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Matt Cooper Says:

_Johnsy

Referee
Messages
27,263
Look at the scoreboard, Matt Cooper taunts


"We don't care because we're winning."

"People can say that about us, but at the end of the day we're winning,"

"I think Dragons fans would be more worried about us winning than putting on fancy plays and all that sort of stuff."


"I think they [the fans] walked away from the game on Friday night really happy and that's what it's all about I suppose,"

"I think our style of football is probably one that if we do it right at the start of the season then we're going to do it right all year,"

"It's just completion rate, get our defence right and the rest will come.
"


Typical crap article, why is there always a negative slant when the do a story on us, I have deleted anything other than a direct quote from Coops, and I cannot find one single word that even goes close to constituting a taunt.

F** you Telecrap.
 
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Dragon David

First Grade
Messages
7,295
Geez I’d love to know the details about this.
These are the words Cooper said that stand out -

"There’s no pride in the jersey anymore, from 2001-2011 we only missed the finals twice. Since then, we’ve only made them twice," he wrote. "Obviously it changed when Wayne Bennett left. It all starts from the top… that’s where the culture comes from.

"There’s no pride in the jersey now, no team-first attitude. You can see that when players are asking to be released – and I’m not blaming them. There’s a reason they want to go elsewhere".

For him to carry on and still have this embedded in his brain for the past 10 years he must be so, so bitter with the Doust man.
 

Maddragon99

Juniors
Messages
2,075
These are the words Cooper said that stand out -

"There’s no pride in the jersey anymore, from 2001-2011 we only missed the finals twice. Since then, we’ve only made them twice," he wrote. "Obviously it changed when Wayne Bennett left. It all starts from the top… that’s where the culture comes from.

"There’s no pride in the jersey now, no team-first attitude. You can see that when players are asking to be released – and I’m not blaming them. There’s a reason they want to go elsewhere".

For him to carry on and still have this embedded in his brain for the past 10 years he must be so, so bitter with the Doust man.
Reading between the lines it looks like Cooper wanted to play on but Doust said no.
 

Maximus

Coach
Messages
11,737
In a surprise twist to his retirement announcement at St George Leagues Club on Tuesday, the 34-year-old revealed a long-held ambition to confront the brutal world of cage fighting.

“I’ve been doing MMA training for the past six years as a result of changing my routine because of knee and ankle injuries,” Cooper said.

“I’m thinking about doing extra training now that I’ve retired with the view to having an MMA fight.”

Cooper now intends to add Brazilian ju jitsu training to his regular sparring sessions with Wollongong-based boxing trainer Brett Harriett.

His passion for MMA has blossomed into friendships with top Australian fighters James Te Huna, Anthony Perosh, Kyle Noke and Ross Pearson — all regulars on the UFC circuit in America.

“I’ve been hooked on the sport for a long time and I love the training because it’s helped me keep going with footy to this age,” he said.

While Cooper committed to 2013 being his final season before round one, a toe injury made the 243-game veteran reconsider retirement as recently as last month.

“I didn’t want to go out as an injured player and I kept changing my mind every day,” he said. “But then I had a chat with the club and realised it would be selfish to play on for that reason alone.

“I also spoke with guys like Ben Hornby, Dean Young and Mark Gasnier, who are all happy in retirement.”

Cooper recovered from the toe injury to make his return in St George Illawarra’s clash against Brisbane a fortnight ago, grateful to be a given a five-game swan song.

But he barely lasted half the game, suffering a pectoral tear that proved to be career-ending.

“Sitting in the sheds at Suncorp Stadium, that was pretty devastating to know I’d played my last game,” he said.

“That was probably the most emotional I’ve been my whole career.

“The fact was that I couldn’t walk off the field in my last game and it hurt.”

Following a stellar career that took a surprise detour in SG Ball, when he played a season at prop, the former NSW and Test flyer deserved better.

And the Dragons will do what they can to honour the Shellharbour junior before the team’s final-round match against New Zealand Warriors at WIN Stadium.

“Looking back, there were so many great players that came up through the Illawarra region around the same time,” Cooper said.

“Guys like Benny Hornby, Dean Young, Jason Ryles, Luke Bailey, Trent Barrett, they all played Origin and who knows if we’ll ever see another batch like that again?

“But we’ve got a lot of good, young kids at the club now and I’m sure that there will be more.”


So we've got 2 stories, Doust forced him to retire when he said he was going to retire, and he didnt get a job with the club which he seemingly didn't need since he was going into MMA.

And if the job thing is the real issue, how many former players are we supposed to give jobs to?
 

Victoire

Juniors
Messages
721
And if the job thing is the real issue, how many former players are we supposed to give jobs to?
Not the point.

This is about reneging on a promise... to a club legend, no less. Coops' contribution to the club is greater than all the shithead administrators of the last 15 years combined, for them to apparently make these promises and then ditch them is extremely shitty and does great harm to the reputation and culture of the club as a whole. Can't exactly help attract or retain players when they see a club legend being treat in such a way
 

RedVDave

First Grade
Messages
5,569
My guess is Coops asked for an extension and was knocked but told if he retires instead will get a job and got reneged.
 

Slippery Morris

First Grade
Messages
7,378
Didn't Brett Morris have a similar issue hence why he left the Dragons as well as Gaz prior to him leaving for France.

It appears these broken promises happen a lot at the Dragons especially to the good players. Coops and BMoz especially were great servants to the club compared to Soward and Matt Head and yet they seemed to get a job at the club years later and poor Coops got nothing.

I am sure Coops could have done MMA and been an assistant coach at the same time.
 

Old Timer

Coach
Messages
16,903
A lot of supposition going on and as usual people want to instantly start bagging the club.

How about we wait until Coops finally spells it all out and then people make an informed judgement based on some evidence?

The Doust thing could even be about Bennett only getting 3 years and players being pissed off when hey found out Mr Burns wanted 5 years who knows?

Many loyal former players have had gripes with their long term clubs over wanting to have involvement after retiring like Price & Kenny for instance and it doesn't always mean that the players are correct in what it is they think they can add to the place.

For some it is incredibly hard to let go and Coops might just be one of those.

People going on about things Doust did well what about what Mark Gasnier did but he goes down as a legend in club folklore?

Lots of promised upgrades didn't eventuate after Gaz was lured back to the club and then reneged on his contract and of course there was the loss of J Moz on Bennett's watch.

Not all things are the clubs fault some times their hand is forced by other situations.
 

Maximus

Coach
Messages
11,737
Not the point.

This is about reneging on a promise... to a club legend, no less. Coops' contribution to the club is greater than all the shithead administrators of the last 15 years combined, for them to apparently make these promises and then ditch them is extremely shitty and does great harm to the reputation and culture of the club as a whole. Can't exactly help attract or retain players when they see a club legend being treat in such a way

Considering when he retired he said he wanted to get into MMA, I'm going to bet this job rumour is bullshit
 

Maximus

Coach
Messages
11,737
Didn't Brett Morris have a similar issue hence why he left the Dragons as well as Gaz prior to him leaving for France.

It appears these broken promises happen a lot at the Dragons especially to the good players. Coops and BMoz especially were great servants to the club compared to Soward and Matt Head and yet they seemed to get a job at the club years later and poor Coops got nothing.

I am sure Coops could have done MMA and been an assistant coach at the same time.

Wasn't Brett trying to get Josh to come to the Dragons, but salary cap pressures didn't allow it, so Brett went the other way? Josh was bad timing coming through when we had Cooper and Gasnier. You can't keep them all.

As for Gasnier

Gasnier admits he needed to start again. He left the NRL with a bitter taste in his mouth, brought about by dissatisfaction over the handling of his contract. It had nothing to do with St George Illawarra or the game of rugby league. But when the chance came to link with Ewen McKenzie at Stade Francais, Gasnier jumped.

"My thought process was I definitely don't want to play for another NRL club and that wasn't going to solve the situation, because my problem wasn't with the Dragons," he said.



He had a 3rd party deal, that 3rd party didn't pay him. How is that the club's fault?

Also, being a better servant of the club doesn't make someone a better coach. Should coaches be hired based on how long they played for the club, or ability as a coach?
 
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