Craig Coleman's pain for Rabbitohs

[Newcastlerabbit]

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sp...in-for-rabbitohs/story-e6frexnr-1226101650463

• Dean Ritchie
• From: The Daily Telegraph
• July 26, 2011 12:00AM

Dejected: The Rabbitohs during their loss to New Zealand. Source: Getty Images



CRAIG Coleman played 216 games for his beloved South Sydney Rabbitohs and coached at Redfern twice.

But he is becoming weary of repeating the same sentence at this time of the year.

"We will have to wait another year," Coleman said.And it seems "Tugger" is right. A 48-16 loss to New Zealand on Sunday all but ended Souths' season prematurely once again.

The Rabbitohs have made the finals just once since the club was readmitted to the NRL in 2002. In that time, Souths have won just 74 of 235 games for an average winning success rate of 31.5 per cent.

"We have made the semi-finals just once since we came back," he said. "We have attracted all these players but we're still not winning. That's the truth. And I would love to see us winning every week.


"They had plenty to play for on Sunday and were never in it. I can't see any structure there, can you?

"We have to have faith in (incoming coach) Michael Maguire. Everyone knew four years ago he was the "next big thing" in coaching. He should've been coaching at Souths two years ago."I didn't have any high expectations this year but I do for next season."

Souths' season could slip further away when they confront red-hot premiers St George Illawarra this weekend in Wollongong.

Souths chief executive Shane Richardson is trying to remain upbeat.

He said Souths have been without key forwards Roy Asotasi, Sam Burgess, Michael Crocker, Scott Geddes, Luke Stuart and Dave Taylor during this year. Eddy Pettybourne now has a suspected broken thumb.

"The young guys are ripping in and hopefully we can get some senior blokes back soon and finish the season on a big note," Richardson said.

 

[madunit]

I've said it before, but Souths biggest problem since the mid 90's, they've never shown full faith in their coaches.

Instead of backing the coach and dumping the obvious poor performing players, they keep the players and dump the coach.

It's just so damn disruptive and bloody difficult to actually build a team around when the front office changes every 2 years.

You can't plan long term if you are focussed entirely on short term.

Souths need to sign a coach for 4 years and let him run the club, back every decision he makes, support him fully and most of all, be patient.

As all us Tigers fans will agree, jagging a premiership once may be great but the novelty wears off real quick when every season after for the next 6 years is a failure.

Build a team, be patient, back the coach, the results will come.

Piggins is the Last Souths coach to see out a full 4 years or more consecutively (1986-90)

Souths made the finals 3 times in those 5 years.

They'd made it twice in the 11 years prior to Piggins becoming head coach and never made finals again until 2007 after he was replaced in 1990

 

[BunniesMan]

Next year will be better for multiple reasons. An emerging superstar of a coach. We get to start again with no injuries. And the young players who have played this year because of injuries will mean there's more blokes competing for spots and more depth next year.

 

[Honkiest_Honky]

I think the truth is we haven't had the cattle since 1989. The club has struggled to bring in world class players and coachs. If you can't get the right players its easier to sack the coach for poor performances then.

Now, imo the club has been very badly mismanaged. I dunno why its so long and raked up so much debt to come to the conclusion that we need a competent coach and staff.

Hopefully the days of Rusty hiring his mates are over. Also I hope the days of Rusty coaching are over and the days of Rusty using the team as his personal toys are over as well. There should be an avo or something that requires Rusty to stay at least 50m away from the players and coach. If he wants to charge interest on his monies put into Souths he should put the team 1st and his ego second.

 

[The Mad Hatter]

Is it me or does the DT only seem to interview Craig Coleman or George Piggins?

LOL.

 

[The Mad Hatter]

And does Rusty really coach the team?

 

[Jason Maher]

Frankly, you've got the cattle, except in the halves. Sutton is a waste of space, which doesn't help Sandow, who is a real rocks and diamonds player (off-the-cuff players like him often are). He needs a decent number 6 next to him. Why you re-signed Sutton and let Sandow go is beyond me.

Solve your halves problem, get a better fullback than Wesser (GI?), avoid the injuries to your pack, and you'll be a fair dinkum shot.

 

[Didgi]

What happened to this year being your year BunniesMan?

 

[Mr Spock!]

I think the truth is we haven't had the cattle since 1989. The club has struggled to bring in world class players and coachs. If you can't get the right players its easier to sack the coach for poor performances then.

Now, imo the club has been very badly mismanaged. I dunno why its so long and raked up so much debt to come to the conclusion that we need a competent coach and staff.

I don't know if the 89 squad were really all that good as found out in the finals. Mario, Phil and one of the Rampling boys were the only rep players (from what I can recall). They were however bloody hard, proud of their club, played as a team and were up for the game from the start. None of this let's give the other mob 24-0 head start before we're interested, especially in sudden death games (eg 2010 Saints, 2011 Warriors). I don't see any of those qualities in this side.

 

[Dummy Spit Johns]

Next year will be better for multiple reasons. An emerging superstar of a coach. We get to start again with no injuries. And the young players who have played this year because of injuries will mean there's more blokes competing for spots and more depth next year.

Heard it all before!