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Do you want Brad Arthur as coach

Do you want Brad Arthur as coach

  • Yes

    Votes: 107 49.3%
  • No

    Votes: 110 50.7%

  • Total voters
    217

JokerEel

Coach
Messages
10,221
He was an abomination. Probably the most overrated prop that we’ve had since Michael Vella.

Gee a bit rough.. They were both fine first graders, not above average and the rightly so.
Both would not go near our pack these days.
 

Avenger

Immortal
Messages
32,214
At least now with Ciraldo committing to the Dogs we won’t make a stupid move and sign some rookie coach.

Flanagan or Payten is the go.
 

Poupou Escobar

Post Whore
Messages
84,867
This is a baseless assumption that is easily refuted by the fact that the majority of NRL clubs that even you would concede are of similar power to us have won competitions since we last won one.
Well I think we have swung between tiers since our last premiership, spending f**k all between about 1991 and 1996, and then suffering from our constitution and ownership structure between about 2009 and the administration period that ended in roughly 2019. This is why I refer to resources (which includes things like the club constitution) rather than just money.

As for why similar resourced clubs have won while we haven't, it just comes down to luck. Winning in finals week two or three or winning the comp is effectively a series of (weighted) coin tosses. Since 1986 five clubs have won one premiership while another three clubs have won zero. And while the difference between one and zero is massive for an emotional fan, to a statistician it is just an outlier. Yes, a mathematician and a computer would also see a huge difference between zero and one, but boiling a whole season down to PREMIERS! or LOOSERS! discards a lot of relevant information. Total wins says a lot more than whether or not you won the comp, even though as success starved fans we only value the latter.
Correlation does not equal causation.
I did not know that.
 

JokerEel

Coach
Messages
10,221
At least now with Ciraldo committing to the Dogs we won’t make a stupid move and sign some rookie coach.

Flanagan or Payten is the go.

I don't get the Flanagan love..
There has been a few coaching jobs come up since he has been able to be signed up. But no one has taken him up. He was an assistant at the Dragons and not retained.

If he was that good he would be coaching unless he just wants a certain gig at a club...

Payten won't leave a club that he is building look how well they are going. Apparently he was offered to the Eels before he signed with the cowboys and we said no.
 

Noise

Coach
Messages
17,284
What evidence can you put forward that our roster is as good as those three? Because I have plenty of evidence that we are not as good.
To be fair he said top 4, not top 3. I guess the question that should be asked is what evidence is there that our roster is better than the 12 other teams?
 

Poupou Escobar

Post Whore
Messages
84,867
Hagan took us to week 3 of the finals (further than Arthur).
An outlier
I didn’t really rate him.
Yet he was a premiership winner.
Anderson took us to a grand final (also further than Arthur) with a spine of Keating, Robson and Mortimer.
Also an outlier, and he also had Hayne (Dally M winner that year) and Kingston. That team also had a lot more finals experience than any team Arthur's has coached.
You would hope Arthur had a higher winning percentage given he has had much better rosters than the 2008 and 2010 Eels. The Roster management was a mess after 2010 so no point in making a comparison there because I doubt any coach could have done anything with those rosters.
So when did roster management stop being a mess? 2014 when Arthur took over? 2016 when we had to shed players at short notice for 2017 and beyond? 2019 when McElduff took over? 2022 when desperate clubs offered our players overs to leave?
 

Poupou Escobar

Post Whore
Messages
84,867
I put a lot more stock in decision making.
This is itself a resource. Why can't we get Politis, for example? He is an intrinsic resource at the Chooks and they will probably decline without him. But over the long term they have had a lot of success, including before he was involved. I'm sure some other 'good decision maker' will emerge from the throng when he's dead. In fact I'm sure he's not the only resource making it happen over there. He is just the most high profile of a group of them.
This isn’t the EPL where you literally have zero chance of winning the title unless you’re a rich club. In theory if you have competent management any club should be able to win a title at some stage if they play their cards right (due to the salary cap). If we haven’t won a title it’s not because we were lacking. It’s because the people involved in making it happen didn’t do a good enough job.
Sure, and most of them were operating under constraints (in our case the outdated constitution that promoted internal conflict) that don't apply at privately owned clubs or clubs with better governance structures. For mine the best thing to happen to our club since the eighties was going into administration and consequently having the constitution updated. I'm excited about the future but change obviously isn't happening quick enough for some merkins. I just don't think the money needed to compete with the big boys has been available yet. Hopefully it will in the near future. I hate the decline of our junior recruitment (sorry, 'development') since 2017 but I understand the board not wanting the footy club to send the PLC broke. I'm sure Covid hurt us financially as well.
 

Poupou Escobar

Post Whore
Messages
84,867
Because the roster has demonstrated they can be competitive with the better teams.
In a couple of cherry picked games or a couple of cherry picked seasons? We have not finished within 250 points of the team with the best points differential since we were the best in 2005. That's 17 years. The closest we have gotten since then was 2020 where we got within 195 points of the Panthers. What exactly has this or any roster 'demonstrated' to you within a significant sample of games? Because we beat the Panthers twice and Storm this year? Did you know our record against top eight teams this year is 4/10? Against the bottom eight we are 9/11. We haven't proved anything other than that we are too good to miss the finals.
There are alot of people out there who aren’t good at their jobs. Look at the LA Lakers who are one of the glamour teams in the NBA. If you have people in charge who make poor decisions then you’re going to have a bad time regardless of how many resources you have.
Only if you think management isn't a resource. Why can't the Lakers get better decision makers? How can they be a glamour team if they're not winning? I work with a bunch of NBA fans and none of them talk about the Lakers. If their decline is enduring I would say they are less well resourced than they used to be.
 

Poupou Escobar

Post Whore
Messages
84,867
No I’m not. I’m not denying resources are necessary. I’m rejecting the assertion that our club doesn’t have the necessary resources to be challenging consistently for a title.
If we don't have good management how can you say we have sufficient resources to consistently compete with better managed clubs?
 

Poupou Escobar

Post Whore
Messages
84,867
Thats appalling.
Actually we got within 216 of St George in 2009. Otherwise yeah, in both 2007 and 2017 we were exactly 258 points behind the Storm. The only time we got within 200 was 195 points behind Penrith in 2020.

The worst performing premiers (for points differential relative to the best performing team) in the NRL era were:

TeamYearDifferenceBest performing team
Knights2001-290Eels
Cowboys2015-158Roosters
Panthers2003-151Bulldogs
Tigers2005-147Eels

Interesting that two of the best performing teams who failed to win the comp were Parramatta squads under Brian Smith. Merkins say he was a choker but I'm inclined to think he got teams to overachieve during the regular season but then were outclassed in the finals.
 

Gary Gutful

Post Whore
Messages
51,899
Actually we got within 216 of St George in 2009. Otherwise yeah, in both 2007 and 2017 we were exactly 258 points behind the Storm. The only time we got within 200 was 195 points behind Penrith in 2020.

The worst performing premiers (for points differential relative to the best performing team) were:

TeamYearDifferenceBest performing team
Knights2001-290Eels
Cowboys2015-158Roosters
Panthers2003-151Bulldogs
Tigers2005-147Eels

Interesting that two of the best performing teams who failed to win the comp were Parramatta squads under Brian Smith. Merkins say he was a choker but I'm inclined to think he got teams to overachieve during the regular season but were outclassed in the finals.
A bit of both when it comes to Smith.

He got the best out of us during most regular seasons. But the gap between our best during the season and worst during the finals was too great for it just to be down to us overrachieving and then being outclassed.

Plus I saw several finals games where our players had gravy stains running down their legs.
 
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