When Ricky Stuart came to the Roosters he inherited an established side, he only tinkered with their defensive structure and left the attack pretty much as is. Only signing of note in his first year he was responsible for was Brett Mullins. All the other players were signed by others. Every year from 2002-2004 Stuart mention leading into each season how he wanted to ease the burndens on the rep players, but ever year he made them back up time after time - they go no respite. In fact as the seasons went on Stuart showed a propensity to not use his bench well, he was so programmed on when to make interchanges you could predict to the minute when his first 4 interchanges would be made for each game.
The one thing that also stood out was how unwilling Stuart was to blood players from the lower grades into first grade. Barring injury he rarely blooded anyone. Thus when Freddy retired at the end of 2004, he had no one ready to fill the five eighth position, and as other players left (e.g. Jason Cayless) he didn't call up anyone from the lower grades either.
Fact is I heard some horror stories about Stuart's comments made to players in the lower grades, some coming to them duing halftime of the lower grade games in the sheds. Suffice to say that I hold the person who told me them as credible, the stories of what he said would not be confidence building to the players involved to say the least.
Stuart parlayed the 2002 premiership win into having full control over all football operations, including retention and recruitment. He never replaced Brad Fittler, he never replaced Jason Cayless either. That is how we wound up with the Brett Firman experiement and the experiment of Craig Fitzgibbon playing front row.
When he left the Roosters at the end of 2006, the club was in a worse position than when he arrived.
He followed a similar pattern at Cronulla. Did well in his first year, when he left 3 years later, the place was worse off.
Frankly based on that, you would only use Stuart as a short term coach with an established squad which needs some shine put on it. If you are looking at him as a coach to develop a club from the lower grades, in the medium term, I think he is not the right choice at all.
