Whilst I won’t write Holbrook off as a coach after one bad game it’s a bit frustrating if we’re just throwing the same predictable crap as last year at the opposition. From what I saw against the Dragons it looked like we were moving the ball around a bit more. But it’s a shame to hear that we were boring and predictable against the Dogs.
Honestly, we all know it's a trial and anything could happen as the season progresses - but early on you're just hoping to see a spark or a point of difference and yeah, it was just really disappointing even in that regard. We were criticized last year for how unbalanced our squad was - but honestly it feels even worse to me this year and it seemed obvious that it was going to be thusly when our recruitment was so disappointing. The only guy that's coming in that I am optimistic about is Trey Mooney (and Dylbags too in a way of course but i'll get to him later). The rest are question marks or flat out thumbs down from me from the get-go.
This is off the top of my head but the whole mess sums up our club for me. We sign Phoenix Crossland up as our long term hooker on the basis that he made the NZ squad and tries hard - but didn't evaluate it at all on just the quality of his hooker work for us as a club or what he provides us. So we're immediately dumping ourselves in the shit with that situation. We've got a "hooker" on the books that has no spark or creativity at all, just tackles hard and puts in effort. If you're going to carry a hooker that one-dimensional, you're going to need a lot from the next guy touching the ball. So then we run out and buy Sandon Smith to be our hooker - who doesn't want to play hooker - and is probably a halfback. Maybe not a very good one but we're so traumatised by Jack Cogger that we're somehow relieved. On top of that we have a young kid who is a gun fullback coming through, but we can't find room for him because our captain and best player has the fullback position on lockdown.
In the midst of all of this - we've also signed Dylan Brown to be our equally highest paid player. A fine player in his own right at doing what he's good at - but doesn't solve our actual issue of needing a halfback. It's also against the backdrop that if you were going to TRY and squeeze Fletcher Sharpe anywhere other than fullback (and you have to find a spot elsewhere because of the aforementioned captain) then surely you're spitballing him
as a running 5/8th. But no, we've gone and blown our wad on Dylbags instead and created a hell of an awkward situation with 3 players who want to play 2nd/3rd off the ruck and not a single talented soul at playing the first 2 positions that touch the ball.
Honestly, all of the above is a mess of our own making. You need someone to steer the ship from hooker or halfback and we have a lot of talent that wants to play wider than that, and Sandon Smith.
I really do hope we can find a way to make it functional, but it's not starting from a positive or even neutral position. Peter O'Sullivan put this mess together, go ask him how it works I guess. From my POV - we just need Sandon to be a success in the 7 if we're going to do any more than struggle this year.
