. The plight of the Parramatta Eels and the acrimonious departure during the week of their coach, Ricky Stuart, are the talk of the rugby league world.
Not for one minute am I telling the Eels how they should handle their affairs. Rather, I am suggesting people on the outside looking in need to put things into perspective and understand just how long it's going to take for this great club to recover from recent events.
Rather than looking upon the sudden resignation of Stuart as a loss, Parramatta should view this time as a great opportunity to build a new club; a club greater than it has ever been. The resignation of the head coach should be seen as the last straw in a period that is probably best forgotten, but should always be remembered. It could be the turning point in their history.
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Parramatta's issues run much deeper than simply finding a head coach and a group of footballers to win games and hopefully a premiership. They have been on a "quick fix" program for far too long. Once you get headed down this road it's hard to stop. Desperation player recruitment and replacing the head coach are not the answers to building a successful club. All this has achieved is having the club lurch from crisis to crisis with little or no joy in between.
It has also led to the sacking of three coaches - Brian Smith, Daniel Anderson and Stephen Kearney were all tapped on the shoulder before their contracts ran out. It's four if you include the fact they had Jason Taylor on their books as a caretaker coach but decided against contracting him for the long term.
Now we see a situation where the head coach has sacked Parramatta. This is the same coach whose arrival 12 months ago the club proudly trumpeted as the greatest signing since Jack Gibson. Let's just think about this for a moment, because if we analyse what's happened here, I think we can find the answer to rebuilding Parramatta into the powerful club it should be, and for the future of rugby league in this country, the successful club it needs to be. After sacking three head coaches in a relatively short space of time, the latest coach has now sacked the club.
Whether you agree with Stuart's actions, or believe his reasons, is totally irrelevant.
What the Eels need to do is understand what this means to them; their most recent past, and the future they desire. I'm not for one minute blaming anyone at Parramatta for the position in which they now find themselves; far from it in fact. I'm sure there are smart and passionate people at Parramatta working as hard as they can to make the club successful.
What I am saying though is that they need to be brutally honest with themselves about where their club sits right now and what they have to do to ensure they will never again find themselves in this position. Parramatta are potentially the jewel-in-the-crown when it comes to great sporting organisations in this country.
I grew up in Parramatta. Back in those days we were seen as westies, living miles from civilisation. Today Parramatta is the centre of Sydney. It has everything going for it. They have a brilliant brand, a huge supporter base that stretches around the country, a huge junior league nursery; and they are situated right in the middle of a thriving business community.
They need to take a long-term view to their development. There is no "quick fix" solution to their needs. And even if they somehow fluked some short-term success, the joy will only be fleeting. Does 2009 ring a bell?
The people in charge at Parramatta need to be strong. They need to ignore the impatience of fans and those in the media. They need to rid themselves forever of outside influences. Parramatta need to define exactly what type of club they want to be and set a strategy in place to achieve these goals.
What they need is to find a coach who is prepared to cop getting his back-side kicked for a couple of years before the good times start to roll. That will take pressure off everyone in the club and help develop a friendly and productive workplace environment. This will help people produce their best. Parramatta will rise again; of this we can be certain.
As a coach Ricky Stuart is best served in a club with strong management and a strong playing roster. His strengths as a coach rise to the surface when he has a team that can challenge for a premiership. He is a good coach. He has the ability to prepare and steer a talented and motivated group in the right direction. The same talents could be seen when he was coaching the NSW Origin teams. All he had to do was coach his players and get them prepared for big games. That's his strength.
Stuart has always had a strong work ethic. I've always admired the fact he puts in the hours and does whatever he can to give his players all the information they need to take on an opponent. When he started his coaching career at the Roosters in 2002, it was the perfect working environment for any head coach.
The club boasted a powerful board headed by the passionate Nick Politis. The management team was second to none in the NRL. The club put tremendous people around the rookie head coach to give him all the support imaginable. The roster at the Roosters was ready to challenge for a title.
Remember too, that from this special era at the Roosters emerged three more head coaches in the shape of Ivan Cleary, John Cartwright and Shane Flanagan who today are still producing impressive results with their respective clubs. His strength and conditioning coach at that time was the great Ron Palmer; the best in the business.
Under these conditions, Stuart shone and he did an outstanding job leading the club to three successive grand finals, including a premiership and a World Club Championship trophy. It was the perfect environment for any coach to succeed and he showed he was a coach who could maintain the intensity and consistency to drive a team of talented players to the big end-of-season games.
It's a similar situation the latest rookie coach Trent Robinson has walked into at this great club and the Roosters are so close to yet another grand final appearance. The strength of the club is in the board and the management. The coach and the players are given every opportunity to succeed.
Since that wonderful time at the Roosters, Stuart has coached at the cash-strapped Sharks and now the Eels. As soon as he has to start worrying about anything other than just coaching, he is easily distracted and can become easily stressed. He should never be given total control over recruitment of staff and players.
As I understand it, at both Cronulla and Parramatta, Stuart, rightly or wrongly, involved himself in management, sponsorship, fund-raising, recruitment, media, PR and marketing. Now I don't know if he had to involve himself in these areas of operation, or if he just decided he need to be involved.
What I do know is that no head coach should ever be allowed to, or should ever have to involve himself, in these areas of operation. In this day and age, the head coach is there to coach the NRL team, end of story.
Stuart and I are mates and have been for a long time, so I can say these things. He is passionate and hard-working. He is also stubborn and head strong. He can become very impatient, which clouds his thinking. He needs to be protected from himself. He has mellowed somewhat over the years, but his highly competitive nature can still at times test his tolerance levels.
Years ago I begged him not to sign with the Sharks because I didn't think it was the club for him. In the end I begged him to leave the Sharks because it was doing his head in. He didn't have the resources and support he needed and it was affecting his coaching.
I thought the Parramatta job was a great opportunity for him to show he could start from scratch and build a football team from the ground up. I don't know what has happened at Parramatta, but what is obvious is he was a bad fit for them and they didn't adequately understand what he needed as a coach to perform to his best. I think the Raiders will give Stuart the environment he needs to be successful.
I hope so anyway.
