Josh or Gronk, what have you seen from BA to warrant an extension?
Do you see us able to compete for the title over the next two years?
Im interested to see what the reasons are in him extending
First I do like BA and have the opinion he has had 5 or so years of absolutely shit support from the board / management which has lead to several disasters - however that’s another argument.
I think BA is currently doing a fairly good job (and did in previous years) this year (yes this week was a disaster but the rest of the season has been fairly decent and while last year was a disaster then appears to be a few reasons why - another argument)
Regarding competing for a title, I don’t think it’s that simple especially for a side like us, firstly we just need to be making the finals consistently first over a few years and build on that (that is what sharks / cowboys did). Once we consistently do that, our culture changes and with some luck, we hopefully can compete for title.
However regarding extending BA’s contract, I cant see anyone available that would do a better job.
Yes plenty of rookies with potential but I just don’t think the eels as a club and after our current review/new structure cant afford to take a risk on a rookie.
If there was a experienced coached with a good record yes definitely we should consider them. Flanagan fits this criteria but obviously he is currently no chance.
Anyhow my decision for BA would be a 2 year extension - this gives us some stability, then monitor the Flanagan situation (and any other experienced options) and see how we go between now and end 2020 - it’s not like we are curently playing like wooden spoons.
Then if needed we can sack BA in 2020 (if I ran a club, I wouId have no issues with sacking a coach in his last year and with the costs involved - it allows the club to be stable as the coach is not off contract and it’s easy to make quick decisions if needed ) if we decided we need a new direction.
Additionally another reason I am happy to keep BA, is it appears we have finally sorted our cap management out, we finally have promising juniors playing NRL with several more potentially debuting in the next few years and our squad is looking good.
