Sack Adam O'Brien

[The Axe of Druss]

And, honestly I don’t give a shit what you guys say about me. It’s amusing how much time I spend in your heads if anything.

Sounds like something a narcissist would say tbh

 

[Mr_Knightside]

I’m glad this is all being handled now and that we will hopefully see a new coach appointed in the coming weeks.

TBH I feel bad for AOB. He’s had a lot to contend with this year, some of it self inflicted of course, but having your three best players all suffer season ending injuries at around the halfway point in the season is brutal. Plus the injury crisis in the forwards that we had early in the year. Basically he’s been pushing shit up hill from the moment a ball was kicked in 2025.

He could obviously have handled things better at times… insulting the fans after the Manly game was a low point imo and was potentially the misstep that made a lot of people completely lose any patience with him.

IMO his position has been basically untenable for a month or two, and he’s looked like a shadow of a man in the press conferences. I genuinely hope that his mental health is alright, because it feels like this year the pressure valve has been dialed up to 100 on him. If the reports are true, then I’m glad that he’s gone to the board and said he’s had enough. At least he’s going on his terms and still gets a reasonable payout (which he’s entitled to) It would have been a very uncomfortable watch seeing him at the club next year knowing that he’s basically a dead man walking if we don’t look like world beaters from the get-go.

Despite what some people might say, he’s done a lot for the club over the last 6 years and while it hasn’t ended the way we wanted, he’s got something to show for it imo. All the best to him and I hope he gets another gig somewhere.

 

[Woody90]

If this really has been a mutual decision and he wants to step down that’s probably the only way this could have come about because he wouldn’t have been entitled to the reported 2million payout it he requested to step down. If he was sacked Moses would have argued for the full payout and I doubt Wests would have been open to that.

 

[Seage]

But this is the thing, he's had some challenges to contend with but it never felt like he had any ideas on how to change outcomes. He's just a passive spectator in his own destiny. He gives the impression that there is no way to achieve an outcome other than where he's at.
The fact we've had injuries to key players has only exposed his shortcomings as a coach. He does not have the ability motivate plodders to play beyond their means, he doesn't have the nous to design an adaptable and modern game plan, and he's really been shown as deficient in some of his player selections (persisting with Fletcher Hunt at centre; deciding Fletcher Hunt should do kick offs; after 6 years still having no idea how to settle on halves combination).

Nice bloke, hard worker, hope he carries on with his life and has some sort of meaningful success. But he's a dud as a head coach.

 

[alexwilliams_66692007]

Apparently Justin Holbrook is a leading contender to take over AOB now. Possibly even for the rest of the season

www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/nrl/former-titans-coach-current-roosters-assistant-justin-holbrook-shopped-to-knights-as-adam-obrien-replacement/news-story/1d423c88f6668099343895956e92f94e%3famp

 

[HarVeeGee]

Have any of you had a work colleague that seems to work way, way harder than everyone else, but doesn't necessarily achieve the most? And the stuff they work so, so hard at doesn't necessarily seem to be the most important stuff that actually makes the biggest difference? I've thought AOB is one of those types for a long time (relative to most head coaches).

When we've been right in the grip of our periods of worst form, his answer is always "we just need to tough it out. The answer is to train harder. We need to stop making mistakes and execute harder." Week after week of us losing games where nobody runs hard, nobody tackles hard, nobody gets around the ball in support, they just go through the (slow) motions and achieve nothing with the ball... but his answer is always that they just need to train & play the system better.

A system that does not hold up at all to the pressure test of the other team playing too hard...

I think it's possible we've never had a head coach who's logged more hours, but it feels like he misses the forest for the trees.

 

[Seage]

When we've been right in the grip of our periods of worst form, his answer is always "we just need to tough it out. The answer is to train harder. We need to stop making mistakes and execute harder." Week after week of us losing games where nobody runs hard, nobody tackles hard, nobody gets around the ball in support, they just go through the (slow) motions and achieve nothing with the ball... but his answer is always that they just need to train & play the system better.

A system that does not hold up at all to the pressure test of the other team playing too hard...

I think it's possible we've never had a head coach who's logged more hours, but it feels like he misses the forest for the trees.

This. 100%. His 'just work harder' mentality is infuriating.

 

[The Axe of Druss]

 

[Zoidberg]

A month ago I was comfortable to have O’brien continue with us, we’ve had a terrible year with injuries and some stability (fingers crossed) coming in the spine next year. The performances over the last month have just not been good enough and I had my mind changed for me that we need new blood in the coaching moving forward.
I’ve always felt O’brien has tried to coach us to win grand finals a certain way, but we’ve never had the playing group to get to that standard. He needed to be able to adjust to who we had and use their strengths.
I wish him well in the future.

 

[Woody90]

Apparently Justin Holbrook is a leading contender to take over AOB now. Possibly even for the rest of the season

www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/nrl/former-titans-coach-current-roosters-assistant-justin-holbrook-shopped-to-knights-as-adam-obrien-replacement/news-story/1d423c88f6668099343895956e92f94e%3famp

Wouldn’t hate this. He’s an excellent attack coach, knows the area and I thought he did as well as he could at the Titans considering Titans.

 

[Mr_Knightside]

Yeah definitely agree with some of the above stuff. AOB is clearly a hard worker and it’s in his DNA so to speak, and he wants his team to play in that way. But his overall coaching style is very low IQ.

There have been plenty of times under his tenure where I felt we outplayed the opposition but very rarely did I feel like we won because AOB out coached the other coach. It was more that the team played with a higher level of intensity than the opposition and managed to execute a basic game plan. Yes there’s coaching that goes into doing that. But whenever another team was able to do things a little better than us that’s when the wheels would fall off and we’d basically be stuck on a hamster wheel of doing the same thing over and over for 80 mins despite the fact that it clearly isn’t working.

 

[Mr_Knightside]

The Holbrook news has sort of come out of nowhere. He wasn’t even being talked about in this forum (a place where some pretty wild ideas have formed before) let alone in the media…

Honestly, I don’t think I’d be against the idea of Holbrook getting the gig.

More than anything I’m just pleased the club is undertaking a proper process, not just handing Green the keys. If Blake Green interviews for the role and is able to show that he is the best candidate for it then sure, I can live with that. But I’d be mega pissed off if he just gets the role without an interview and other candidates being interviewed.

 

[Seage]

The Holbrook news has sort of come out of nowhere. He wasn’t even being talked about in this forum (a place where some pretty wild ideas have formed before) let alone in the media…

Honestly, I don’t think I’d be against the idea of Holbrook getting the gig.

More than anything I’m just pleased the club is undertaking a proper process, not just handing Green the keys. If Blake Green interviews for the role and is able to show that he is the best candidate for it then sure, I can live with that. But I’d be mega pissed off if he just gets the role without an interview and other candidates being interviewed.

How do you know they're going through a proper process. The fact AOB has not technically been sacked/resigned yet and we know who the 'favourite' for the role is, is quite damning. I've got no confidence the Knights will run a proper process, more likely they'll give the appearance of one where they humour a few other candidates knowing full well what the outcome was always going to be before they started.

 

[perverse]

How do you know they're going through a proper process. The fact AOB has not technically been sacked/resigned yet and we know who the 'favourite' for the role is, is quite damning. I've got no confidence the Knights will run a proper process, more likely they'll give the appearance of one where they humour a few other candidates knowing full well what the outcome was always going to be before they started.

My thoughts exactly. It's all theatre. Honestly I don't mind that they have a candidate in mind, at least they have a direction. I would hope the due diligence happened before we even hear about it.

 

[Knight Tales]

Justin Holbrook and a few others will all be named in the media, until the club actually sets it’s agenda around this straight.

 

[Mr_Knightside]

How do you know they're going through a proper process. The fact AOB has not technically been sacked/resigned yet and we know who the 'favourite' for the role is, is quite damning. I've got no confidence the Knights will run a proper process, more likely they'll give the appearance of one where they humour a few other candidates knowing full well what the outcome was always going to be before they started.

Ok let me re-phrase “proper process” I guess in plenty of organisations, management has an idea of who they would like for a role before interviews happen etc but I suppose what I mean is I’m at least feeling somewhat encouraged by the idea that they’re considering people outside of the club currently.

I‘ve seen plenty of situations in work places where people are basically promoted without any proper process at all and it often is just a conversation behind closed doors. Usually it doesn’t end well because that person often isn’t ready for the role and wasn’t made to work for it, whilst others who wanted a crack at it feel like they weren’t given a look in. I’ve been on both sides of that situation btw so I can speak from personal experience.

Whether the Knights sit down and do 2 or 3 interviews with several candidates is yet to be seen but I at least want to believe that the fact that a few names are floating around means there’s a few others in the mix. This could by my optimism coming back to bite me again though…

 

[Yosh]

He might have been a great head coach 20 years ago but the games evolved and it's not just about professionalism and grinding anymore.

 

[mozza91]

They might have had the candidate in mind for ages and were waiting for an answer before getting rid of Obi. You’d like to think they’ve done their due diligence.

Peters would be my preferred option but Holbrook did a decent job at the Tits.

 

[Woody90]

Apparently Justin Holbrook is a leading contender to take over AOB now. Possibly even for the rest of the season

www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/nrl/former-titans-coach-current-roosters-assistant-justin-holbrook-shopped-to-knights-as-adam-obrien-replacement/news-story/1d423c88f6668099343895956e92f94e%3famp

Just read the article, doesn’t really say that Holbrook is in contention or that we’re interested, just that his manager has shopped him to us…which is a shame because I would much prefer him over Green. The article also mentioned Trent Barrett…Jesus…

 

[Loose Cannon]

Surely John Morris should be given a look.