With the people we have had running the St George Illawarra Dragons for nearly those 14 years Harry, coaches like Bellamy, Robinson, Cleary, would not have had the success that they have had. The Board would have turned them off even though they would have got us a premiership from all three like Bennett. The long term coaching that those three have had and will continue to have and with success is due to their respective clubs having superior personnel at the top who know how a leagues club should function. I don't think that they would last more than 3-5 years with us. Mary McGregor has been our longest serving first grade coach for the joint venture club of 7 years straight.
Now that we have Flanno, his aim of course is to get the club to making top 4 a couple of times and maybe with an ounce of luck a grand final in say 2-4 years. But his tenure won't be a very long term one, unless the success is regular and he gets a lot of things go his way and the Board lets him run his own race and then he could end up being a Bellamy, Robinson coach. Bennett's longest stint has been with the Broncos from 1988-2008 - 21 years straight plus he had another 4 years at the Broncos from 2015-2018.
If Flanno can get great results year to year it will enable much better players to be attracted to want to play for the club every year and that's what I would like to see.
Getting back to Ryan Webb's replacement, the type of guy we need should not be a yes man, has a finance background, a very good knowledge of footy matters - even to the extent of the types that we need - and is in the foreground to discuss openly with members and fans about our club and provide up to date information on topical matters and future aims and endeavours. The Board have put out feelers for guys like Peter Parr - Knights Head of Football, Norm Black - former owner of Trip-A -Deal, Blake Solly - South Sydney CEO, Tim Watsford - Supercars COO, Brock Schaefer - previous NRL GM of partnerships Jaymes Boland-Rudder and ex Souths COO.
So the Board will be trying to get someone with good qualifications by the looks of things which I hope will eventuate on a selection of a strong character CEO for us.