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First coach sacked 2024

Reflector

Bench
Messages
2,537
How was it bad coaching? The Blues were up against the best Maroons side in Origin history.
His approach was compromised because of all his Storm stars in the Qld team. He wouldn't risk targeting them too much lest they got injured and it ruined Melbourne's season.
 

King hit

Coach
Messages
14,062
How was it bad coaching? The Blues were up against the best Maroons side in Origin history.
I don’t care who the Maroons of that time were. Bellamy’s Blues played the worst origin football I’ve seen. Had the complete wrong mindset and game plans. Gidley captained of the bench that’s all you need to know about Bellamy’s origin input. You could easily see mass improvement after he left. There is no sugarcoating it Bellamy’s 3 years in origin were a complete failure.
 

bazza

Immortal
Messages
30,693
How was it bad coaching? The Blues were up against the best Maroons side in Origin history.
coaching in Origin is different to building a club and being successful over multiple NRL seasons
For an NRL coach one of the main tasks is getting a team with limited resources to succeed - so what positions do you have stars in and what positions do you have run of the mill players that can do a job. You then have a year (or more) to get them to play a style that suits.

In origin you have potential superstars in every position and it is finding a way to get them to play as a team within a week.
 

King hit

Coach
Messages
14,062
Freddy and Joey still talk about the times Gus put them on blast, decades after it happened.

In Freddy's case it was during the 1991 pre-season when he went AWOL up to the Gold Coast then rocked up to training in thongs riding a moped like he was Bart Simpson. Gus hauled him into an office, locked the door and blasted him. Told him to get stuffed and that if he saw the moped again, he'd shove it up Freddy's arse. Freddy was apparently in tears, went home, came back to training half an hour later in his mum's Ford Laser with his proper footy gear on and asked Gus how he looked? Gus said he looked like a footballer, told him to go warm up with the other blokes and that was it. The rest of Freddy's career speaks for itself...

In Joey's case it was during a NSW pre-series get together in Coogee in 2003. In front of the entire team during lunch Gus called out Joey for being overweight and unmotivated (who does this sound like?) and said Joey was using his Telegraph column to push for his Knights team-mates to get selected in the team and made Joey agree that this stopped now. Then after the lunch Joey was having a sook for being called out and "disrespected like that" (imagine my shock) and Gus took him down the street and basically told Joey he was "acting like a f**king big-head". Told Joey to go away, go surfing, get in shape and then come back in the right frame of mind and they could have a big series. Joey went on to captain NSW to a series win despite Qld hosting Game 1 and Game 3...

Bellamy is that sort of coach, but aside from that I don't know who Souths could get in that you could count on to risk hurting Latrell's feelings like that. What I do know is that as long as Latrell keeps acting like a 14 y/o, he's selling himself short as an athlete and we're being sold short as RL fans...
I believe Mitchell would just respond by crying on about how he is being targeted because of his f**king race and use it to fuel the bizarre victimhood mentality he lives in.

That sort of thing was one of the reasons why Gould was such a successful coach. No matter who it was he didn’t give a f**k.
 

Saxon

Bench
Messages
3,179
His approach was compromised because of all his Storm stars in the Qld team. He wouldn't risk targeting them too much lest they got injured and it ruined Melbourne's season.
To be fair it worked both ways. Slater/Smith/Cronk knew exactly how Bellamy coached and worked between themselves to counter it.
 

JamesRustle

First Grade
Messages
8,046
While this was definitely part of it, Bennett’s management of most things at the Knights was extremely questionable.

He got rid of the majority of the young roster that had made the finals the previous season and completely filled it with blokes mostly in their 30s on hugely back-ended contracts. In his defence Tinkler had made some ridiculous declaration about Bennett winning us premierships and completely f**king the salary cap up for years to come to bring in a lot of old and experienced heads right away was probably seen as the best way to do that at the time, but for all the changes he made to the roster they only made the finals once finishing 7th. They did go onto make a prelim but they were never a power that year and were never going to win it.

The following year the old blokes he brought in were already slowing down and he pissed off saying that he’d never be able to fix the team despite him handpicking most of the roster. The squad was then completely f**ked and had to play with a team full of kids straight from the under 20s for the next few years.

A lot of other stuff was going on at the Knights at the time, bankruptcy, taken over by the NRL, McKinnon’s injury, all of which further hurt the club immensely but Bennett certainly left us in a worse shape than he took it over. Those 3 consecutive spoons really hurt the club and there’s no doubt now in hindsight his roster management was responsible. I didn’t rate Stone or Brown too much but tbh I don’t think anyone could have avoided the spoon with those sides.

He and Tinkler combined really did a number on the club.
And he tore apart the club doctor's practice (manager)
 
Messages
15,415
I'm watching Demetriou's post match press conference. James Hooper being a douche (what not a surprise) just harpring on asking JD if he thinks he will still be coach. Demetriou showing a lot of composure and class in how he's handling the press this evening.
 

yobbo84

Coach
Messages
11,311
The way I see it...

The players like JD. They're a tight bunch. They will put in the effort for him.

But we are very poorly prepared.

Our players look like they don't know what they're doing. Our sets don't build to anything. It's all "do your best boys".

He seems like a super nice guy but I don't think NRL head coaching is for him. And that's OK, he will always be a good assistant coach. There's no shame in failure.
 

Pjf04b

Juniors
Messages
515
Surely JD and BA are equal odds on favourites now. BA‘s press conference was strange to say the least. Surely the coach has the responsibility to keep the players up for games! Putting the blame on the players is not acceptable! Do the right thing and give somebody else a go!
JD is just as bad. ”I believe I am the only one who can turn them around”, then lose to Cronulla. Be honourable and quit!
 

Fangs

Coach
Messages
13,776
The Roosters suck.

And I say it because it simply isn't stated nearly enough.

They are a perennial disappointment.
 

Woody90

Juniors
Messages
2,216
The Roosters suck.

And I say it because it simply isn't stated nearly enough.

They are a perennial disappointment.

I think they escape criticism because there’s always some sides doing worse than them on the ladder and they’ll occasionally be able to pull out a big win against a team really struggling (I.e. Souths earlier in the year).

If they didn’t consistently have the massive leg ups they get though, and had a salary cap like everyone else, I suspect they would have finished a lot lower the last few years and the false aura of Karen being a super coach would have started to discussion a lot sooner.
 

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