It feels like we’re finally getting the club back to where Ivan had things in his last couple of years at the club when the Vulcans and our Toyota Cup sides were dominant. The fact that it’s happening in Webster’s first year is a credit not only to him but Cappy and the others in the front office. (And yes, we need to include George and Robinson there too)
I know what you mean but I think we are well past Ivan's era with the club set up...and I think we are about to surpass Anderson's time too....
Anderson was the most successful coach in our history and his Minor Prem side was stacked with Reggies...stacked.
Anderson got us in the finals three years running and the 2003 side were one Logan Swan fail off being two times GF appearances...
Certainly well ahead of Cleary.
People look kindly on Cleary because he left under good terms and wanted to stay, people forget Anderson because he left under a cloud and seems to have imploded after revolutionizing the game here...a pattern Anderson was to go on and repeat at multiple clubs.
Anyway forgetting those two and the trainspotting afternoon I could spend on them....
This is a new era.
Anderson was a bit like Webster in that he decided to go with the players strengths....you hear that mantra a lot with Webster...who is said to be all about getting players to play their natural game.
Under Anderson he talked about throwing out the Aussie Text book and embracing Jungle ball.
From there Anderson purely focused on micro skills, holding the Jungle balls, and making tackles with scrambling defence.
Anderson identified correctly that NZ players do not learn the fundamentals, the kiddy school basics that separate us from Aus, and that was his genius, getting players to play with dish washing liquid on their hands and the hoses turned on the field to replicate slippery when wet conditions.
Ivan, tried to harness the Warriors with Aussie restraint, he tried to change the natural game for a foreign game imposed on players here.
Webster is different again. He is somewhat of a blend of Ivan and Anderson.
Websters catch cry of using players strengths is like Anderson's embrace of Jungle ball, except Webster is not about styles, he is actually talking about the micro focus on individual players rather than Jungle ball as a method.
This is why you see the Johnson bomb as our almost exclusive kick. And this is why you see Johnson used on every tackle five play, because Webster is not trying to add variation, he is not overlaying Johnson's go to with an alternative to help take pressure off Johnson...rather he is saying if this is how SJ likes to play tackle five, lets make is work with a rolling milddle attack that back peddles our opposition and lets unleash the hounds under that bomb and pin it where it lands.
Equally you will find the tenets of Cleary in Websters coaching if you look at the way there are strict guidelines around reactive plays from people like Tevanga.
Jazz is tightly controlled, he is enjoying his best season since winning Dally M 14, all down to being on a tight leash around his specific role in the game, which bans the offload somewhat (because it is not always a Jazz player strength) and banning all the Jazz interference at the play the ball (again it lines up with Cleary type emphasis on discipline).
Using Jazz as a further example (you can see a lot in this sport by tracking one players changes in a season under a new coach) have you noticed how Jazz is no longer killing the attack in the red zone by over play...have you noticed how he no longer is dying with the ball on multiple raids when it looked promising till he got the ball?
Have a think about why that is, to my mind it is because we have a new organizational structure that uses Walker in that scenario, a ball player with fast hands that can create, rather than a ball to Jazz who has an offload if he manages to stand in the tackle that no one is ready for.
What I am saying in a round about way is we are coached and the dna of the coaching is evident on most every play and in every players changes since Webster took over.
Jazz himself came out in the preseason and admitted the coaching staff had laid down an edict that demanded no more penalties and turn overs. I laughed when I read that and thought good luck, I am not laughing now, I get it, it is Webster ball..player strengths and all that.
We are no longer about models or phillosophies as may have been seen in the time of Daniel and Ivan.
Now we are about giving our opponents some SJ ball,...some Tohu ball, and most definitely some Walker ball....stuff that is hard to coach against by rigid thinkers who are restricted to game plans.
Probably the craziest thing going on in our new Coaching system is seeing the NSW cup boys play Webster ball. I cannot even begin to process what that means for this club.
www.nswrl.com.au
