Rumoured Targets 3

[Dr Dr Gimedanews]

Our recruitment really is in the shitter, can't even get pezet and latu to come for millions and guaranteed first grade now

Perception is everything, the Knights brand has taken a battering recently. At FOX it's never ending.

It really is something the club needs to work on. Do the clubs have a media manager ? If they do they're not good at it, and if not they need one.

 

[Yosh]

Perception is everything, the Knights brand has taken a battering recently. At FOX it's never ending.

It really is something the club needs to work on. Do the clubs have a media manager ? If they do they're not good at it, and if not they need one.

Media manager is bad but most importantly, our coach can't coach. Who wants to play for a team who can't attack?

 

[Dr Dr Gimedanews]

Media manager is bad but most importantly, our coach can't coach. Who wants to play for a team who can't attack?

IMO he's taken a below average roster with a worst in comp spine, weak as piss pack and taken them to mid table most years.

The buck always stops at the front office.

We have had a generational player on the books for how many years? and NOW they attempt to assemble a spine for him to play with? We had Pearce with no 5/8 for him to play alongside and zero succession plan?

Now we have fringe first graders to choose from for the halves combo ?

Na this aint coaching it's management.

Meanwhile over at the Dogs ......even Canberra ( of all the shit holes) are putting together a roster that will be challenging for a title in a few years.

 

[Mr_Knightside]

As was mentioned earlier at least we’re targeting the right guys. Disappointing to miss out on this Latu if he’s as good as we’re hearing.

But I trust POS to get some good value recruits over the line for next year. It’ll take time though, we need to work a bit harder than most clubs to sign players unfortunately.

 

[perverse]

IMO he's taken a below average roster with a worst in comp spine, weak as piss pack and taken them to mid table most years.

The buck always stops at the front office.

We have had a generational player on the books for how many years? and NOW they attempt to assemble a spine for him to play with? We had Pearce with no 5/8 for him to play alongside and zero succession plan?

Now we have fringe first graders to choose from for the halves combo ?

Na this aint coaching it's management.

Meanwhile over at the Dogs ......even Canberra ( of all the shit holes) are putting together a roster that will be challenging for a title in a few years.

Kalyn Ponga took us to those finals series, especially the one we actually won a game in, but the others too. Reckon you can count the number of games where coaching has been the difference in our wins on one hand during his tenure. Our wins and losses live and die by Kalyn Ponga and how switched on he is. The fact that this is still the case 5 years later is a very obvious indicator of how poor the coach is.

What do you like about the way we've used the football since AOB took over the club? Here's the gameplan - to refresh your memory:

Tackles 1 - 3 - one-out runs from our outside backs
Tackles 4 - 5 - forward hitups, one-out from the ruck as well.
5th tackle - chip to a corner and present a straight line.
Continue doing this until opposition makes an error (usually we crack first so this is largely moot, but when it's actually working that is the goal)

Once attacking position on the field is earned - have 3 "settlers" and run the same 1 or 2 shapes at the opposition hoping they forget Kalyn Ponga plays for us. Repeat the above for 80 minutes.

That's literally our entire gameplan. That is AOB-ball, and has been for 5 years with basically zero variation. A big part of why we're getting so much drop ball at the moment is that our moves are so obvious and telegraphed to the opposition that our ball receivers are sitting ducks - they have blokes rushing up on them constantly. It's zero risk to rush up on us, we never send any variation and none of our players can play heads-up enough to capitalize on a broken line.

You can bitch about the cattle all you like, but he doesn't get the best out of the cattle he has because his coaching philosophy is antiquated and ineffective. I have very little respect for a coach that can't coach to the players he has. A coach that needs things to be a certain way is barely a coach, and he's had 5 years now to get it the way he wants it. Newcastle is never going to have the best roster in the league - if our coach can't get the best out of what we have then he needs to go.

 

[The Axe of Druss]

Latu would have been nice to have but he was a kid, a highly rated kid but a kid nonetheless, and our pack is already light on hard-nosed vets.

We need front rowers who are already in their prime, not ones who are 2-3 years away

 

[Apey]

I reckon we've had a better defensive resolve under AOB. It'd probably be harder not to accomplish that given some of his immediate competition consisting of 3 B2B spoons. Still, it's a tick in his column.

Attack wise we have been trending downwards since the end of that 2023 streak, culminating in us earning a place in discussions of all time worst attacking teams in the NRL era. 5th worst of the NRL era after 6 games I believe. Quite the achievement.

 

[Yosh]

Kalyn Ponga took us to those finals series, especially the one we actually won a game in, but the others too. Reckon you can count the number of games where coaching has been the difference in our wins on one hand during his tenure. Our wins and losses live and die by Kalyn Ponga and how switched on he is. The fact that this is still the case 5 years later is a very obvious indicator of how poor the coach is.

What do you like about the way we've used the football since AOB took over the club? Here's the gameplan - to refresh your memory:

Tackles 1 - 3 - one-out runs from our outside backs
Tackles 4 - 5 - forward hitups, one-out from the ruck as well.
5th tackle - chip to a corner and present a straight line.
Continue doing this until opposition makes an error (usually we crack first so this is largely moot, but when it's actually working that is the goal)

Once attacking position on the field is earned - have 3 "settlers" and run the same 1 or 2 shapes at the opposition hoping they forget Kalyn Ponga plays for us. Repeat the above for 80 minutes.

That's literally our entire gameplan. That is AOB-ball, and has been for 5 years with basically zero variation. A big part of why we're getting so much drop ball at the moment is that our moves are so obvious and telegraphed to the opposition that our ball receivers are sitting ducks - they have blokes rushing up on them constantly. It's zero risk to rush up on us, we never send any variation and none of our players can play heads-up enough to capitalize on a broken line.

You can bitch about the cattle all you like, but he doesn't get the best out of the cattle he has because his coaching philosophy is antiquated and ineffective. I have very little respect for a coach that can't coach to the players he has. A coach that needs things to be a certain way is barely a coach, and he's had 5 years now to get it the way he wants it. Newcastle is never going to have the best roster in the league - if our coach can't get the best out of what we have then he needs to go.

Exactly. So we'll said. How can anyone with eyes disagree with this?

 

[Yosh]

I reckon we've had a better defensive resolve under AOB. It'd probably be harder not to accomplish that given some of his immediate competition consisting of 3 B2B spoons. Still, it's a tick in his column.

Attack wise we have been trending downwards since the end of that 2023 streak, culminating in us earning a place in discussions of all time worst attacking teams in the NRL era. 5th worst of the NRL era after 6 games I believe. Quite the achievement.

I don't have the stats on hand but the defensive resolve is something that started/appeared when McDermott came. I don't think AOB deserves much credit for it.

 

[Woody90]

Our defensive resolve and defensive structure has definitely improved under AOB and McDermott but we’re still 2nd in the league for ineffective tackles. Our edges have improved a lot defensively but we still drop off a lot of tackles through the middle which gives the opposition good field position.

 

[Dr Dr Gimedanews]

Kalyn Ponga took us to those finals series, especially the one we actually won a game in, but the others too. Reckon you can count the number of games where coaching has been the difference in our wins on one hand during his tenure. Our wins and losses live and die by Kalyn Ponga and how switched on he is. The fact that this is still the case 5 years later is a very obvious indicator of how poor the coach is.

What do you like about the way we've used the football since AOB took over the club? Here's the gameplan - to refresh your memory:

Tackles 1 - 3 - one-out runs from our outside backs
Tackles 4 - 5 - forward hitups, one-out from the ruck as well.
5th tackle - chip to a corner and present a straight line.
Continue doing this until opposition makes an error (usually we crack first so this is largely moot, but when it's actually working that is the goal)

Once attacking position on the field is earned - have 3 "settlers" and run the same 1 or 2 shapes at the opposition hoping they forget Kalyn Ponga plays for us. Repeat the above for 80 minutes.

That's literally our entire gameplan. That is AOB-ball, and has been for 5 years with basically zero variation. A big part of why we're getting so much drop ball at the moment is that our moves are so obvious and telegraphed to the opposition that our ball receivers are sitting ducks - they have blokes rushing up on them constantly. It's zero risk to rush up on us, we never send any variation and none of our players can play heads-up enough to capitalize on a broken line.

You can bitch about the cattle all you like, but he doesn't get the best out of the cattle he has because his coaching philosophy is antiquated and ineffective. I have very little respect for a coach that can't coach to the players he has. A coach that needs things to be a certain way is barely a coach, and he's had 5 years now to get it the way he wants it. Newcastle is never going to have the best roster in the league - if our coach can't get the best out of what we have then he needs to go.

very valid points regarding Ponga - kid is a freak no doubt.

Yes form at the moment is horrid.

Facts are though we've made the 8 ( luckily in my opinion) most of AOB's years.

If we've made the 8, and as you claim the team has under performed - 1) where do you think the Knights roster sits above 8th position? we have a top 6 roster ? a top 4 team?
2) how many players in the roster are top 8 in their respective positions?

 

[Rod]

Presumably an ineffective tackle means a quick play-the-ball? If so I believe this is also coached, based on our defence last year we would rather concede an extra few metres/quicker PTB rather than a set restart/penalty.

TBH it's one of AOB's smarter theories if it's intentional.

 

[perverse]

Our defensive resolve and defensive structure has definitely improved under AOB and McDermott but we’re still 2nd in the league for ineffective tackles. Our edges have improved a lot defensively but we still drop off a lot of tackles through the middle which gives the opposition good field position.

Absolutely. Our defensive structures are sound, even if our other defensive attributes like first contact, etc are lacklustre because we have no enforcers.

very valid points regarding Ponga - kid is a freak no doubt.

Yes form at the moment is horrid.

Facts are though we've made the 8 ( luckily in my opinion) most of AOB's years.

If we've made the 8, and as you claim the team has under performed - 1) where do you think the Knights roster sits above 8th position? we have a top 6 roster ? a top 4 team?
2) how many players in the roster are top 8 in their respective positions?

It's not really about how much higher or lower we do or don't finish. It's just not an interesting metric to me in isolation. It's right up there with how many grand finals AOB has been involved in, I just don't really care when what I'm watching doesn't pass the eye test. When we have scraped into the 8, it's been for no reason other than to be fodder for other finals teams because of the way we play our football. I'd be a lot happier for us to scrape into the 8 in the same positions, but playing a style of football that actually maximizes what we have available and takes some risks so that we at least have a chance of troubling teams that are better than us on paper. We are never, ever, ever going to out-grind teams that have a better quality roster than us. Somehow the coach fails to see it.

Let me frame it in a way that makes more sense to me. I think so much of Kalyns ability that I think he could have dragged any coach to the finals in the past few years. I just don't see it as an impressive feature of AOBs resume at all that we have made those finals. Ponga is that good that we win enough games to make the 8 off his back alone more often than not - and we do it playing some of the most boring and predictable football imaginable. It's actually wild how good he is when he's on. He's unstoppable.

What I will say overall is that we had to improve last year, not go backwards. That was a must - a box that had to be ticked and we failed. Across the board our players went backwards - our play style went backwards - everything got more difficult. And now this year we've gone even further backwards. Not a single player on the field aside from maybe Dylan Lucas is playing to their ability or even close to it. They look lost and confused. We're the only team that takes the park week after week and looks like we've never even trained together before. There's been far too many periods of this over the past few years - and it really seems like the only time we look dangerous is when we throw the "AOB book" out the window and just play footy.

 

[HarVeeGee]

Our W/L with and without Kalyn under AOB is pretty much the same…

 

[Alex28]

I don't have the stats on hand but the defensive resolve is something that started/appeared when McDermott came. I don't think AOB deserves much credit for it.

So anything good AOB doesn’t get credit for, and everything bad he deserves to get the sack for?

 

[perverse]

Our W/L with and without Kalyn under AOB is pretty much the same…

And? What do you think that proves?

Are you saying you think we'd have made the finals without KP in any given year?

 

[Old dog]

So are we a good side despite Coach OBI but because of Ponga.
Are we a good side because of Ponga despite OBI.
Are we a good side because of OBI and Ponga
Or are we a so so side because of OBI and Ponga
Or are we a bad side despite having OBI and Ponga
Or is it a case of nothing is working because none of us is on the same page?????

 

[slotmachine]

We haven't been a good side since 2006

 

[Woody90]

We haven't been a good side since 2006

And the year before that we got the spoon

 

[Dr Dr Gimedanews]

I don't have the stats on hand but the defensive resolve is something that started/appeared when McDermott came. I don't think AOB deserves much credit for it.

That's one of the key components of a NRL " head coach" - assembling a coaching team.