On BA, I have as you all know been a detractor for a while now, but in almost a schizophrenic kind of way.
I have liked his forthright and honest approach. His demand for ownership and effort on effort and attention to the little things in a game. The small details that make or break a team. All that and loyalty to his players are his strengths in the day to day coaching side of things. No one can fault him on that side of things. He is a man manager of sorts, which is a massive plus for any coach.
He has made some bad mistakes at times on the field and in team prep off it when he first took over and was learning on the job how to be an NRL coach. Some of it can be attributed to doing to much when was first in charge, but that is not the case now and in the long past. But were I and others still have a niggling doubt about him is with his game plan and attacking structures in particular and the fact that he hasn't had much success at the business end of a season.
However having said all that, I am slowly coming around to keeping him and seeing what he can do over the next 1-3 years. The way the team is going now is tremendous and he deserves most of all the credit for it. They are definitely not peaking and still playing well, which is what you want to see in your team at this time of year.
What has slowly snuck up on us all though is that he is a bloody good identifier and recruiter of under valued talent. We could all see it from the start in bits here and there, but it is really evident now with a strong roster to back him up and give him more pull, that he and his team of recruitment and retention know what they are doing.
This to me above ALL else is the number one trait any NRL coach should possess and second is man management. Well he has both of these covered in spades. Where he is lacking as mentioned above, is the attacking structures and how lost at times we have looked with the ball in hand. Whether that is due to the players not following instruction or unable to follow instruction or the coach not being up to it, we will never know. But even this, this season(maybe due to A. Johns) is slowly changing and we are much more dangerous with the ball in hand.
Add to that that we also have a young Arthur playmaker in the halves in the lower grades that reminds me of a young DCE, then it would be folly to cut him loose at this stage of our quest for a premiership. If BA is retained as head coach(on merit), we won't have to worry about losing his son to another club and we should have a ready made replacement for our halves when the time is right assuring us of at least 10 continual years of team quality and success. I wouldn't mind if we/he sourced a top offensive assistant coach for next year, but so far, so good this year. Obviously we need to see how we fair in the backend of the season games, but short of a total capitulation and collapse, I think he is our man.
I don't think that it would go down well with the players or many of the fans at this point to punt him and opt for someone else. Hell if Bozo the clown can win a Premiership with Manly after all those years of trying with some of the best bought players of that era at both the Roosters and Sea Eagles, then why not Arthur, who I think is a much more loved person then Fulton ever was?
In Arthur we trust.
