Sack Adam O'Brien

[Dr Dr Gimedanews]

I've said this before, but I really would love to see what Gus Gould could do with our club. He'll never come to the Knights, but nonetheless, I'd love to see it.

should have been the first phone call Gardner made, and that's no revisionist crap. Gould is the greatest mind in the game.

 

[slotmachine]

get rid of arguably the best player in the game? Now I've heard it all

He's a weird player who has never consistently made us a good team. In a world where we can spend his 1.5m a season on the best halfback in the comp and plug in one of the 27 fullbacks we are able to develop I reckon we are a better side. Never going to happen though, so a moot point.

 

[Woody90]

The “issue” with Ponga is that he’s not a pure running fullback but he’s not a pure ball player either. He’s an insane talent but one that requires a lot of creativity in regards to how he’s used and how other players around him are used.

We’ve traditionally played him like a traditional fullback on the end of shape but he doesn’t have the work rate of say an Edwards or a Tedesco and he doesn’t sniff around the ball enough in support, especially in the middle of the field to be used as a pure fullback. We’ve also tried him in the halves but then you miss out on utilising his evasive running game, his best feature, against an unstructured defensive line.

I really thought we had found a good balance early this year where he was playing a bit of a hybrid half and fullback role. Got to utilise his talents on kick returns, his ball playing, but then sometimes he would still sit outside of Sharpe to be unpredictable. Then Sharpe would back up the play and fill in more of the traditional fullback support play through the middle that isn’t Kalyn’s strong suit. It was a bit strange, but it was working for us, and you need to be a bit “strange” and think outside of the box to utilise a player like KP to the best of his ability.

I thought we had finally found a way to utilise all of his strengths but then we threw it out the window after a couple of games. KP can definitely fit into our team but it requires creativity from your coaching staff which we don’t have (well actually we did but we threw it out the window which I still find really bizarre - no wonder the players don’t know what they’re doing, we’re changing our attacking plan weekly).

 

[mozza91]

In my opinion we've over achieved in recent seasons (and a lot of luck) + 2023 was on the back of a freak.

We have a crap spine, powder puff forwards and a lot of inexperience out there.

I've been critical of the recruitment for some time and copped a lot of flack for stating so. A lot of fans love average cap killers, well enjoy the feeling of today guys. That's what average feels like. That's a roster with misallocation of cap and we're only just starting to change that.

Being happy that a fringe first grader is back and playing in the jersey once worn by an immortal. It's insane.

The smug is strong in this one.

I’m surprised you’re not blaming Elliott for the loss.

 

[Apey]

I feel like the Ponga problem mentioned above will be solved if we can somehow turn Dylan Brown/Sharpe into a halfback, but I'm not convinced we can, and we're paying a hefty price to try.

We need our halfback to be a threat with the ball in hand, otherwise teams will just always rush up on Ponga. At least Brown and Sharpe have that covered. I have huge reservations what our kicking game will look like over the next few years. It's nowhere near good enough right now.

I'm not sure this is even the best time to discuss this though, because he's clearly out of form and his touches aren't coming off to begin with.

 

[Zoidberg]

Someone else has mentioned and I think it’s the right play, we should move Sharpe to 7 and Gamblor to 6 and hope we can keep them both on the field for a big run.
Having more speed from 1st receiver will help keep the defence forwards honest and all Sharpe needs to do is either pass it out to Gamble or have a run.

 

[ryan.a87]

I’ve been saying for weeks if Sharpe is our 7 for the next 6-7 years…..put him there now to get practice

 

[Yosh]

Also, if Brown is going to play on the left, why not move Sharpe to the left now?

 

[Knight Tales]

Sharpe as a 7 is our most feasible option. Keep Dylan at 6. He showed yesterday how dangerous he is with a 7 who can control. Dylan and KP linking up will be something else. But not under the current setup. It will be more of the same. A lot of attacking potency blunted by a control freak with out dated ideas.

 

[HarVeeGee]

While I’ve been very impressed with Sharpe, I’m not sure what he’s shown that has people thinking he’s ready to be a starting halfback in the NRL.

POS is on record saying Brown was signed to play halfback.

No amount of wishing otherwise or pleading with the footy gods to stop it is going to change that.

 

[Yosh]

While I’ve been very impressed with Sharpe, I’m not sure what he’s shown that has people thinking he’s ready to be a starting halfback in the NRL.

POS is on record saying Brown was signed to play halfback.

No amount of wishing otherwise or pleading with the footy gods to stop it is going to change that.

We all know who needs to play halfback. It is Ponga. Like when Kurt Gidley used to play fullback in defense and hooker in attack.

Let Ponga be halfback. Make it official. Give a Ponga the ball at first receiver and let him do most of the kicking. Let Sharpe and Brown play their natural games off of that.

Can't see AOB doing this though. Needs to eb fired ASAP.

 

[TooheysNew]

We all know who needs to play halfback. It is Ponga. Like when Kurt Gidley used to play fullback in defense and hooker in attack.

Let Ponga be halfback. Make it official. Give a Ponga the ball at first receiver and let him do most of the kicking. Let Sharpe and Brown play their natural games off of that.

Can't see AOB doing this though. Needs to eb fired ASAP.

The f**k?

 

[Alex28]

We all know who needs to play halfback. It is Ponga. Like when Kurt Gidley used to play fullback in defense and hooker in attack.

Let Ponga be halfback. Make it official. Give a Ponga the ball at first receiver and let him do most of the kicking. Let Sharpe and Brown play their natural games off of that.

Can't see AOB doing this though. Needs to eb fired ASAP.

Sweet Yosh - you’ve proven why we should keep AOB. Cheers!

 

[Yosh]

Sweet Yosh - you’ve proven why we should keep AOB. Cheers!

I'm putting my hand up for the job actually. Hopefully West's follow these forums!

 

[Knight Tales]

I don’t know Yosh. There is a school of thought in the club at present which believes letting Kalyn leave in exchange for a class 7 is our best way forward. You will not hear it said in the media locally but believe me the chances of KP seeing this deal out are 50/50 at best of a word class half becomes available to us. The cap strain and drama of Andre Ponga are a lot bigger than we are told. Andre is a smart man. Has had this club’s number for years. Met with Politis last contract as a device to get the money He wanted. Knows it will have the flow on effect and create doubt around Kalyn’s stability here. Always means he holds the cards. for the club to move forward something needs to change on a level not yet seen before. Are we strong enough to do it? I doubt it, Kalyn will get what he wants. Which will be more dollars than ever.

 

[perverse]

If next year doesn't work with Brown then it's probably in Kalyn and our interests mutually for him to go win a premiership elsewhere. At that point we've proven we can't use him and never will, so we'll have to just move onto the next rebuild. Love me a good rebuild.

 

[Mr_Knightside]

The whole situation is super frustrating. We’ve got a generational fullback but can’t seem to put a decent team together around him, especially in key positions. Brown will help but he probably won’t fix the most glaring problem which is a half with proper game management skills.

I love watching KP at his best but we don’t see it as often as we would like given the team can’t put him in the right positions that often.

If he were to leave the club I would actually have mixed feelings about it. I would hate to see him playing against us (and inevitably carve us up) but I want to see him win a comp too because he’s too good to retire without a premiership.

 

[Woody90]

I don’t know Yosh. There is a school of thought in the club at present which believes letting Kalyn leave in exchange for a class 7 is our best way forward. You will not hear it said in the media locally but believe me the chances of KP seeing this deal out are 50/50 at best of a word class half becomes available to us. The cap strain and drama of Andre Ponga are a lot bigger than we are told. Andre is a smart man. Has had this club’s number for years. Met with Politis last contract as a device to get the money He wanted. Knows it will have the flow on effect and create doubt around Kalyn’s stability here. Always means he holds the cards. for the club to move forward something needs to change on a level not yet seen before. Are we strong enough to do it? I doubt it, Kalyn will get what he wants. Which will be more dollars than ever.

You really need to be careful posting this sort of stuff without any evidence. The media are known to troll the other Knights forum to get info and they run the Ponga wanting out stories even if there’s no truth to it.

 

[Woody90]

I love watching KP at his best but we don’t see it as often as we would like given the team can’t put him in the right positions that often.

It’s partly this but also just partly Ponga I think. I think we just need to accept that he’s not always going to be consistently “in” games but we balance that out with how good he is when he’s on. He hasn’t had a consistent run of form over a whole season for his entire career. It is good though that his periods of good form are getting longer.

 

[Knight Tales]

You really need to be careful posting this sort of stuff without any evidence. The media are known to troll the other Knights forum to get info and they run the Ponga wanting out stories even if there’s no truth to it.

Why? He is very smart. There is nothing at all that suggests he has done anything wrong. This is not news. It has been around for a few years. Why do you think the noise around the Roosters and KP is so big! It is not an invention.