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Rumoured Targets 3

Knight Tales

Bench
Messages
2,997
I hate to break it to you but we aren't one of the good clubs...
We aren't one of the bad ones either. We are just middle of the road. But four finals series in five years is not something you fluke. We are just so starved of success we are greedy for it take an enormous leap forward. We could also undo it all by being overly reactive.
 

Mr_Knightside

Juniors
Messages
2,356
We aren't one of the bad ones either. We are just middle of the road. But four finals series in five years is not something you fluke. We are just so starved of success we are greedy for it take an enormous leap forward. We could also undo it all by being overly reactive.
Yeah we certainly aren’t as much of a basket case as some on here would lead us to believe.
 

Yosh

Coach
Messages
11,913
We aren't one of the bad ones either. We are just middle of the road. But four finals series in five years is not something you fluke. We are just so starved of success we are greedy for it take an enormous leap forward. We could also undo it all by being overly reactive.
Let's just say we happened to score one less try in one game during those 4 years we made the final. We then lose one more game and come 9th all those years. Literally just one try difference a year. You still think we are a middle of the road club?

The club should be doing everything to be a top 4 club every year. Companies in the real world don't last when they are middle of the pack, only the top do.
 

Woody90

Juniors
Messages
2,211
Let's just say we happened to score one less try in one game during those 4 years we made the final. We then lose one more game and come 9th all those years. Literally just one try difference a year. You still think we are a middle of the road club?

The club should be doing everything to be a top 4 club every year. Companies in the real world don't last when they are middle of the pack, only the top do.

Goes both ways mate. If we’d kicked a couple more conversions last year we’d made top 4 pretty comfortably.

Not going as well as I’d like us to by any means (especially not 2024) but need to look at it objectively.

Even the Roosters and Broncos with their advantages haven’t been able to average top 4 consistently. The best have been Storm (once in a generational coach) and Penrith (fantastic junior base they’ve recently worked out how to benefit from).
 
Messages
1,233
Objectively the Knights are a less than average club.

Last 10 yrs average finish is 11.3 . On the cusp of being in the bottom 25% of the competition.

Last 5 yrs average finish is 8.6 . Factually just slightly below average.

Next yr is 8 years since Wests have owned the Knights, and a generational talent in Ponga debuted, and have yet to give him a roster to win with in nearly a decade. He carries the team 9/10.

In the business of winning - if you owned the Knights and contracted Wests Group to manage it for you, would you be happy?

At this rate of progress we will be Premiers around 2032/33.

2014 - 12TH
2015 - 16TH
2016 - 16TH
2017 - 16TH
2018 - 11TH
2019 - 11TH
2020 - 7TH
2021- 7TH
2022 - 14TH
2023 - 7TH
2024 - 8TH
 

Burwood

Bench
Messages
4,977
Do you get home finals for finishing 7th? :confused:
And we’ve won two premierships and reached the prelim final in the last 3 seasons of WNRL, so we can’t be too shit as a club.
 

Mr_Knightside

Juniors
Messages
2,356
Objectively the Knights are a less than average club.

Last 10 yrs average finish is 11.3 . On the cusp of being in the bottom 25% of the competition.

Last 5 yrs average finish is 8.6 . Factually just slightly below average.

Next yr is 8 years since Wests have owned the Knights, and a generational talent in Ponga debuted, and have yet to give him a roster to win with in nearly a decade. He carries the team 9/10.

In the business of winning - if you owned the Knights and contracted Wests Group to manage it for you, would you be happy?

At this rate of progress we will be Premiers around 2032/33.

2014 - 12TH
2015 - 16TH
2016 - 16TH
2017 - 16TH
2018 - 11TH
2019 - 11TH
2020 - 7TH
2021- 7TH
2022 - 14TH
2023 - 7TH
2024 - 8TH
Pretty sure we finished 5th in 2023…
 

Woody90

Juniors
Messages
2,211
Objectively the Knights are a less than average club.

Last 10 yrs average finish is 11.3 . On the cusp of being in the bottom 25% of the competition.

Last 5 yrs average finish is 8.6 . Factually just slightly below average.

Next yr is 8 years since Wests have owned the Knights, and a generational talent in Ponga debuted, and have yet to give him a roster to win with in nearly a decade. He carries the team 9/10.

In the business of winning - if you owned the Knights and contracted Wests Group to manage it for you, would you be happy?

At this rate of progress we will be Premiers around 2032/33.

2014 - 12TH
2015 - 16TH
2016 - 16TH
2017 - 16TH
2018 - 11TH
2019 - 11TH
2020 - 7TH
2021- 7TH
2022 - 14TH
2023 - 7TH
2024 - 8TH

I don’t disagree with your general point, however statistically speaking of course those 3 spoons are going to skew the 10 year data considerably. Some of the circumstances surrounding those 3 years though were truely bizarre and frankly beyond the realms of bad luck for any club. Yes a lot of it was poor management but also things like selling the club to a billionaire and signing Wayne Bennett that ended up hurting the club, we were all for at the time.

I dont think any of us had the best coach in the league at the time destroying our salary cap, our owner going bankrupt or Alex’s injury (I think it’s really underestimated how f**king tragic that was for the club) on our bingo cards. Anyone that thinks they could have predicted all of that is lying.
 
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Mr_Knightside

Juniors
Messages
2,356
I tend to be more glass half full on this…

We’re obviously not one of the premiership heavyweights but I genuinely think we’re only a couple of class players (in key positions) away from being one.

Our back 5 is class. There are plenty of teams who would trade their back 5 for ours.

Our second row is strong and we’ve got two of the best young second rowers out there (the way KPP is being coached is questionable but even so he looks the goods)

In the front row we look solid and rarely are we beaten up, they tend to lay a good enough platform for us to attack from (once again our attacking strategy is a bit suspect here) but an extra front rower on a cheap-medium contract wouldn’t go astray.

Then we come to the key positions which is where the real problem lies. KP is obviously elite but he doesn’t have the quality around him at 9-7-6…

Brailey was once a very good young hooker but his injuries have ruined his career and now he’s just a tackle-bot who refuses to run the ball and doesn’t keep the ruck defence accountable at all.

Hastings was good in 2023 but fell off a cliff after that injury and isn’t the same anymore. Cogger was good at the back end of last year but still plenty of questions and Phoenix is more of a no.14 than a proper half at this stage.

at 5/8 we have Gamble who I think does a decent job for the money he’s on and then there’s Pryce who should probably get more game time next year and could potentially be a real weapon.

Ultimately if we can solve a couple of these problem positions then I think we’ve actually got a top 4 team.

It’s easier said than done, clearly, but I don’t think the organisation is a complete train wreck like it was 6-8 years ago.
 
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Messages
1,233
I don’t disagree with your general point, however statistically speaking of course those 3 spoons are going to skew the 10 year data considerably. Some of the circumstances surrounding those 3 years though were truely bizarre and frankly beyond the realms of bad luck for any club. Yes a lot of it was poor management but also things like selling the club to a billionaire and signing Wayne Bennett that ended up hurting the club, we were all for at the time.

I dont think any of us had the best coach in the league at the time destroying our salary cap, our owner going bankrupt or Alex’s injury (I think it’s really underestimated how f**king tragic that was for the club) on our bingo cards. Anyone that thinks they could have predicted all of that is lying.
yeh a lot of bad luck in there. It could be argued champions make their own luck. within the last few years though we struck generational gold in Ponga and as yet have failed to capitalize. We had a seasoned half in the latter part of his career in Pearce and failed to put in place a pathway for a playmaker to take the reigns.

I tend to be more glass half full on this…

We’re obviously not one of the premiership heavyweights but I genuinely think we’re only a couple of class players (in key positions) away from being one.

Our back 5 is class. There are plenty of teams who would trade their back 5 for ours.

Our second row is strong and we’ve got two of the best young second rowers out there (the way KPP is being coached is questionable but even so he looks the goods)

In the front row we look solid and rarely are we beaten up, they tend to lay a good enough platform for us to attack from (once again our attacking strategy is a bit suspect here) but an extra front rower on a cheap-medium contract wouldn’t go astray.

Then we come to the key positions which is where the real problem lies. KP is obviously elite but he doesn’t have the quality around him at 9-7-6…

Brailey was once a very good young hooker but his injuries have ruined his career and now he’s just a tackle-bot who refuses to run the ball and doesn’t keep the ruck defence accountable at all.

Hastings was good in 2023 but fell off a cliff after that injury and isn’t the same anymore. Cogger was good at the back end of last year but still plenty of questions and Phoenix is more of a no.14 than a proper half at this stage.

at 5/8 we have Gamble who I think does a decent job for the money he’s on and then there’s Pryce who should probably get more game time next year and could potentially be a real weapon.

Ultimately if we can solve a couple of these problem positions then I think we’ve actually got a top 4 team.

It’s easier said than done, clearly, but I don’t think the organisation is a complete train wreck like it was 6-8 years ago.
Plenty to be optimistic about moving forward. The amount of juniors recently added to the top 30 looks promising.

Hastings, Coggar, and Gamble? Those 3 in arguably the most important positions in the team perfectly represent our place within the competition - below average.
 

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