I bit off more than I could chew at Eels - Kearney

[Poupou Escobar]

Like it's supposed to matter that 18 months earlier we snuck into eighth spot and jagged a grand final appearance, even though we lost over half the team in that time. Let's not forget either that by 2010 teams had figured out how to neutralise the offload, and we had to start relying on our halves for line breaks, like every other team. That's why 2010 was shit, despite the fact we had Hayne and Mateo as playmakers.

Robson and Mortimer have been replaced by Sandow and anybody. That's a massive improvement right there. It's just bad luck that Burt, Hindmarsh and Poore were only a shadow of the players they once were. At least this time the club had the sense not to keep re-signing them.

 

[DeanPay98]

And the side he was handed was the same as the 09 GF side????

Even comparable to the one in 10?????

We lost from the 2010 side

INU
Mateo
Cayless
BooHoo
Grothe

After losing Kinga,Lowrie and Joey G from the 09 side. Add in Poore hardly played last year and you can't compare the two sides but lets not get facts in the way of another anti SK rant.

I'm assuming that BooHoo is Tahu? He quit after SK signed. As did Grothe.

Poore hardly played in 2011, but he was there in 2012. If you look back at the anti-SK 'rants' they only really started in 2012. People were pretty forgiving in 2011 given the roster and the new coach. But in 2012 his deficiencies as a coach became pretty obvious. He had a reasonable roster in 2012, but he couldn't coach this team. He left us as wooden spooners ergo he left the team worse than when he found it.

Incidentally, we also lost KK after 2010.

It is shocking that 8 out of th 17 in the grand final in 2009 were gone less than two years afterwards and that points to mismanagement. I'm not saying that SK was the only cause in our demise, but it just didn't work with him as coach. Nobody's fault and no hard feelings, but lets not pretend that we're better off.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

Compare next year's squad (built by Kearney) with the 2011 squad (not built by Kearney). We are in much better shape.

 

[Noise]

Yes, yes Mr. Kearney you did.

There was a story I heard, don't know how true it was but the Chairman of our club spoke with the Player Agent of a well known player who left a neighboring district for the shire. The Chairman asked what more could he have done, and was told by the Agent, your deal was a winner, but the player didn't want to be coached by your coach, and about then was when the Coach was getting moved on.

Maybe we dodged a bullet but the same thing happened with Adam Blair.

Luke Lewis and Adam Blair must have no idea. Everyone knows you can't judge a coach after 42 games. They musn't know about sample sizes

 

[DeanPay98]

Like it's supposed to matter that 18 months earlier we snuck into eighth spot and jagged a grand final appearance, even though we lost over half the team in that time. Let's not forget either that by 2010 teams had figured out how to neutralise the offload, and we had to start relying on our halves for line breaks, like every other team. That's why 2010 was shit, despite the fact we had Hayne and Mateo as playmakers.

Robson and Mortimer have been replaced by Sandow and anybody. That's a massive improvement right there. It's just bad luck that Burt, Hindmarsh and Poore were only a shadow of the players they once were. At least this time the club had the sense not to keep re-signing them.

We didn't have a proper halfback after Tim Smith left in 2008 and there was no plan B. Thats why 2008, the first half of 2009 and 2010 were bad. Robson was never going to be a first choice halfback, but he's an excellent foil for a genuine playmaker. We have missed his defensive work in 2012.

Poore has been better this year than is widely acknowledged. Burt and Hindy stayed a year too long and thats a shame. I think they stayed in the hope that 2012 would deliver a premiership with Sandow, Hayne and Roberts in the spine. It didn't happen.

We didn't just jag a grand final appearance. We were playing pretty good football in 2009. We just became too reliant on one form of attack and one player. That was a recipe for disaster.

 

[hineyrulz]

I'm assuming that BooHoo is Tahu? He quit after SK signed. As did Grothe.

Poore hardly played in 2011, but he was there in 2012. If you look back at the anti-SK 'rants' they only really started in 2012. People were pretty forgiving in 2011 given the roster and the new coach. But in 2012 his deficiencies as a coach became pretty obvious. He had a reasonable roster in 2012, but he couldn't coach this team. He left us as wooden spooners ergo he left the team worse than when he found it.

Incidentally, we also lost KK after 2010.

It is shocking that 8 out of th 17 in the grand final in 2009 were gone less than two years afterwards and that points to mismanagement. I'm not saying that SK was the only cause in our demise, but it just didn't work with him as coach. Nobody's fault and no hard feelings, but lets not pretend that we're better off.

Mate i won't deny we are not better of with him gone, but he took over a very poor team and last year i thought we weren't that bad and a little unlucky. This year without Hayne for most of the year was a trainwreck and he was rightfully punted. And 8 out of the 17 guys out of the GF is not all mismanagement it's also the salary cap at work. Funny how we lose all those players and Melbourne gets caught for rorting the cap and they lose far less players.......... :sarcasm:

 

[DeanPay98]

Compare next year's squad (built by Kearney) with the 2011 squad (not built by Kearney). We are in much better shape.

Btw, how does the 2013 squad compare to the 2007 and 2009 squads?

How does looking at the squad alone erase the difference in the NRL ladder positions between 2010 and 2012. Fair enough, SK doesn't have to own 2011, but what about 2012?

 

[Eels Dude]

Kearney simply wasn't up to the job he was hired to do, at least he admits it so there's some closure there. But that doesn't change the fact we're in absolute rabble now because of him. He's not the only one to blame, the powers that be who hired him dictated the terms of his role have to take some responsibility too.

At least with Stuart at the helm I'm a bit more confident he can get the club back on the right track. He has his flaws too, but at least he's tough and non nonsense who will command respect as a coach.

 

[DeanPay98]

Mate i won't deny we are not better of with him gone, but he took over a very poor team and last year i thought we weren't that bad and a little unlucky. This year without Hayne for most of the year was a trainwreck and he was rightfully punted. And 8 out of the 17 guys out of the GF is not all mismanagement it's also the salary cap at work. Funny how we lose all those players and Melbourne gets caught for rorting the cap and they lose far less players.......... :sarcasm:

I think we're on ther same page, but I'd reckon that 4 out of 17 is the salary cap and the other four is poor management. We lost Mateo, Keating and Inu when Osborne suspended re-signings. We lost Tahu because he wasn't given time off - in retrospect it might have been better to grant him the leeway. Grothe and Cayless retired - fair enough. Kevin Kingston was a genuine salary cap loss.

Given how we've bled points on the flanks and how juniors have come through so quickly, at times too quickly, I can't help but think we'd have been better off if Inu, Tahu, Mateo and KK had stayed. Spilt milk perhaps...

And yes, Melbourne's cap is very suspect.

 

[Noise]

I tried to do a comparison between 2011 and 2013

2011

. Hayne
2.Burt
3.Tahu (left due to SK ) atkins/hicks/phats
4.Reddy
5.Loko
6. Robson
7.Mortimer
8. Justin Poore
9.Matt Keating
10.Fui Fui Moi Moi
11.Hindmarsh
12.Ben Smith
13. Shane Shackleton

14. Mitchell
15.Horo
16. Mannah
17.Taniela Lasalo

18. Carl Webb

Possible 2013
Hayne
Sio
Loko
Morgan
Blair
Kelly
Sandow
Keating
Mannah
Fui
Reni
Smith
Paulo

Tautai
Allgood
Lasalo
N. Smith

I don't reckon there is too much difference between these sides. They both suck

 

[hineyrulz]

I had no problems wih Kearney's hard line stance on Tahu, i was actually excited by the hardline approach. Too bad it wen pear shaped from there.

 

[Stagger eel]

our last 3 coaches weren't up to the job, we've been a rabble since 08 barring the 09 run which was freakish and even the coach had no idea how it happened..in fact before Peter Sharp rejoined the clun in 2010 he turned up to one of the last training sessions prior to the gf and the players were playing touch footy and mucking around, Sharp asked Anderson what the hell aere they doing playing touch a few days prior to playing a GF??..Ando apparently shrugged his shoulders and said it worked for 9 weeks why wouldn't it work now??..the person who told me was an ex employee at the club..

 

[bartman]

This clown should go down as one of the worst coaches EVER to be given a first grade gig.

Don't worry. To most reasonable people, he has.

 

[oldmancraigy]

In all fairness to SK, he did pretty well for us in 2011. We played a consistent, competitive brand of football, and just lacked anything in attack apart from Hayne. The major problem was in the halves. The biggest issue with 2011 is that it took us until round 11 to start playing 'proper' footy. By then the season was beyond us, and we had all those heartbreak losses after that.

A LOT of cause for optimism heading into 2012, especially considering the signing of 2 new halves, surely one of them would pan out. Again we started poorly, SK freaked out and started random experiments [no props, 6 props] and showed he was out of his depth. The management side of things had clearly overtaken him and again he failed to get the team 'up' in the first 10 rounds, by which time it was all too late.

We can all speculate about what went wrong, it certainly APPEARED as if it had all got on top of SK - and it seems like he's admitting that himself.

Doubtful that he's left the club in better shape than he found it, might not be much worse, but the regression since 2011 can't be simply blamed on old players - the heat goes onto the coach for not getting others to perform. I certainly don't hate the guy, but it was all too much for him, that's clear! Nobody is fool enough to argue he's excelled in any one particular area of being a head coach.

 

[Eelementary]

In all fairness to SK, he did pretty well for us in 2011. We played a consistent, competitive brand of football, and just lacked anything in attack apart from Hayne. The major problem was in the halves. The biggest issue with 2011 is that it took us until round 11 to start playing 'proper' footy. By then the season was beyond us, and we had all those heartbreak losses after that.

A LOT of cause for optimism heading into 2012, especially considering the signing of 2 new halves, surely one of them would pan out. Again we started poorly, SK freaked out and started random experiments [no props, 6 props] and showed he was out of his depth. The management side of things had clearly overtaken him and again he failed to get the team 'up' in the first 10 rounds, by which time it was all too late.

We can all speculate about what went wrong, it certainly APPEARED as if it had all got on top of SK - and it seems like he's admitting that himself.

Doubtful that he's left the club in better shape than he found it, might not be much worse, but the regression since 2011 can't be simply blamed on old players - the heat goes onto the coach for not getting others to perform. I certainly don't hate the guy, but it was all too much for him, that's clear! Nobody is fool enough to argue he's excelled in any one particular area of being a head coach.

I feel that's a fair, reasonable and honest assessment.

 

[strider]

our last 3 coaches weren't up to the job, we've been a rabble since 08 barring the 09 run which was freakish and even the coach had no idea how it happened..in fact before Peter Sharp rejoined the clun in 2010 he turned up to one of the last training sessions prior to the gf and the players were playing touch footy and mucking around, Sharp asked Anderson what the hell aere they doing playing touch a few days prior to playing a GF??..Ando apparently shrugged his shoulders and said it worked for 9 weeks why wouldn't it work now??..the person who told me was an ex employee at the club..

and we were 1 good 6th tackle options away from taking the GF to extra time .... maybe the touch footy WAS the way to go???

 

[strider]

from all reports Kearney CHOSE to do it all himself ... and refused help until someone he would accept was brought in ..... he dug his own f'n grave there .... well our clueless board who bent over and did whatever for him handed him the shovel

 

[Maroubra Eel]

and we were 1 good 6th tackle options away from taking the GF to extra time .... maybe the touch footy WAS the way to go???

And why wouldn't they play touch footy, if that's what they do?
It makes sense to prepare as you normally would.

 

[Tyler Durden]

poor kearney - it's a lot harder to coach a team that stays within the salary cap.

 

[Kornstar]

and we were 1 good 6th tackle options away from taking the GF to extra time .... maybe the touch footy WAS the way to go???

Against a team cheating the cap too.........I guess it's easier to lay the boot in though.......funnily enough was it not Hayne who basically said on national TV, that the coach foxed the great Wayne Bennett by giving them no game plan in round 26 and then coming out and destroying them week one go the finals? The poor bloke hadn't a clue!

Brian Smith also said he had no idea what happened in 2001.......

I would suggest what they mean is that they had no idea why whatever clicked them into gear, happened, but when they found that rhythm, they stuck with it and worked hard with it. Got them both to GF's. weren't the Knights over by 300k too?