Results should be the key measure we judge the Board, Doust and Mary on. For example:
Management
On two occasions in recent times our Club (Doust) has chased a head coach and come up empty.
The Club's (Doust) extension of Price's contract was dum considering his poor performance in 2012.
The current financial stress of our Club (Doust) is hindering progress.
Poor choices in player recruitment (Doust) have resulted in a waste of salary cap and unnecessary limitation placed on our player's on-field performance.
Doust has failed in key areas of management and should go.
Coach
As far as the coaching job goes, Price should have resigned when it was clear that he was not up to the job. Mary is doing his best as an interim solution however, he is not the answer to the Club's coaching requirements. It is the Board?s responsibility to select a suitable coach and the Board has failed in this area.
I feel confident that our next coach will be Sheens. He is an ideal solution for the purpose of re-building our team and bring structure to our attack and defense. Hopefully he can also improve player dicsipline, player confidence and player combinations.
It is critical for the Board to select a good coach for 2015 and beyond.
Players
On-field leadership is a real problem with our team. Mary should pull both Creagh and Widdop aside and provide them with advice/instructions on their role during a game and the importance of both players in ensuring the game plan is followed.
The experiment of Dugan at right centre has failed and it is time for Dugan to return to the fullback position.
Runciman should be promoted to either left or right centre for the remainder of the season. Let Cooper, Gaz and Mary instruct/train this young Dragon.
Hunt, Harrison and Ah Mau should be dropped to the Cutters and replaced with Frizell, Mathews and O'Brien. Our season is over as far as the finals are concerned and so we should use the remaining games sorting out the Dragons fiirst grade squad for 2015. We also need to be looking hard at recruiting players to fill the prop and hooker position.
On-field leadership and the right balance of players would contribute positively to the Dragons on-field performance.
For The Remainder Of 2014
Strengthening the right side by switching Beale to right centre and having Frizell/ Mathews working hard in defense on the right edge, would allow Benji to be less exposed in defense and fresh to weave his magic in attack. Nightingale would benefit greatly in having Beale defending inside and feeding him with accurate ball in attack. Beale, Frizell/Mathews bring balance and a stronger defensive ability to our problematic right side defense without losing strike power in attack.
Having Thompson, Widdop, Runciman and Morris on the left side for the remainder of the season and into off season training would give us a balance of a good combination of defense and attack on both sides of the field.
Hopefully our new coach will solve our front row prolems by strengthening our front-row through skills training and recruitment of new blood.
The Dragons need to use the remaining games in 2014 to prepare a more balanced team for season 2015.
