Nobody’s saying the players don’t like him or are off the coach (Madge at the Broncos at the moment is a much better example of that). But getting buy in is only part of the job. Tactically he doesn’t know what he’s doing in attack. We shouldn’t be in the bottom 4 with top 4 defence. If they’re not going to get rid of AOB they at least need to push the issue with a new attack coach as Blake Green clearly isn’t hitting his KPIs either. I think we need to start again with a whole new coaching team though. I’d be ok with McDermott staying on only in a defensive role.
The thing that has always done my head in is this idea AOB has always, always had in his head that it's necessary to develop Kalyn into this "more complete" player, to change the way he plays massively. I don't know if it's Kalyn that drives this or AOB, but I feel like we're consistently in this pattern where we see "new Kalyn" early in the season, then in the back half of the season where we just need to win games, we go back to just having Kalyn do what he's good at.
In 2020, AOB tried to turn him into a Tedesco style fullback, more of a runner... it sort of worked, a bit, but was undermined by Kurt Mann not really being a proper 6, so then they gravitated to Kalyn being basically the second half and Kurt as a more "fullbacky" 6. I would say he had a bit of a quiet first half of the season, before he roared into form once Blake Green joined the team and performed the function of, basically, telling Kalyn where to go, getting him into good positions. Then he had a strong back half of the year with Mason Lino at 6 before AOB freaked out and put Kurt Mann back at 6 for our finals game, which we lost what felt like 150-0.
In 2021, look, I'll give a small pass - he and Pearce played about 7 games together. We picked up Clifford, a genuine half, but the attack stayed clunky with Ponga playing this "do whatever he wants" roving role in attack, which you could argue was committed to due to an injury crisis which had him playing with guys like Hoy and Crossland in the halves - it makes sense to lean on Kalyn for everything. They win the games they need to make finals but look dogshit in attack doing it; they eventually toss that aside for the finals game, and just get him attacking between the tramline and sideline constantly once AOB decides, f**k it we just need points... and we come very close to upsetting a very good Parramatta team.
2022, whatever. Borders on being a lost season for Kalyn with the head knocks. But gee there was very rarely any slickness in the attack between him, Clune, Clifford and Milford, with Kalyn playing his roving, ball hogging, "pop up everywhere" role.
2023, Kalyn wants to move to 6. Cool. We try to put a team together to enable that. Oh no! He keeps knocking himself out in every tackle! Eventually moved back to 1 and, due to the team actually working quite well in attack without him, eventually they just implement him into this system based on quick ball movement and a willingness to attack using the full field, just basically having him sweep around out the back on both sides constantly as the key link man. It works amazingly. He wins the Dally M.
2024, well we don't want to be predictable do we? Let's change things up. We need Kalyn to be a more well-rounded attacking player - make him less predictable. Oh no we can't score points anymore! Eventually the attack kind of gets going again when we need to win games to make finals and get Kalyn - stop me if you've heard this before - constantly in sweep moves down both edges. Basically building the whole game plan around those structures, except in the must win game against the Dolphins, which we dominate but play with no structure and thus only win 14-6, because according to AOB, structure doesn't win finals games, even though great attacking structure bailed us out in the finals game we won one season earlier.
2025... rookie 6 & stopgap 7 till the elite 6 we signed arrives next year... queue AOB in the presser: "in order to evolve into a more dangerous footy team, we need Kalyn popping up in different positions of the field as much as possible". "We don't want to rely on him just attacking the tramlines because that will become predictable."
OH NO! WE CAN'T SCORE POINTS! The season is very close to being totally on the line. Let's keep our eyes peeled and see what sort of role Kalyn plays in the attack in the coming weeks...
The thing that gets me is I don't feel like AOB has ever waited to see if just getting Kalyn to do what he's good at over and over again would *stop* working before deciding that it won't and he needs to shake things up. Could be Kalyn insisting on it, but from pressers it really sounds like it's heavily based on AOB's notion of what needs to be done.
Most productive (tries + assists) attacking player of the last decade is Cody Walker, who's played in a system leveraged almost entirely around just having him do what he's good at over and over again. Souths for like 5 seasons straight were a top 3 attacking team. Even though you always knew exactly what they were going to do. Makes you think!
