Nathan Brown

[The Showstopper]

Absolutely we need him but my fear is he will be punted after fan pressure. He is the solution. When I said it is beyond him I meant he has been dealt the worst possible hand. It would be suicide to sack Browny. There are kids in the UK he will bring over. He just needs the money to make it worth their time. UK salary cap is utter crap. Johnny Lomax from St Helens I would sign tomorrow. Superstar. Same with Alex Walmsley. Can I just float the idea of bringing Scotty out of retirement. Shift Hokko to the 6. We need something. Scotty will have a red hot go. He was in great form for Le Catalans before injury hit.

 

[Mr_Knightside]

The funny thing is bringing Scotty out of retirement doesn't actually sound like such a bad idea given how our season is going.

I suppose a valid counter-argument to that is that it's not really a long term solution so we might as well stick with Brock Lamb at 6 for the rest of the year (or at least until Mullen is back) and give him time to develop. He was having a dig last night and his kicking game was decent, he was one of our best and had a pretty decent debut all things considered.

 

[Chicken_Hunter]

Is that you roopy?

 

[Alex28]

I actually thought Brock went pretty well all things considered. Didn't look lost or overawed out there, had a go at running at the defence, kicked OK but the Roosters were well placed to receive the ball all night.

Is Cogger ready or still a little while off? Would hate to lose him while we are waiting for Hokko's time here to come to an end...

 

[Spot On]

Lamb was pretty good all things considered.

 

[Hello, I'm The Doctor]

Why does he get a free ride?
The Knights attack looked better under Stone.
Defense is just as bad under Brown.

No it did not...

Brown needs to be given a free ride. We have had 4 head coaches in 3 three years; if we ditch Browny now, we'll be calling for the next guys head before Origin.

He is working with a team someone else put together and he is trying to rebuild a pathetic culture. I know losing is painful, but changing coaches every few week and hoping or the best will not bring success.

I want most of our squad gone (Mullen first, if only to send the message that we will not tolerate this kind of mediocraty from the guy that should be leading us), but Brown's position should not even be reviewed until mid-2018...

 

[Hello, I'm The Doctor]

I'd have preferred the Walker Brothers myself, as I think they're a better fit for the club and where it's at.

That being said, Brown would be a good fit if we were in the financial position to capitalize on his connections in the UK.

We could bring them in as Assistant coaches, its not like Brown is the only one there in the coaches box...

I do agree that we need to be more positive and energetic in attack, but that can be done by an assistant. For me, Brown is there to create a better culture (hearing some of the stories of the players attitudes, its hardly surprising no one on the team gives a shit).

 

[Hello, I'm The Doctor]

There is not a single coach in the universe that would coach this team any higher than 15th or 16th.

Our players just arent good enough.

When a team is completely out gunned in every possible way they will always make loads of basic errors. If you put this same team, same coach, same game plan into a local sydney comp they would hardly make an error and would be able to lay on great trys from anywhere.

The basics are hard to do when every indiividual player is out of their depth.

Sadly, it will probably be the same for another 2 years

For me, talent isnt even the problem. We have talented guys, they just dont seem to give a shit...

Id rather watch NSW Cup-qualty players putting everything they have into the game. ATM we have guys on half a mil jogging at the line and waiting for the game to end.

For one, Gagai looks like he cares as much as Boyd did. Id rather have Ross back there; he isnt as naturally gifted, but at least he runs full pelt and tries to get his hands on the ball.

 

[Bring it home Knights]

Gagai last year was doing more runs than anyone else in the team. His involvement is definitely WAY down...

 

[Spot On]

The halfback looks as though he'd more interested in jumping out of a plane without the chute.

 

[undertaker]

Gagai last year was doing more runs than anyone else in the team. His involvement is definitely WAY down...

This

For me, talent isnt even the problem. We have talented guys, they just dont seem to give a shit...

The fact the Knights were leading 14-6 against the Storm down in Melbourne with 17 minutes to go shows that the team can be competitive against other teams with top-class players when coach-killing unforced errors such as kicking out on the full, soft missed tackles, cheap turnovers of possession, forward passes etc. are eliminated. No matter what squad you have, you can never compete at first-grade level these days when you make a large combination of those aforementioned errors, such as what happened last night. You may have got away with a game like that 20 years ago when playing sides such as South Sydney or Western Suburbs, but the change in fitness levels and skillset of players over time since then means you will be left behind the rest of the pack and facing cricket scorelines when you're constantly gifting the opposition possession of the ball.

I want most of our squad gone (Mullen first, if only to send the message that we will not tolerate this kind of mediocraty from the guy that should be leading us), but Brown's position should not even be reviewed until mid-2018...

I really hope bitchy groups such as the Knights Nannas aren't going to put pressure on Matt Gidley et al. to sack Brown (and replace him with the dreaded Hagan/Stone-type coach), but I have a bad feeling that may eventuate if we keep copping ....-0 scorelines this year.

I agree with you, Brown needs to be given until at least sometime next year to not just improve performances, but to more importantly improve culture. I'm definitely not going to judge him solely on this year, as there's a huge mess in the team structure that needs to be dealt with and as you have alluded to, a lot of dead wood needs to be cleaned out a la season 2007-style.

 

[Alex28]

3 years minimum. The cap is so f**ked that it's going to take that long to sort it out.

If we don't give him that time, we have another coach inheriting another incomplete plan of a former coach. What's the point?

 

[Mr_Knightside]

Not to mention all things considered I think we're lucky to get Brown in the first place, if we sack him I can't see any half decent experiences coaches wanting to take the job. We'd end up with a first year NRL coach who can't get a gig anywhere else.

 

[Hello, I'm The Doctor]

Not to mention all things considered I think we're lucky to get Brown in the first place, if we sack him I can't see any half decent experiences coaches wanting to take the job. We'd end up with a first year NRL coach who can't get a gig anywhere else.

I reckon the only application would be from Rick Stone...

 

[Still Nutty]

No it did not...

Brown needs to be given a free ride. We have had 4 head coaches in 3 three years; if we ditch Browny now, we'll be calling for the next guys head before Origin.

Not sure if posted this in the wrong thread earlier or there seems to be a common theme....


I missed the game so I can only imagine the quality of the game based on the despair and frustration shown on here....

On Brown - I think we all acknowledged that he was up against it to take this job on and he has very little room to move based on the cap situation for 2016 and 2017.

On that basis, whilst acknowledging there needs to be incremental improvement over these next 2 seasons, regardless of how poor the performances are he has to try and find a way to work with the cattle he's got...and that means he has to apply patience to try and get the best out of the squad he has access to. There's an old saying that you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

So far he has put players on notice about the attitude and standards expected and has supported that by using 29 or 30 players so far this season already. Some of this has been driven by injuries (Rochow, Mullen, Snowden, Mcmanus, etc)and some by dropping poor performance where he had the capacity to put somebody else in (not that they were necessarily better but he had to at least indicate underperformance was going to see you dropped).

Reality is for this year, Brown seems to be focussing on the basic no frills fundamentals football to give us a framework that aims to achieve high % of completions (ala Bennett ball)giving us some capacity to develop these young blokes to at least stay in games (if they can execute and minimise errors) - this seems to be about the best we can expect on the game plan front and trying to get the execution of that fundamental platform working for us before more open or complex game plans can be initiated.

I said early on in the season that my judging of Brown will be how this squad is shaping up in the last half dozen games of this season to sense what he is achieving...and until then, all I can do is acknowledge he has the toughest job in rugby league and the biggest factor in addressing that is time because the resources/cattle available to him is limited and is not going to change significantly in the next 18 months.

 

[Whats Doing]

I don't have a problem Browny introducing youth but only if they are ready. Denniss, Cogger, Mamo are not NRL standard and is destroying what little confidence the side has. They have a defeatist attitude prior to going out to play.

Browny's goodwill will vanish quickly if he continues to blindly put youth in irrespective of whether they are ready or not.

 

[Burns]

How long can being beat by 50 be tolerable? I believe in what Brown is doing, I know we will be a few years off but I'm not sure how much longer out team can keep getting smashed.

 

[Frederick]

I don't have a problem Browny introducing youth but only if they are ready. Denniss, Cogger, Mamo are not NRL standard and is destroying what little confidence the side has. They have a defeatist attitude prior to going out to play.

Browny's goodwill will vanish quickly if he continues to blindly put youth in irrespective of whether they are ready or not.

Cogger consistently outplayed Hodkinson today

 

[perverse]

Cogger consistently outplayed Hodkinson today

With the ball, without it he's a total disaster. Go back over the last few weeks and count how many points he's been directly or indirectly involved in conceding. By my count, it has been a *lot* of them.

 

[Whats Doing]

Cogger consistently outplayed Hodkinson today

Cogger set up 2 tries but was terrible in defence again this week. He is extremely slow and very small and is being targeted by the opposition. Until he can show he can defend he shouldn't be in 1st grade. It is as simple as that.

Hodko can at least defend but he was a dud buy