You can't blame that loss on 2 spine players missing. There are far deeper problems and it points to BA losing the players. Whatever he is telling them falls onto deaf ears. Where is the pride in the jersey? If BA has any dignity left he needs to fall upon his sword and go, make the decision the board should have when Bennett was available.
From what I can see and hear the club is a shambles from the top to the bottom. We cannot keep any decent players we develop and from what I'm hearing even Blaize is not keen to stay. And who would blame him after that disgusting performance. I'll not renew my membership next year if BA is not gone after this year and major roster changes made.
In reality a mid season review should be carried out focusing on the below areas and give an honest assessment of the club from the top down focusing on:
Footy club board
HOF
Rest & Recreation, sorry, Recruitment & Retention committee
Roster
Coach
Asst coaches
Cup & Junior coaches
Junior pathways
The board in all honestly has failed themselves and the club by not being proactive. S(h)itting on your hands and doing nothing is not helping the club that has regressed back to the spoon years and will, in all probability, put the club back years in reputation, recruitment, sponsorship and membership and take years to fix. Making the footy (not Leagues) club financially viable is only part of their brief, making the club successful on the field is of greater importance as that drives profitability. Unless they can insure the club is successful in all areas from the bottom up they should not have a job.
I want this club to be a club where players, from juniors to seniors, want to play for and be proud to wear the jersey, where we are competing every year in the top 8 and being a serious premiership threat and being financially successful. However, the club atm is a rabble and a laughing stock and that starts and stops at the board.
The club hired Nathan Brown to undertake a full review of pathways not very long ago. The reporting was that the concern in pathways was nepotism. Brown was gone pretty shortly afterwards, for whatever reason. Does anything since then suggest that conclusion was wrong?
In my view, the major problem is that everything the club does is half-hearted. A common excuse (to use that term as neutrally as it can be) is that BA doesn’t have enough free rein over R&R to build the team he wants. If that’s right, we can’t possibly succeed - his entire game plan is based on a very basic, boring style of crash and bash. Possession is key, and it’s necessary to wear out the opposition through maintaining the ball and making them do the hard yards in defence to come home at the back end of the game with fresher legs. It’s reflected in the significant number of Rhinos in the squad - big(gish) bodies like Russell and Penisini who rely on chasing the collision and front loading (even though they’re remarkably ineffective at this compared to the outside backs in the better teams). But then the top 17 is supplemented by some guys who don’t really suit that style. It’s not a balanced squad.
The alternative complaint is that the squad that’s been built is too big, heavy, lacking speed, etc. That is the result of the issue outlined above. It’s a squad that lacks pace and mobility. And it can’t compete in the current, six-again game, which rewards zippy and/or strong smaller guys like Walsh, HTF and Penrith’s outside backs.
Put it all together, and I think the problem overall is a lack of identity. What style does Parra play these days? It’s hard to pinpoint. The attack is diabolical without Moses, but even with him, it’s too reliant on individual brilliance than game plan.
Where to from here? I’m personally not certain on whether the game has just passed by the current style (and I fear that may be the case, and that’s a hard rebuild), or if it’s just a tired style that’s been coached that would benefit strongly from a refresh. Ultimately, whichever of those is closer to the truth (and undoubtedly it’s somewhere in the middle, although I don’t know where the pendulum sits), it needs at least a new voice. And that can’t happen under the current regime.
BA’s gotta go - now.
