tried pursuing players who are far less superior to Cam and much older. Griffin has caught Cam offside and his leadership style is to give up on him.
It seems clear to me as well that the board didn’t even consult the players for replacing Mary and made yet another terrible decision as the club so often does.
You watch Dufty go to Cronulla too.
And how disrespectful of Griffin to go to his mate Hadley to attack McInnes. How low.
And let’s not forget that flop Millward made all recruitment decisions from 2017 onwards, and he couldn’t even select his team at times.
My point is. We all thought the McGregor period of 2014-2020 was the worst. I’m afraid the next few years will be even worse. The roster is far worse, and now we have a coach who has in the past and already, has caught players and eventually his team off guard.
This hopeless board should have kept Mary for 2021 and then handed over to Flanagan.
What a load of crap.
A couple of points -
I agree with you that the timing of McGregors' sacking was wrong - it should have happened about 3 years ago.
McInnes told the club he'd be testing the market before Hook was made coach. That's why we now have to get another Hooker as insurance against McInnes up and leaving.
McInnes is not our most important player.
Who cares if Mary was liked by some players, 7 years with zero results and a perfectly fine roster is not acceptable. Three finals appearances are you serious ?
Do you want a Robbie Farrah type situation where one player thinks he's more important than everyone else, including the coach, and stirring sh*t up ( and McInnes is no Farrar on the field btw ).
Millward got us the players to get us to a grand final in 2018, Mary wasted the opportunity, spectacularly.
If I were you I wouldn't put money on 2021-2 being worse than the previous two years. It's virtually impossible.
If you think we can't live without McInnes you're wrong, no player is irreplaceable. We won games with Hunt at dummy half, we even played one of our best attacking games last year with Isaac Luke and BB out there with no McInnes ( round 2 against a rampaging Penrith pack - Luke actually helped Norman play one of his best games. We lost by a goal or 2 but it was 5 tries a piece and we bombed a sitter. )
I like McInnes, he's very handy and leads by example but he doesn't win us games, he doesn't pull our arses out of the fire when we're behind. Dufty does.
