Rumoured Targets 3

[Lynoman]

I think the recent failures in the FA market are all about AOB. If I was a player and I listened to any of his press conferences, I'd put a red marker through Newcastle whilst he's coaching. He just does not seem to back his players unless they are absolutely bonafide superstars. His comments about Will Pryce last year really annoyed me. His halves merry go round and how he picks players that he just doesnt get on with is so bizarre to me. He has seen a few young players develop into good players, but his ability to get no help for Ponga is so odd.

The fact he talks about winning a comp with a halves pairing of Jack Coggar and Tyson Gamble is just ridiculous.

Kurt Mann, Mitch Barnett, Connor Watson, Josh King, Jacob Kiraz, Chris Randall are all examples of players who stopped playing for him and saw huge improvements in their game, or they were just flat out ignored by AOB when they were in Newcastle. If it werent for injury. Yet he selects Enari Tuala (3), Brodie Jones (8), Jack Hetherington (18) and Hymel Hunt (20) are among the 20 players that he's selected the most in his time coaching Newcastle. There was always a better player that they lost because he picked those guys ahead of them.

If he picks Gamble at 7 to start the year, he will be the 8th halfback that AOB has genuinely selected as the "starter" since 2021. The 6th to start at 7 just in the last 2 years. Hastings & Pearce are the only ones of the 8 that have ever looked capable of being a halfback in the NRL that you could win a finals game with.

Who are you kidding? Mann is still average, just looks good in a team filled with better players. Watson has been injured for about 60% of his last contract, so you'd expect him to play good when he does play. His Origin selection was more from who he's signed for, not his ability. Kiraz is in the same boat as Mann. Not hard to look a superstar in the rabble that is the Titans so Randall? Yeah, nah. Mitch finally got the absolute thuggery out of his game, so he's not suspended for 40% of the season anymore. I'll give you King, he became a monster at the Storm, however they are using him correctly, impact player which we didn't have the luxury with nuffies like Daniel in our front row.

As for the selections of those you mentioned, you failed to say who would have replaced them. I'll give you a tip, there was no one else. Tuala and Hunt were solid players for us they would have been 1st grade at almost any other clubs. Hetherington has only ever been a bench player, so he was giving DSaf effort for a bargain price. Literally 20 worse forwards in the comp. AND I personally like Brodie Jones but he's only ever been first choice when there have been injuries.

 

[Woody90]

I have issues with AOB, but to single him out for a couple of recruitment "failures" is drawing a long bow IMO.

The only 2 players we've lost in recent years that we wanted to keep were Dom and Leo.
Dom: well documented that the Roosters offered a lot of benefits outside of the salary cap and a 21 year old from the UK isn't going to knock back Bondi to stay in Newcastle.
Leo: got offered more money elsewhere and well-documented he got the shits that other members of the forward pack got tapped on the shoulder.

When you consider how many players other smaller clubs in small markets lose, that's actually pretty good.

On the other side of that, our "good" players that have been off contract during AOB's time at the club and re-signed:

Ponga: enough said. Got offered the same money to go home to QLD and play under Bennett. He wanted to stay in Newcastle under AOB.
Best: world at his feet. Offered a lot more to go to the Tigers. Stayed.
Sharpe: as above. Didn't even want to be shipped around despite a breakout year.
Gagai: Re-signed twice taking lower money. Yes family wanted to stay in Newcastle but if he had a big issue with AOB he would have left to play at the Roosters.
Friz: as above. Took less to stay.
Lucas: didn't even want to look elsewhere.

That's not counting the less consistent starters. We keep most of the ones we want to. I'm also of the view that if we really wanted to keep Leo we would have. The only one we probably weren't a chance of keeping was Dom, but he's ended up a bit of a dud so who cares?

My issues with AOB are mostly tactical and I'm of the view that if we get play makers in that are capable of pulling off a greater game plan and he doesn't change tactics we need to move on from him. I can't deny though that the players in the squad obviously like playing for him. There aren't many coaches that could have kept a squad together mentally last year when a lot of the squad was being told to leave. All of the other squads around us fighting for the 8th spot in the finals completely capitulated and we were the only one that didn't. I'm always happy to point out his failings, but it needs to be balanced.

 

[Yosh]

I can't believe people still back AOB. There is no way we are winning a Premiership, let alone becoming a consistent top 4 side under AOB. Maybe there aren't any better options on the market but I wouldn't miss AOB in the slightest if he was fired.

 

[Rod]

I can't believe people still back AOB. There is no way we are winning a Premiership, let alone becoming a consistent top 4 side under AOB. Maybe there aren't any better options on the market but I wouldn't miss AOB in the slightest if he was fired.

Every year other team's fans pick us to run 13-17th and 4/5 of those years we made the 8. Agreed we're not in a position to make a serious run at the premiership (barring an incredible run like the end of 2023) but it's not nothing either.

While some of AOB's tactical coaching driving us nuts the player retention stuff isn't the worst as Woody outlined very well above. For whatever reason he has a lot of buy-in with the players and these days with modern athletes that's half the battle.

 

[Woody90]

I can't believe people still back AOB. There is no way we are winning a Premiership, let alone becoming a consistent top 4 side under AOB. Maybe there aren't any better options on the market but I wouldn't miss AOB in the slightest if he was fired.

Yosh, unless we could sign Bellamy (and even then it would be a massive ask), no coach is going to win a premiership with our current roster/spine. I wish it were that simple.

I’d love us to sign a new coach that can take us to the next level but until we improve the calibre of the roster we’d just be re-arranging the deck to get the same outcome.

Do you actually think we have a roster capable of winning a comp?

 

[Yosh]

Yosh, unless we could sign Bellamy (and even then it would be a massive ask), no coach is going to win a premiership with our current roster/spine. I wish it were that simple.

I’d love us to sign a new coach that can take us to the next level but until we improve the calibre of the roster we’d just be re-arranging the deck to get the same outcome.

Do you actually think we have a roster capable of winning a comp?

I think it's a bit of the chicken or the egg. If we get a Premiership level coach, the players will follow. If we can put together the roster first, I'm sure a high level coach will want a crack. We brought in POS so I'm assuming we are going with approach 2. Hopefully it works out soon because Ponga isn't going to be in his prime forever.

Coming 10th to 15th sux but limping out round 1 of the finals every season isn't much better.

 

[Woody90]

I think it's a bit of the chicken or the egg. If we get a Premiership level coach, the players will follow. If we can put together the roster first, I'm sure a high level coach will want a crack. We brought in POS so I'm assuming we are going with approach 2. Hopefully it works out soon because Ponga isn't going to be in his prime forever.

Coming 10th to 15th sux but limping out round 1 of the finals every season isn't much better.

That’s exactly the issue. No premiership quality coach will come near us with a 10 foot pole if we get a reputation for making coaches the scapegoat and sacking them for results when the roster/spine isn’t up to scratch.

I don’t see the point in sacking AOB until we build a roster that might actually have a chance of bringing a good coach to the club. If we sacked him today we’d have a heap of interest from coaches just desperate for a job, but who we could realistically sign isn’t going to improve us with the current roster, and then what? Sack them too and make ourselves even less appealing for a decent coach?

People seem to think we’ll never sign anyone just because we missed out on the one player we targeted first (Pezet). The Tigers managed to sign some decent players for next year despite having the most inexperienced coach in the comp and basket case board … so there’s obviously chances to sign players to improve the roster. Just have to be prepared to pay overs for them like the Tigers have.

 

[The Axe of Druss]

Newcastle doesn't have what the Tigers do though, being in Sydney. Us, Canberra, NZ and NQ all have that issue in common when it comes to attracting good players

 

[Mr_Knightside]

Newcastle doesn't have what the Tigers do though, being in Sydney. Us, Canberra, NZ and NQ all have that issue in common when it comes to attracting good players

This is true. We seem to be a club which is more attractive for younger players looking for an opportunity or older veterans who want to settle down somewhere (Gags comes to mind) whereas genuine superstar players from Sydney aren’t necessarily keen to uproot their family.

If you look at a lot of the players who move around between Sydney clubs their lifestyle probably doesn’t change much at all, they don’t have to move house or have their kids change schools etc.

These factors definitely make it harder to recruit the genuine superstars of the game. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have a crack though.

 

[Mr_Knightside]

Also I’ll weigh in on the AOB chat. He’s not to blame for missing out on recruitment targets. It’s POS’ job to sell the club to potential recruits and it’s AOB’s job to coach.

Whilst he can be conservative with his game plan (which I hope he learns from) I think it’s pretty clear that the players at least buy into AOB’s mantra of playing tough footy. We tend to grind our way through games but we rarely hand things to our opposition on a platter or fall in a heap. Our run to the finals last year is a good example, we kept it together whilst a bunch of other teams lost the plot. Then we were possibly one well directed pass away from beating the Cowboys away from home and being in the second week of finals for a second straight year. I wonder how different the narrative might have been had we won that game…

Obviously if a better credentialed coach was on the market I’d want the club to talk to them but there aren’t many around and they’re all doing successful things at successful clubs already so would have no incentive to leave.

I hope we improve on our attack style this year as blind Freddy can see it wasn’t working last year.

 

[HarVeeGee]

Last two seasons straight we were tipped to finish bottom four, and the doomsaying about the team wasn’t restricted to the media, plenty of Knights fans have been very down on the team outside of the ten match winning streak.

But more broadly, there just seems to be a consensus that we have a substandard coach, a substandard spine, and very little quality in the squad outside of Kalyn, Bradman and a couple of old rep players.

If the team keeps outperforming predictions, in spite of our best player only being available for about 60% of the games, some aspect of the squad is being underrated. Either the players are better than people are saying, or the coach.

I can accept that either the squad sucks OR the coach sucks, but it can’t be both. So which is it?

 

[perverse]

I do love pre-season optimism. The tune has changed over the years but we always hum it.

I actually don't think our squad sucks. Our halves do though, and we don't seem to want to actually just pick and stick to the ones that actually are worth perseverance. Gamble's dropping last year was unfathomable, and I don't believe Pryce did anything wrong enough to not deserve some faith and encouragement either. The coaches obsession with Cogger was nuts.

We definitely have some bludgers here and there, but there is evidence that we're finally turfing them (see: DSaf). Happy days.

It's bad enough that we don't have the best halves running about, but fumbling around with them isn't helping.

 

[HarVeeGee]

Gamble got injured, he wasn’t dropped. He broke his hand vs Cronulla and returned to play earlier than expected vs the Dolphins. Probably would have been a bit risky to ask him to play full games straight away, plus the team found its best form of the season when he was out & while I do like Gamble he wasn’t playing good enough before that to be an automatic selection.

 

[Loose Cannon]

I do love pre-season optimism. The tune has changed over the years but we always hum it.

I actually don't think our squad sucks. Our halves do though, and we don't seem to want to actually just pick and stick to the ones that actually are worth perseverance. Gamble's dropping last year was unfathomable, and I don't believe Pryce did anything wrong enough to not deserve some faith and encouragement either. The coaches obsession with Cogger was nuts.

My read, also.

Our back 5 is 60/40 elite/very respectable. Definitely up there just amongst or just below the top clubs in that regard.

One of the overlooked issues re halves, (and yes, I realise we are severely lacking quality regardless), is the apparent requirement/willingness to defer to Ponga for everything. It’s one reason I didn’t like him being named captain originally, even though he has now matured into the role much better.

We need a game controlling 7. And before anyone responds with “they don’t just grow on trees”, we are all fully aware of that. I don’t think any of the options in our squad, Hastings excepted, will/could ever be that. We don’t necessarily need a million dollar superstar there, just a smart game manager with a quality kicking game. Both Cogger and Gamble lack at least one trait that falls short of what’s required as a controller.

Ponga, Best, Gagai, Marzhew, KPP, and even Lucas running wide would be lethal if we could set plays up over multiple sets, (long been our attacking Achilles). Pryce could be a dynamic ball running 6 if he develops the potential. And Sharpe, I imagine, would be a similar style at pivot, and likely currently higher up the food chain.

 

[slotmachine]

Gamble got injured, he wasn’t dropped. He broke his hand vs Cronulla and returned to play earlier than expected vs the Dolphins. Probably would have been a bit risky to ask him to play full games straight away, plus the team found its best form of the season when he was out & while I do like Gamble he wasn’t playing good enough before that to be an automatic selection.

He got dropped early in the year for The Straightener.

 

[perverse]

He got dropped early in the year for The Straightener.

Yep, after only a month of footy, then back in a few weeks later again. Who knows why, would have to ask the coach. This was after him having a career-best end to 2023 and being the better of 2 bad halves in that first month, too. As I said, unfathomable. Inexplicable. It was just weird.

Honestly, I think we were saying so at the time, but it kinda looked like the coach felt pressured to use Cogger because he was a "big name" coming in off a grand final win. Imo he was picking the team on paper and by media pressure over what was better for our football. He was desperate for Jack to be the answer. Tyson was just collateral damage at the time.

I think if you want to defend AOB, you have to defend him on his record of bringing talent through from lower grades into first grade. We've blooded a lot of really good looking prospects lately, and they've all mostly looked ready when called on. I don't rate him tactically as a coach, and I feel like he's coaching a different sport sometimes to the modern NRL... but if I'm to give credit where it is due - he is developing a very good record of being a young talent nurturer.

 

[slotmachine]

As I said, unfathomable. Inexplicable. It was just weird.

You'd have to think the coach got sucked into the press. Premiership winning half, really straightened up the Panthers attack etc all off-season.

 

[Black Panther]

Does AOB just blame his halves because it’s easier to. Hastings, Cogger , Gamble and Pryce all could be more than serviceable options. Seems like he wasn’t patient enough with any of them.

 

[macavity]

I reckon we are seriously looking at Sharpe to play 7 with a "running half" outside him.

 

[perverse]

I reckon we are seriously looking at Sharpe to play 7 with a "running half" outside him.

I'm actually not sure what Sharpe is capable of yet. He's had a meteoric rise through the grades and just seems to make a winner out of everything he does. A part of me is concerned that he's ultimately an unproven youngster - and we've seen many, many kids explode onto the scene and then fizzle.

Geez he's looked good at everything he does though. You really want to be optimistic and just say this kid is just a footy player. He might be able to do it, I dunno.