This is what confuses me as well Twizzle.
I was talking to people in my family yesterday (they are all Parra fans) about this....
Say we are told today by Paul Osbourne that Daniel Anderson is gone and we do have a choice between Stephen Kearney and Ricky Stuart; who do we pick?
The logical choice is Ricky Stuart.
Why?
He is a proven NRL coach that has a premiership to his name, and yes he may have been terrible at the Sharks in 2009 and 2010 but look at his accomplishments and look at the stuff that other coaches go through; many good coaches go through bad seasons, a change of setting is often the perfect place to send a new coach and they can immediately make a positive impact. Look at Brian Smith this year, for the past few years he has struggled with the Knights, give him a change to a Roosters team and they are in a Grand Final.
We have to remember also that the Sharks relied heavily on Brett Kimmoreley, and it's no doubt that after a great 2008 season, they were near wooden spooners the two years following his departure. Without him, they have no attacking talent; it's why they have been so good in defence. The great positive about the Sharkies has always been their forward pack, the sad thing was that their halves in particular and also outside backs were generally not good enough to set up tries or attacking plays.
This will change, and along with a new coach it can bring massive positive change to the Sharks.
I believe it can do the same here with Sticky.
Would you rather take an unproven NRL coach (in first-grade) over a proven premiership winning NRL coach???
I agree with Noa's sentiments however that Kearney is a big reason the Storm go so well, he is a great assistant coach for them.
I guess the board's thinking is that he will bring some of the Melbourne Storm culture and experience with him; being tutored under Craig Bellamy is huge....could very well turn out to be what we need to have new attacking structure and have a coach that our players want to perform under; the big thing about the Storm over the past four years has largely been their consistency.
However, in saying that......it is still strange that they would pick Kearney over a proven coach.....which is why I raised this question to my family-does the board believe that he will bring something specific to us? Do they believe he will bring some Storm players with him or something? (Fat chance). Yes we have heard the rumours of Cronk and Adam Blair wanting to leave.....but surely that isn't the case.
Or perhaps Kearney has a good recruitment plan that he has told the board....
We will have to wait and see I guess.
IN any case, whoever the new coach is, we must stick up for them 100%. If we don't, and the board doesn't, we may as well accept the spoon....
