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Sack Adam O'Brien

PhilGould

PhilGould

Bench
Messages
3,469
Knights director of football Peter Parr has met with sacked Gold Coast coach Justin Holbrook despite incumbent Adam O’Brien guiding Newcastle to four successive wins.

This masthead understands the meeting took place last week just days after Newcastle’s big 26-18 win over Melbourne.

It remains unknown whether Holbrook was being interviewed to be head coach or an assistant to O’Brien.

O’Brien has another year to run on his existing deal and has promoted Newcastle to ninth place on the NRL competition table.

Holbrook is being discussed at several rival clubs as an assistant, including Canterbury and Wests Tigers.

Other candidates being mentioned for the Newcastle job include John Morris, Paul McGregor, Josh Hannay and Michael Maguire.

Newcastle would need to pay out O’Brien in full should he be sacked.

Axing O’Brien might be near impossible if he can push Newcastle into this year’s finals.

O’Brien is under immense pressure to continue coaching next year even if he does secure success over the remaining five rounds.

Well-informed Newcastle sources claim Holbrook was being interviewed to be head coach.

O’Brien’s assistant, Blake Green, has already been linked to Manly despite having another year to run on his Knights contract.

Perhaps fearing O’Brien may not survive, Green made contact with Manly coach Anthony Seibold.

If there was a new appointment, Newcastle would want to give their new coach a chance to select his own assistants.

O’Brien has coached under pressure this year, seemingly aware he was always fighting to keep his position for season.

That pressure may have eased after four successive wins, the latest being victory over Canberra on Saturday afternoon.

O’Brien’s players are clearly playing for him at present.

Hannay and Parr are mates from their time together at North Queensland.

It is unlikely Newcastle would opt for Maguire if O’Brien was dumped.

Some Newcastle officials believe there are some players at the club being overpaid.

Newcastle play the Dolphins next Saturday in Perth.

 
Woody90

Woody90

Juniors
Messages
2,259
Way to likely completely destabilise our season you stupid, stupid club. Toohey hasn’t helped either. Usually have a lot of respect for him.

Honestly this is madness.
 
PhilGould

PhilGould

Bench
Messages
3,469
Sydney Morning Herald article on it adds that AOB was unaware of the meeting and his agent had just met with Phil Gardner during the week to ask for a contract extension, which the Knights turned down.

Also makes some parallels about Nathan Brown’s tenure ending abruptly after finding out that the Knights were meeting with coaching candidates (including AOB) without Brown’s knowledge.
 
Apey

Apey

Moderator
Staff member
Messages
28,283
Honestly, extending AOB right now would be a bad idea as well. But replacing him with Holbrook would be considerably worse.

Can't wait to see where this goes.
 
A

Alex28

Coach
Messages
12,010
Extending him now isn’t the right answer. Meeting other coaches, destabilising the playing unit with success in sight is very on-brand for the Knights.

I thought this shit was supposed to end under Wests?
 
Woody90

Woody90

Juniors
Messages
2,259
I suppose we need to remember that if the meeting happened 2-3 says after the Storm game as reported, it likely would have been organised at least the week before. At the time we’d only beaten the Bulldogs and Tigers (less that impressively that one too) and were still sitting in the bottom 4. While it seems crazy that they’d do this now and destabilise our season, when it was organised we didn’t look like making the finals.

It will be telling if the club don’t come out today and give some clarification, because if they don’t this will just turn into a wild fire and we can say goodbye to any chance of playing finals.

I’m hoping there’s an alternate explanation like he sought us out as he’s from the area and needs a job or something, but if the club don’t come out and clarify that with the season on the line then it looks pretty damning.

FTR I wouldn’t extend AOB now either, but you only disrupt a season like this if you have the chance of signing a Bellamy or a Cleary. You don’t for a Holbrook who would be a sideways move at best and likely even a downgrade.
 
PhilGould

PhilGould

Bench
Messages
3,469
I don’t think a hot streak in a season where we’re still only an outside chance of the 8 should outweigh what has been an extremely underwhelming 4 years under AOB, especially for the people who’s job it is to put the club in a position to succeed. If they don’t believe he’s the man for the job then they should be looking for a replacement.

If Holbrook is the only one they’re looking at then that’s concerning, but I doubt it’s the case.
 
Woody90

Woody90

Juniors
Messages
2,259
PhilGould said:
Buzz on the radio this morning insinuated that it’s Gardner and members of the board who are meeting with coaches and Parr isn’t involved
Click to expand...

Buzz has an anti-Gardner agenda going at the moment so I wouldn’t read too much into it. Also you can’t interview a head coach without the head of football being involved surely.
 
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