Round 2 2016 v Souths Game discussion

[Swarzey]

Two forced repeat sets, when we managed to create a little room he was putting Pat and Ross into space and should have nabbed a try. Defensively he was the best on the field. No idea what else you expected from him Showstopper when nobody did even half of that.

 

[Nuffy]

Well a totally predictable result last night, nothing surprising really.

We have 6 players who have played a game, that's gutsy or suicide, depending how you roll. But it's not a recipe for winning many games in this comp.

It's a deliberate decision, but very high risk in this climate, as the supporters are already punch drunk after years of sub standard performance. The admin is assuming that enough supporters will hang on to see brighter days, I wouldn't take that bet.

It won't suceed in 2016 but may pay dividends beyond that and we have to assume that there is wisdom in picking a player at fullback who's never played there before. He might be a talent but we might ruin him forever.

I think we are paying the price for panicked recruitment last year when the club was desperate for good news to prove to the supporters that they knew what they were doing. We spend more on outside backs than anyone else and yet we aren't getting value for money.

We will be luck to survive another 2-3 yrs. The Bears on the coast will be cleaning up their business plan as they see an opportunity.

 

[Nuffy]

When you are dining off scraps, you Don't get much choice in what you eat.

Seriously, we either give up on recruitment and resign ourselves to the fate of whatever we can dig up locally (recognising we lose most of the good ones anyway), or we resign ourselves to only recruiting second tier talent.

Why are good players going to come here? We can't promise them a winning culture. We have to pay them at least what they are going to earn elsewhere... And that means the cap figures of our second tier talent are the same as the cap figures on superstars elsewhere.

I know I'm a broken record, but the point I am trying to make is we are way too hard on an admin with basically no options outside of what they are doing.

As you know, you have the title, you own the result. I do find it a tad ironic that we recruited a high profile board ( by Hunter standards) and yet we haven't really moved the needle on many of the issues such as TPAs. How can a town like Townsville with 180k people assemble a roster beyond JT and we can't.

This rot started last year with the appointment of Stone without a merit based process, then riding the results when blind Freddy could see the club was broken. The admin only changed after untold damage was done, don't forget that. At the same time this same admin was handing out winning lottery tickets to any player coming of contract, irrespective of the amount or merit of the contract.

I know its a tough job, but it's the one they signed up for and a chunk of the issues that face them are self inflicted.

My concern remains that support of the club isn't guaranteed and assuming that the punters will hang around for another 3,4,5,7,10 yrs whilst young blokes learn the game and might become stars and we sort out our cap fiasco is about the riskiest strategy there is.

 

[Noname36]

He gets the chance to run supposedly on the back of Hodko and instead continues to play like a deer in the headlights. I think he is a great kid but his confidence levels will never come good. Have you ever seen him fire up? Yesterday was his chance to show Brown he got it wrong leaving him out of the captaincy and he just has the head bowed, a frustrated demeanour and the absolute white flag approach. Really wanted him to just put his body on the line every time. No one had a dig as far as the senior group goes or at least attempted to slow the proceedings down. Rochow is another one. Uate is uncoachable. Trying hard is not good enough anymore. We are going backwards at an alarming rate. Souths were in cruise control.

Having somehow sat through the entire game I cannot agree with absolutely any of this sorry.

Did you watch the game? The backs had absolutely no room, nil, zilch, because it was abundantly clear that our rookie forward pack where completely out of their depth against Souths. They monstered us - and to their credit kept coming up on us all game despite obviously having the win in the back early on.

No half could do much more than Mullen did last night - you say he got handed this great chance to run off Hodko but yet Hodko did absolutely nothing - which again I'm not blaming him for because a half cannot do squat in attack with no space.

What more did you expect him to do to "fire up" or "put his body on the line"? He was the only bloke lining up to take our kicks despite getting absolutely smashed every time he did so - and like Swarzey said - he was our best defensively on field and had front rowers charging at him all night. What more did you expect when his side was getting so badly smashed lol? He's not f**king Johns - he can't magically turn everyone around him into world beaters when the side is clearly out of its depth. Hell, not even Joey ever had the lack of experience around him that Mullen and Hodko do currently - pair with that the fact that they're both in the second game of a new combination with a practically rookie hooker and rookie fullback that is having a lot of trouble and I think you're being pretty damn harsh and unrealistic.

We all know Mullen can be disappointing but he seems like the complete wrong one to go after following that game. Uate too for that matter (although I understand some people expect him to be able to defend when he's put 3 on 1 lol).

 

[Still Nutty]

I'm limiting any negative comment on here because I've got minimal expectations out of this season other than to see improvement as the year progresses and see a capacity for us to build something under Brown for 2016 and more likely 2017.

As this is only game 2, I'm not ready to slash my wrists just yet...a couple of observations:

Firstly our opposition this weekend put nearly the same score on a strong, competitive NRL club the week before - I'll admit the Roosters weren't the full strength quality squad of past seasons but they had enough on the field to make it a competitive game and got flogged and the Bunnies have to take confidence out of that into their next game...on that basis, our pack of debutantes weren't in the game but many would find the Rabbitohs in that sort of form a tough gig for their first home game of the season.


Brown can not be expected to work miracles with one pre-season under his belt and a squad full of inexperienced young players and a completely new spine in 2 games. We have to be patient and give it time.

I acknowledge macavity's point that we are certainly behind the eight ball and fighting on an uneven playing field when it comes to TPAs and competing for quality recruits and that is going to mean our capacity to be premiership contenders in the next 5 years is remote...but this is largely out of our control at present because our on field performances will have to improve before any of this can even be tackled - the board need a product to market before they can even hope to make significant inroads into the TPA space.

What I do think is that Brown is going trying to build a playing culture from the ground up and that is just going to take a lot of time...so between now and round 26 of this year, I think we have to expect things to bottom bounce for a while, appreciate any incremental changes for the better and hope that by seasons end, Brown has built a culture and developed some playing stocks that will see us able to compete on a regular basis.

 

[slotmachine]

My concern remains that support of the club isn't guaranteed and assuming that the punters will hang around for another 3,4,5,7,10 yrs whilst young blokes learn the game and might become stars and we sort out our cap fiasco is about the riskiest strategy there is.

It's concerning for me because rusted on fans I know are losing interest. They still support the team, but don't buy season tickets or merch etc.

 

[Nuffy]

It's concerning for me because rusted on fans I know are losing interest. They still support the team, but don't buy season tickets or merch etc.

Me too, that's the story behind my comments and my concerns. Everyone I know who were mad Knights fans are cooling and every year more and more drop their tickets.

I still get mine to help the club even though I might get to less than half the games, but I am in the small minority, most have just dropped them.

We are on a very slippery slope and whilst a youth policy might be the strategy, we've got to survive long enough for it to bear fruit.

It makes the NRLs position all the more curious, as anyone who's sold a business knows, if you want the best outcome, it needs to be performing and sometimes that means investments to ensure peak performance.

They are doing the opposite.

 

[macavity]

We have to survive long enough... AND hang on to the best of them when other clubs have millions more to play with.

No matter what strategy we employ, none are going to work while we are at such an institutional disadvantage.

Competitive advantage accelerates without point of difference - what is our point of difference to combat their huge competitive advantage?

No matter which way you look at it, we don't have one that does that job.

We can point at our (massively overrated) junior base - but the best of them have shown a willingness to leave for cash.

All we can possibly do is address the root problem - and the only way we can do that is to criticise the NRL directly. That doesn't sound like a sound job security strategy right now. So we will have to get used to losing 20+ games a year.

 

[Nuffy]

We have to survive long enough... AND hang on to the best of them when other clubs have millions more to play with.

No matter what strategy we employ, none are going to work while we are at such an institutional disadvantage.

Competitive advantage accelerates without point of difference - what is our point of difference to combat their huge competitive advantage?

No matter which way you look at it, we don't have one that does that job.

We can point at our (massively overrated) junior base - but the best of them have shown a willingness to leave for cash.

All we can possibly do is address the root problem - and the only way we can do that is to criticise the NRL directly. That doesn't sound like a sound job security strategy right now. So we will have to get used to losing 20+ games a year.

Thats the job of the board and the chairman and I believed that they were supposed to be independant.

Now maybe they are having those discussions behind closed doors but at some point they also need to put a timeline on the discussions, or the discussion moves into the public arena.

Does the board have the gumption to walk if necessary over the issue?

Playing a long game and hoping things fix themselves isn't a proactive strategy.

Start a sub group of clubs that are behind on TPA's and take it to the commission. Air the dirty linen in public, what exactly have we got to lose right now.

There are more have nots than haves in this instance and even Gus Gould is raising it, so burn the house down if necessary to get things changed.

And for gods sake, find another owner and don't wait for the NRL because they certainly have no real interest in our success.

 

[Knight Vision]

As you know, you have the title, you own the result. I do find it a tad ironic that we recruited a high profile board ( by Hunter standards) and yet we haven't really moved the needle on many of the issues such as TPAs. How can a town like Townsville with 180k people assemble a roster beyond JT and we can't.

This rot started last year with the appointment of Stone without a merit based process, then riding the results when blind Freddy could see the club was broken. The admin only changed after untold damage was done, don't forget that. At the same time this same admin was handing out winning lottery tickets to any player coming of contract, irrespective of the amount or merit of the contract.

I know its a tough job, but it's the one they signed up for and a chunk of the issues that face them are self inflicted.

My concern remains that support of the club isn't guaranteed and assuming that the punters will hang around for another 3,4,5,7,10 yrs whilst young blokes learn the game and might become stars and we sort out our cap fiasco is about the riskiest strategy there is.

Very very good point.

 

[Noname36]

Players will go to NQ for less because of JT. He's the same reason TPAs will go into the club. They're always a big chance of winning the big one because they have a special player on their hands. We were in a similar position when we had Johns. We no longer have that obviously but sometimes one special player can make a world of difference.

 

[hennypenny]

Quite simple mullens is a joke wouldn't make first grade anywhere how long has he been at the club?what has he done in all the yrs patheticits really sad to see this club the way it is we have the the Knights and the jets laughing stock of the nrl and a-league we need to wake up

 

[Mr_Knightside]

Quite simple mullens is a joke wouldn't make first grade anywhere how long has he been at the club?what has he done in all the yrs patheticits really sad to see this club the way it is we have the the Knights and the jets laughing stock of the nrl and a-league we need to wake up

Mate if you're going to troll at least work on your grammar and get the players' names right.

 

[newyboy]

Do you think the Players or Management read this forum?

If they did, do you want think they would be embarrassed and either hand back the money they have not earned or say look, I am not good enough for what you pay me, i'll take a pay cut or leave as i can no longer look in the miorror with any kind of dignity or respect. When i pick the kids up from school all i get is fingers pointed and laughed at.

 

[Pedge1971]

Do you think the Players or Management read this forum?

If they did, do you want think they would be embarrassed and either hand back the money they have not earned or say look, I am not good enough for what you pay me, i'll take a pay cut or leave as i can no longer look in the miorror with any kind of dignity or respect. When i pick the kids up from school all i get is fingers pointed and laughed at.

Nope, what do you mean? Would you hand back your pay cheque after a bad day? Are you the best talent there is at what you do?

 

[newyboy]

Nope, what do you mean? Would you hand back your pay cheque after a bad day? Are you the best talent there is at what you do?

I make sure my employer gets a hard earned days work for what I get paid and I can sleep knowing I have done my best.

I may not be the best, but I have a crack.

 

[The Showstopper]

Players will go to NQ for less because of JT. He's the same reason TPAs will go into the club. They're always a big chance of winning the big one because they have a special player on their hands. We were in a similar position when we had Johns. We no longer have that obviously but sometimes one special player can make a world of difference.

Exactly. It is natural people will sponsor a winner. It is also why we need a draft. The NFL developed the draft to offset player monopolisation by the richer sides. Lowest sides get highest ranked rookies. Can either keep or trade for established players or bank on them becoming a possible franchise player. JT is a franchise player. They are rare. In the modern game it was JT and Hayne and Joey before them. The impact of a generational talent is ten fold. Exactly why they deserve every cent they make. Their impact on the finances of a club are basically well beyond anything we can fathom.