On the verge of a second successive wooden spoon, what does the future hold for Ricky Stuart?
Rebecca Wilson
The Daily Telegraph
August 08, 2014 10:00PM
EXCUSES are becoming harder and harder to come by for Ricky Stuart, as his coaching reputation sinks to new depths this season.
Stuart will this weekend face the club he coached to a wooden spoon last year, the Parramatta Eels, in Darwin. He will do so as a coach in charge of yet another team looking down the barrel of last place. If the Raiders do as we expect and bring home the spoon, Stuart will be the first coach in history to coach different teams to last place in the NRL.
Stuart, a fine footballer in his time but patchy at best in his career as a coach, has the odds stacked against him as he watches the Canberra Raiders capitulate to all time lows in 2014.
Since 2009, Stuart has won just 20 out of 84 games, with a win ratio of a meagre 24 per cent. If you need any more convincing, keep reading he has won just five games a season for four years in a row. The myth that Stuart is a genuinely good coach has been well and truly busted.
Saturdays in tropical Darwin will underline how bad things have become for Stuart.
The team he coached to last place in 2013 is looking like they will play finals footy under Brad Arthur in 2014. Some might say Stuarts tough decisions in 2013 (he axed a footy team of players) are the reason why the Eels are resurgent.
Others, however, claim Stuarts influence at Parramatta ensured that team desperately underachieved on his watch. Last year, Jarryd Hayne played reasonably well for part of a very unhappy season. This year, under Arthur, he has been phenomenal. So good, in fact, that he has been voted the best player in the game.
All of this must rankle with Stuart, who moved to Canberra in a blaze of publicity at the beginning of the year. The former Raiders star and club legend moved home in controversial circumstances after breaking his contract at Parramatta.
He tried desperately to attract new players to his old club. He failed in his mission.
He laid blame for the clubs woes at the feet of certain players and just two weeks ago, he severed ties with assistant Matt Parish. For those with short memories, Parish is the man who started a relationship with Ray Hadleys estranged wife earlier this year. Hadley tried to have Parish removed as NSW assistant coach, but Laurie Daley and the NSWRL refused to budge and kept Parish on.
Rumblings, whispers and rumours have surrounded Parishs employment at the Raiders since the relationship with Suzanne Hadley began. Parish has left the role in a climate of fear and loathing in the national capitals once great club.
Last week, the Raiders off-field woes manifested themselves in a performance that was so bad it is impossible to gauge whether the Warriors were unbelievably good or just up against incredibly meek opposition.
On a fine Sunday afternoon in Canberra, the fans stayed away in their droves. The clubs crowds are the worst in the league in a city that was once a proud stronghold of the sport.
This is a franchise in such a big hole that it will not be long before the NRL starts questioning its viability. If the Tigers warranted intervention, the Raiders cannot be far away from Dave Smiths clutches. If Stuart and the clubs poor management group cannot find a magic potion, it is not beyond reality that Canberra may not even have a team when the next broadcast agreement is struck.
Those apologists who dance around Ricky Stuart for fear of personal retribution need to take a long, hard look at where all of this will end. It is apparent that Stuart has trouble attracting good players, developing home grown talent or extracting the very best from a team.
His results are an embarrassment to a once great Raiders team, a dynasty of which he was a central part. Stuarts ability to read the play and architect famous victories are now a dim memory, clouded by poor decisions and bad judgment.
The days of family run operations and jobs for the boys are fast coming to an end. The Raiders are victims of both and the results are there for all to see. Stuart and his team are just four weeks away from a wooden spoon.
If the Eels do as we all expect and hand the Raiders another beating in Darwin, Stuart may well decide he is better off jumping into a billabong full of crocodiles rather than returning home to a national capital becoming chillier by the minute.
