Buzz Rothfield article hammering Bennett on our club's situation.

[The Showstopper]

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sp...s/news-story/44c47638981681a1ae60cb73f3522210

Naturally the Courier Mail hacks wrote a counter article.

 

[Mr_Knightside]

I think he's on the mark there, the biggest disappointment for me is that Wayne didn't stick around to follow through and finish the job he was brought in to do, he just up and left when the going got tough.

 

[Misanthrope]

You can't argue too much with that logic.

Sure, it was great seeing some old favourites run out and get achingly close to the big one, but we've gone backwards as a result Bennett's time at the club. Some of that is his fault and a big part of that is Tinkler's, but none of it is Brown's.

 

[macavity]

He forgets the major reason we suck so hard. Player wage inflation due to TPAs.

 

[Misanthrope]

He forgets the major reason we suck so hard. Player wage inflation due to TPAs.

We really are f**ked in that regard. Who in their right mind would buy a club that hemorrhages money and fans?

 

[Nuffy]

Whilst Bennett can shoulder some of the blame, it's also relevant when Bennett left we took a series of soft options and questionable signings.

And while I totally agree with Mac that TPAs are market distorters, I also think that some of our current pain is self inflicted.

Uate has under performed for much of his long term big dollar contract. We've done nothing.

Who did we compete with for Gagai's signature (Broncos) and would they have paid anywhere near 575k for a non rep player. Answer No.

The last centre we had that could set up and score a try, we drove into the arms of Canberra.

How much more did we sign the brothers for than their dogs contracts. I'll bet we paid them much more to stay where they always wanted to.

How much more did we pay for Hodgkinson because we were desperate to show the world we could recruit a rep player in a season of disasters.

We invariably pay much more for a player than they are worth and criminally, more than we need to, hence our cap is a mess.

Then we have players like Snowden than just aren't producing anywhere near value for money or unfortunately someone like Sims who missed 20% of the season each year.

Or even better we send them on their way with a payout.

We don't control the TPAs and it hurts us, we control the recruitment and it hurts us more. Let's fix what we control first.

 

[macavity]

We invariably pay much more for a player than they are worth and criminally, more than we need to, hence our cap is a mess.

Mate.... we pay our players similar to what they would earn elsewhere... the issue is we pay more on the cap.

It is the other clubs that set the market. Basic economics.

Using the Matautia brothers as an example - we matched the remuneration they were offered by the dogs - we had to - but the entirety of their salaries counts on our cap, whereas something like half a million of it wouldn't have counted on the dogs cap.

Yes, we made, in hindsight, some bad gambles - Aku being the prime example - but again, we paid what we had to, because other clubs were offering it.

If we let go of all the players fans think are being paying "overs", we would have a literal NSW cup squad (instead of a mostly NSW cup squad).

500k for a (then) rep quality winger, 600k for a current SOO halfback, 575k for a centre that played SOO last year - these signings wreck OUR cap - but they don't have much effect on the cap of a large number of other clubs, because big chunks of those salaries don't count on their cap.

I mean the Broncos signed the current Dally M centre of the year by letting go of a player who was in and out of their starting side. That player went to another heavyweight. And both players we were never a chance of even bidding on. That is how far behind we are.

Until that inequality is addressed, we will never be able to "balance" our cap - because if we want players that are in demand on the open market, we will pay market rate - which means a few getting "overs" (i.e. market rate), and a whole bunch of no names - because we can't afford anyone else.

The economics of the player market has shifted massively, and we have been left so far behind we may as well be playing table tennis.

We can't address the issues that has caused without addressing the root cause.

We can't address the root cause while we are NRL owned.

And we aren't attractive to a buyer in our current state - and even then, a buyer would have to conjure TPAs out of a small, poor market that is both tapped out and fatigued.

We really are up the creek.

As I am typing this I see TAB is paying $34 for us to get no wins this season - I think I will be putting $100 on it.

 

[Misanthrope]

I do wonder how much of that trouble with have with recruiting stems from the club's reputation for being mismanaged and the fact Newcastle just isn't a terribly exciting place for cashed up young guns to go to.

Canberra had this exact problem for a long while, and it seems to be TPAs that have allowed them to compensate for the fact nobody wants to live in that frosty shithole.

 

[macavity]

I do wonder how much of that trouble with have with recruiting stems from the club's reputation for being mismanaged and the fact Newcastle just isn't a terribly exciting place for cashed up young guns to go to.

Canberra had this exact problem for a long while, and it seems to be TPAs that have allowed them to compensate for the fact nobody wants to live in that frosty shithole.

In demand players will go where they think they have the best chance to succeed - in this context this means earn and win (and long term, the two go hand in hand).

We have trouble with recruitment for the same reason we have always had trouble with recruitment - because we are poor, and Joey years notwithstanding, we are crap.

They think they can do both in Canberra now - lo and behold, they can recruit.

 

[Knightmare]

Uncle Wayne is a coach I have a lot of time for, even if I haven't always agreed with his handling of the media in the past. I know a lot of people here developed a new loathing for Bennett after he walked out at the end of 2014, but we need to remember how it played out:

It's not some kind of conspiracy theory or well-kept secret that there has been (for a long time, if not the entire Knights history) an "old boys" culture at the joint. Sure, the club enjoyed a very fruitful 12 year period (I'd span the years between 1990 when the club made a 5th place playoff against the GF contenders of the previous two years, to 2002 after Joey got kneed in the back by Bailey and then the very best of the Hagan years took full effect). But the success in this period took place in spite of the club and its' financial state, not because of it. The Hunter was blessed with a group of talented players arguably seen only in the post-2005 Qld Origin team since- with one Andrew Johns as the cherry on top. In terms of the playing roster the Knights had, 2 Premierships was a fair result- and it could well have been 4 if not for the convenient witch-hunt of '98 and then that 20-minute lapse against the Roosters in the 2000 QF. In terms of the club and how it was run? 2 Premierships was a massive overachievement! It was the Mighty Ducks, it was Mike Bassett making the World Cup Finals, it was the Yagoona Schooners beating a team of ex-NRL stars- except that it actually happened to this club.

Bennett spent 20 years working for one of the most professional teams in the NRL (never mind where the money comes from or why the Broncos could keep so many Qld stars- I'm talking about how the place is run). If even us here, no involvement in the club, can see that Newcastle (by comparison) is a boys' club that rewards where you come from and who you're mates with over whether you deserve to be there, no shit Sherlock would Wayne have picked up on this almost as soon as he'd memorised the drive to Knights' training!

I figure that he was well versed in the toxic culture of the Knights football club by 2014, then along comes his old club, where his heart never really left, offering the luxuries that come with being involved with being in charge of a team with the Thoroughbreds, News Limited and an entire states' media in your pocket and the roster to boot- can you blame him for leaving?

I'll be very interested to read Wayne's next book about his time at the Knights. Writing about his time in Newcastle, I suspect he'll probably tell a lot of us what we already knew about the place. I mean I'm pissed off that Wayne couldn't bring us more Premiership glory too, but I'm more saddened by the fact that not even he could turn this joint around. I don't blame him one bit for heading back to the Broncos...

 

[perverse]

Echos my thoughts nicely, Knightmare. Well said. I don't blame him for getting out when he could at all. Who would want to take a paycut to clean up this mess, even if he did contribute? It's not like Bennett didn't have a long term plan like some suggest, either... we're starting to see the crop of juniors come through that he would have been working with (and which he contributed to assembling) right now. Whether Brown can pick the gooduns from the duds and get the most out of them remains to be seen... but blokes like Feeney, Levi etc all came to the club under Wayne. There was a succession plan in place.

 

[The Showstopper]

Interesting thoughts. However the Broncos culture was built by Wayne. Kind of why we brought him here. However he knew damn well what culture we had. Am pretty sure he mentioned this in an indirect way over the years. It was his job to overhaul it and he did not. He should have got rid of every player who was the issue in the timeframe needed. Please explain the Aku Uate deal? Please explain why he re-signed Houston? If the TPAs was a big deal why did he not fire up and put the pressure back on Tinkler? A certain mammoth pay packet and a boss notorious for sacking at will and only paying at his convenience? Had that 4th year been guaranteed in full he was staying. No question in my mind. I am stunned if one day it is revealed Bennett laid down and took the locals only mantra as his criteria. He is a born winner. There is something else to it.

What was the end result. A geriatric side and no cap space. He is not blameless. Far from it. You can carry on about how we were toxic to the end but what it all boils down to is he had the chance to overhaul it. He was impatient. That was the challenge. He walked away. He is about legacy IMO. The Tinkler deal collapse is the excuse he was after. If he did not rate Stone why did he keep him around? Surely Tinks could have paid him out if needed. He does not strike me as a sentimental dude if it gets in the way of results.

I truly believe had Souths equalled Tinkler's offer Bennett never comes here. I believe Richo suggested as much back in the day. Wayne Bennett IS a club. He runs it. Always has. For some reason he took a more wait and see approach to us. That is the question I want answered. Why?

 

[Noname36]

The problem perv is that the age and experience gap between the likes of Levi, Feeney, Sione, Tapine, etc and all the blokes like Scott, Bedsy, Fa'alogo, Smith, Mason, Gids, etc was too big, way too big. The bunch of kids we have coming into FG now needed to be FG ready when all those older blokes started to retire - but a couple of years on and they're still not ready - and that's not their fault - they're f**king babies.

Bennett didn't have a succession plan. I was originally deluded into thinking he'd recruit us a bunch of FG ready players to clog the holes until this current bunch of kids were ready after the dad's army retired but I learnt pretty quickly into 2014 that wasn't the case. Obviously Bennett had decided by then he was leaving so he didn't want to go to the effort of helping set the club up for the next couple of immediate seasons but still - we were obviously going to have a very painful few years waiting for this bunch of current kids to be ready (if they even ever get there).

i agree with the article that the Bennett/Tinkler era really hurt the club and it's going to take us a long time to recover - however we've also made a lot of dumb decisions since which has made it worse. Hiring Stone being the main one. We clearly needed a Smith-style clean out and rebuild after Bennett and Stone was far too weak for that. Not sure what the club was thinking there. I can only imagine the club didn't realise how much of a hole we were in after the Tinkler/Bennett era - and really that just sums our management up to a tee.

 

[Caped Crusader]

Interesting thoughts. However the Broncos culture was built by Wayne. Kind of why we brought him here. However he knew damn well what culture we had. Am pretty sure he mentioned this in an indirect way over the years. It was his job to overhaul it and he did not. He should have got rid of every player who was the issue in the timeframe needed. Please explain the Aku Uate deal? Please explain why he re-signed Houston? If the TPAs was a big deal why did he not fire up and put the pressure back on Tinkler? A certain mammoth pay packet and a boss notorious for sacking at will and only paying at his convenience? Had that 4th year been guaranteed in full he was staying. No question in my mind. I am stunned if one day it is revealed Bennett laid down and took the locals only mantra as his criteria. He is a born winner. There is something else to it.

What was the end result. A geriatric side and no cap space. He is not blameless. Far from it. You can carry on about how we were toxic to the end but what it all boils down to is he had the chance to overhaul it. He was impatient. That was the challenge. He walked away. He is about legacy IMO. The Tinkler deal collapse is the excuse he was after. If he did not rate Stone why did he keep him around? Surely Tinks could have paid him out if needed. He does not strike me as a sentimental dude if it gets in the way of results.

I truly believe had Souths equalled Tinkler's offer Bennett never comes here. I believe Richo suggested as much back in the day. Wayne Bennett IS a club. He runs it. Always has. For some reason he took a more wait and see approach to us. That is the question I want answered. Why?

This is my view on the situation too

Wayne took on a job that was too big for the amount of time he was willing to give to it and bailed. He built a team for short term success, which very nearly came off mind you, but was always destined to unravel in the following years.