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2024 NRL GRAND FINAL: Penrith v Melbourne Oct 6th

Poupou Escobar

Post Whore
Messages
90,862
Exactly comparing Cleary & BA is a waste of time.

Both have had different cycles when it comes to premiership windows and squads at different stages at there disposal.

Cleary has had 4 different appointments during his tenure.

Including 2 of them at the time were down the bottom needing massive rebuilds which no doubt affected his win% which Pou likes to call out as average across his first 13 years to win an argument.

But he was only sacked once for looking tired which in hindsight was a dumb move by Gould to flex his ego and probably a control thing.

He has left 2 of his other jobs after being poached by Penrith on both occasions.

BA had 1 appointment for 11 consecutive years at one job.
Eleven consecutive years at a club so good it won back-to-back wooden spoons right before he joined? In the 11 years leading up to the start of Arthur's tenure (2003-2013) we only won 106 games. That's fewer than 10 games per year. In Arthur's 10 and a half years we won 135 games.

The question is whether Arthur's was better than the coaches who preceded him, or whether it coincided with the club growing in resources. The following table paints a pretty clear picture of what happened, and why we should be excited about the future:

YearsGamesWinsAverage winsWin rate
2014-20181225611.246%
2019-20241508313.855%

The significant improvement post-2018 (under the same coach) points to a fundamental improvement in the club, and this is attributable to the new board and governance structure. Our resources are clearly growing, from the awesome new stadium the government built near our leagues club to the centre of excellence that is almost finished. Our club is finally catching up to our well resourced rivals. Ten years ago we were training on a f**king cricket pitch. This is a club that, in 2014, saw moving to demountables as an improvement: https://www.parraeels.com.au/news/2014/11/20/eels-training-facilities-taking-shape/
 

Poupou Escobar

Post Whore
Messages
90,862
I reckon the 24 sides defense was better but attack nothing close.
They barely leaked a point in the final series. Storm got one try off the back of a bad penalty call.
Melbourne's best attacking forward was unavailable for the grand final.
 

Legal Eel

Juniors
Messages
946
He is in their top 17 for a reason.
I actually think that IS a long bow to draw.

Nelson is a good player but I wouldn't describe him as pivotal to their success - Bellamy himself as much as acknowledged that with his demotion in the first six rounds of this season and the fact he didn't even start until round 16.

In some ways, the Storm are a better outfit without him...
 

Gronk

Moderator
Staff member
Messages
77,198
Pou keeps throwing you idiots chips and ya'll squabble squabble squabble squabble.

1728355021890.png
 

Poupou Escobar

Post Whore
Messages
90,862
I actually think that IS a long bow to draw.

Nelson is a good player but I wouldn't describe him as pivotal to their success - Bellamy himself as much as acknowledged that with his demotion in the first six rounds of this season and the fact he didn't even start until round 16.

In some ways, the Storm are a better outfit without him...
Much like how our defence improves without Paulo.
 

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