Rumoured targets thread

[Bring it home Knights]

Tim Sheens, Chris Anderson and John Lang were all good coaches once upon a time too but age caught up to them. Rugby League is always evolving and new coaches are bringing in new innovations, Bennett is still trying to use the same formula as he did 5 years ago with a team that has proven to be unable to play that way.

There were games at the back half of last year where Bennett's formula worked well. I've been a broken record on this, but without a good hooker, it is almost impossible to perform in 2013. Buderus is back this week and I am VERY interested in seeing how the teams structure changes as a result.

 

[Pomoz]

Tim Sheens, Chris Anderson and John Lang were all good coaches once upon a time too but age caught up to them. Rugby League is always evolving and new coaches are bringing in new innovations, Bennett is still trying to use the same formula as he did 5 years ago with a team that has proven to be unable to play that way.

None of those coaches have a winning percentage of 63% and have won 7 premierships. Are you saying that in the two years since he last won a premiership he has forgot how to coach? The game has changed so much, none of his cumulative knowledge is relevant and helpful anymore?

I am incredulous that fans would turn on him after one and half seasons in charge. You were not challenging for a premiership when he took over, there was no way any coach could deliver overnight success. You hounded out Brian Smith and now you are working on Bennett. I just don't understand why you would do that.

 

[The Showstopper]

Brian Smith left us for money. We were going great guns that year before he was poached by Politis. We expect a dominant and classy team under Bennett. We get that on occasions but the famed Bennett consistency is not there. We are frustrated because he seems to not want to sign our best players beyond his tenure, and we are not improving enough for us to believe we should win every week. Boyd will be gone in two years. It just seems like he is content to improve the culture and then go on his merry way. Problem is that we are yet to have a definitive culture. The only upshot is Bennett decides to see out his career here and then we get options on player retention.

 

[Big Tim]

Smith was pushing for a long term extension, we didnt give it to him.

Many players are not signing long term contracts with the knowledge that average pay-packets could explode in the coming years. Why pen yourself in when your next contract could be bigger with improvement in performance not the dominating factor? Its a risk, but one many seem to be taking.

 

[The Showstopper]

Tim I think the Bennett connection with those two year contracts cannot be discounted. U r right that it may be about improved earning capacity. I imagine the questions arise from Wayne's habit of taking players from his previous clubs.

 

[Burwood]

Who are the players that have only signed on till the end of Bennett's tenure?

 

[aqua_duck]

None of those coaches have a winning percentage of 63% and have won 7 premierships. Are you saying that in the two years since he last won a premiership he has forgot how to coach? The game has changed so much, none of his cumulative knowledge is relevant and helpful anymore?

I am incredulous that fans would turn on him after one and half seasons in charge. You were not challenging for a premiership when he took over, there was no way any coach could deliver overnight success. You hounded out Brian Smith and now you are working on Bennett. I just don't understand why you would do that.

Many people will tell you I'm a staunch Smith advocate, in fact at the time he left most of us were on board the Smith bandwagon. Unfortunately with Bennett it's becoming increasingly hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Negative tactics, negative gameplans and negative results, it really doesn't fill us with confidence. Under Smith and Stone we played to win, Smith especially signed blokes, stuck with them and got the best out of them, Bennett re-signed duds like House, Wes and Sau (3 blokes with their fair share of detractors on here), and he's already turfed 2 of them after a year 1 deserves to be turfed. Also keep in mind Smith and Stone got better results on a fraction of the budget.
As for his winning percentage, it's very imposing but he did have a very dominant team for most of his Broncos tenure (don't forget Sheens had a 68% winning percentage at the raiders as well).
I haven't completely given up hope but IMO we're not playing to win ATM, we're playing not to lose and that never bodes well

 

[Yosh]

I don't see what's so negative about his tactics. Just because we don't throw the ball around and off load like it's gonna go out of fashion doesn't mean we're playing negative football. He likes to grind out wins, kick to the corners and chase hard, defend well on the line, dominate with the forwards etc.

People are talking about all this wrestling crap. What does wrestling do? Slows down the play of the ball. If wrestling was the issue, we'd be last for metres gained and metres conceded. Well, we were top of the table for a while for both stats and still doing very well. So clearly this isn't the issue.

I'd say our problems have been more to do with discipline. We give away too many crucial penalties and we tend to concede everytime we give away a penalty or make a mistake. The good teams don't do that. We need to work on this.

Another issue we've had is scoring tries in tight games. In the past Aku has been able to pull a rabbit out of a hat and score some tries when we really needed one or when we didn't deserve to. We are clearly missing his try scoring rate this year. Gagai is also not as good as he was last year. If we add the tries those two should have statistically been scoring and we'd be 4 or maybe even 6 points the better and in the top 6.

As people have already mentioned, having both Bedsy and Kidley out has hurt us. Also BScott and JSmith were out as well. If those four had been fit the whole year, we would have easily been 4 to 6 points better and hence in the top 6.

I'm not blindly defending WB. I'm just as upset as any Knight's fan with out current run. I want to be a premiership winning force as well. People will say i'm being hopelessly optomisitc as always and i am but please show me why i'm wrong?

 

[Pomoz]

As for his winning percentage, it's very imposing but he did have a very dominant team for most of his Broncos tenure (don't forget Sheens had a 68% winning percentage at the raiders as well).
I haven't completely given up hope but IMO we're not playing to win ATM, we're playing not to lose and that never bodes well

I'm a big Brian Smith fan too. I bet the Eels wish he hadn't left. Since he has gone it has all gone pear shaped. The Roosters management also acknowledged that he left things in good shape for the new coaching team.

Last year Bennett's winning percentage was 42% and this year it is 46%. I can appreciate that his style of play is negative, although you could argue that he doesn't have the players to do anything different. It also takes at least two years to change the roster.

If you look at the teams that have been successful recently, Storm, Manly and St George, they have all played a very defensive grinding style. The flamboyant teams like the Tigers, Cowboys, Raiders and the Warriors (I would like to say my beloved Panthers, but they have been like watching shit on a stick the last few years!) just don't have the consistency to win when it counts. If you look at Bennett's teams he has had flamboyant teams (Hancock, Renouf, Waters, Langer - what a team!) and they played dazzling stuff. Then he inherited some great big boppers in Webke, Cironoceva, Hannant, Thorne, Carlaw and the team played a more grinding style. In short, i think he plays a style that suits the players he has and in view of recent trends in the game, probably believes the grinding style is more likely to win.

Personally, I hate the grinding wrestleathons and would rather watch Renouf, Jennings, Daley, Johns carve up teams than Cam Smith bring down men twice his size and nullify their speed with a move that would put Hulk Hogan to shame.

 

[The Showstopper]

Who are the players that have only signed on till the end of Bennett's tenure?

Gagai, Sims, Boyd, and J Smith for starters. He may stay on Wayne but it would be a fairly remote possibility.

 

[rnb11]

Gagai, Sims, Boyd, and J Smith for starters. He may stay on Wayne but it would be a fairly remote possibility.

Also Snowy and Gids.

But as I said previously, just about everyone is only committing until 2015 because that's when the salary cap is getting massively increased and everyone wants a slice of the pie. I doubt it has much to do with Bennett since every club are mostly re-signing until then too.

 

[Frederick]

According to yesterday's tele we've offered Adam Quinlan a 2 year contract.

Granted I've only seen him play one game but he did seem to have an error in him.

There's a guy in the dragons forum saying that we told him we couldn't fit him under out cap?

 

[rnb11]

We're not going after anyone worthwhile, a few fringe guys are leaving and they'll be replaced. That's it

 

[slotmachine]

We're not going after anyone worthwhile, a few fringe guys are leaving and they'll be replaced. That's it

Where does all our cap money go?

Beaut Scott must be on 500k after all.

 

[Noname36]

IMO we don't have massive squad issues we need to deal with. We need a ball playing back rower the most IMo but there isn't much on the market. Hopefully we can f**k Waddell and Costigan off and somehow convince Penrith to take Houston off our hands. Gids and Clydesdale will make a fine hooking rotation next year IMo. Be interesting to see if Gower goes around another year. I wouldn't mind a new halfback but again there isn't much available.

 

[Noname36]

Where does all our cap money go?

Beaut Scott must be on 500k after all.

A huge chunk of our cap would be going to Boyd, Uate, Gids, Smith and Scott. Those first 3 would be on 500k each or close to it and Smith/Scott would go close too. Then we have Mullo and Snowy who wouldn't be getting a pie and coke either.

We don't have a Thurston or Hayne but the money still adds up when you have quite a few blokes on larger contracts.

 

[Pomoz]

IMO we don't have massive squad issues we need to somehow convince Penrith to take Houston off our hands.

I don't think so, we have more back rowers than you can jump over. We would swap him for Newton though..........

 

[Nuffy]

Hull KR have released Cory Paterson on compassionate grounds, seems he is home sick.

The bloke could have been anything when he started but went down hill fast.

Interesting to see where he ends up, anyone know whether he is still tied up with Khoder Nasser.

 

[Jono078]

Wonder what his form was like? I daresay if he's just asked for a release it mustn't have been anything spectacular?

Would love to see what he can do playing to his full potential. He could be the backrower we need so badly right now - massive emphasis on could.

 

[rnb11]

Just reading the Hull forum and found it funny that they describe him as extremely talented but lazy and gives away stupid penalties.

I think he got suspended for a while and then has been injured. Will never want him back, he's just not up for it mentally in my opinion.