Ryles helped develop the Storms leadership model over the last few years . He knows what he’s doing in that regard .
The lack of leadership in our players is beyond staggering . Another failure of the BA era. Barlow isn’t a leaders asshole. No talk , no follow me , spits out BA style answers in the presser . Ryles will spend 4 mins talking about the areas of our game that were positive and being let down by concentration errors and the edges and Barlow will use a BA line about not turning up . After a try is scored against us there is no talk behind the posts , the communication on field is next to non existent .. Dylbro might talk to the bloke right next to him when he has to that’s the extent of his communication .. Mitch holds this side together . Him not being there to steer the young guys around is a complete disaster and has made life incredibly hard for Ryles .
I think fans have to be patient and Ryles has to keep the players together . He’ll come out of this a better coach. It would’ve been easy for him to keep Gutho , RCG etc around but we’ve had next to no succession planning , no quality depth and those guys weren’t taking any team to the promised land .
Dylbro is taking a back seat to a 7 who hasn’t played in 2 years and has 7 games experience . Volkman is on a train and trial contract and would’ve been hoping to re-establish his career in Cup. If that doesn’t tell people not upgrading and extending Dylbros contract was the right move nothing will. Real rough start but I’m confident the coach isn’t making easy decisions to cover his ass and is more concerned about where the club needs to go next . Hang on tight and get through the storm .
As silly as it sounds after having 80+ points put on us in the first two weeks, I have faith in Ryles.
I think the enormity of the task of rebuilding this club has been made very clear over the last fortnight.
But in his press conferences, Ryles seems to know exactly what is needed to turn us around, which is very positive.
Clearing out the dead wood that has been stinking up the joint for nearly a decade is probably a good place to start, and instilling some players with genuine leadership skills is going to do the world of good.
Tuivati, Samrani, and Smith are bright spots for our future.
Paulo, Lane, Matterson (despite not playing Firsts this year)...they all need to find a new job, because they will not bring this club forward.