Sack Griffin

[Mitty266]

so bellamy is in the mix now? Why is his name been attached to these news articles as of today? Where there is smoke there’s fire?

 

[Illusion]

Yep they wasted this year already knowing they didn't want Hook, but not willing to pay out his contract. This situation can create no other alternative than a poor season.

And what makes this worse is they signed him again before a ball was kicked ...... What a bunch of dead set GOOSES .........

 

[The Silverdale Phantom]

In all fairness, I think Hook inherited a roster not exactly to his liking and you haven’t seen a massive influx of class or marquee.

Distractions have also taken their toll, for which you can blame player stupidity and perhaps culture issues.

Even Chairman Albert thought he was above the entire club, talk about role models.

And just like us, you have a chronically troubled board who are way out of their depth. Ours can only be removed by dying off.

I’d like to hear Hooks side of the argument before judging him. Just in fairness.

And we all know he’s gagged.

When Hook arrived, he said he would do his best. That’s all. He didn’t promise anything.

When Sheens took over, he said 3 games to work things out ( on the record). This week it suddenly became 2 years ( also on the record).

Im not intimately familiar with all of Hooks coaching failures, but just from afar, I’d urge discretion and caution.

Mary was delusional and it went on for years and years. Whereas Hook was always going to be a transition coach unless he jagged the elusive success.

 

[jodragon40]

did mention that half the problem was the divided board. This board has been intricate in dividing the club and team. Nobody is going to make admissions that they got it wrong with coach selection, assistant coaches, recruitment and retention and most certainly nobody is going to voluntarily resign. The rot starts from the head and now goes all the way through our once famous club

 

[The Silverdale Phantom]

I was thinking about a way out for us with troubled boards and concluded that if possible, the NRL should make it a condition of licences that there be a democratic means of electing and sacking a board members after say 3 years.

Because what’s happening is a massive disenfranchisement with the nrl by fans and members as clubs with poor management struggle to succeed for decades.

Luke Lewis was on the radio recently talking about the need to share talent in the game, share the spoils of success and to give more people skin in the game.

Our board treats us with contempt and is full of idiots. They will get up one day and they won’t have a club to play with.

If clubs don’t have a form of democracy, the NRL should refuse its licence.

That will make them accountable instead of this life tenure entitled matey bullshit they enjoy now ot our expense.

The salary cap assumes certain things, that’s fine, but more is needed. Players are accepting a lot less money to stay with top 8 clubs and everyone else gets smashed. Year after year after year. I’m tired of being a second class fan. The NRL doesn’t care about us.

 

[steerlerbab]

We are in this mess because of the board and people in the club hierarchy admit it:

"You can't recruit": Dragons admit signing issues as coach search continues

The Dragons are likely to have a new coach in 2024.

www.zerotackle.com

The board has to pay off Griffin, appoint interim coach for 2023 and go after the man they want (Hasler or Flanagan for 2 to 3 years) and sort coaching situation asap. Then the club can go after Marquee players as they come to market for the rest of the year.

To be fair, this mess is not Griffin's doing. It is the problem caused by the board and to fix it they should not wait until the year is over and tell us who the new coach is.

 

[dragon thomo]

I am not backing the board as they are useless but Griffin applied for the job on the back of that he could turn the team around. He had his choice of assistant coaches and also players that he brought to the club. He has failed by sticking with players that had poor dicipline and form. By not dropping players that are not performing sets a bad standard.
Even Newcastle have learnt when thay dropped Dominic Young for poor form and he then turned it around around.

 

[rasaint]

OK there will be a new coach, probably soon between Hasler or Flanagan Or Hornby. Our last 3 coaches Price, McGregor and now Griffin had ordinary rosters except for MCG in2018 when we thrashed Bennents Broncos but lost Widdop and Simms for rest of finals. If they stayed healthy we would have won IMHO.

That acknowledged, as I have said to the forum for years. Good players make good coaches. Gibson, Bennett two considered the greatest coaches from multiple clubs both tanked when taking on struggling clubs. Sheens has won comp at two clubs but tanked badly at others. Ivan Cleary is less than 50% win ratio spanning 3 clubs but on top now with the wonderful roster at Panthers. Robo n Bellamy staying put with great records at power clubs with the $$ and circumstances to keep tip top rosters.

By all means get a new coach but swap the roster with Roosters and watch us start winning. ( Roosters have all their gun players coming back starting this week.

 

[RedVee_8]

Kerr is worried about Hooks mental health because of the job speculation

 

[justadragon]

Kerr is worried about Hooks mental health because of the job speculation

How about the mental health of all Dragon supporters over speculation that we may have an NRL team that is competitive.

 

[Inisai Toga]

OK there will be a new coach, probably soon between Hasler or Flanagan Or Hornby. Our last 3 coaches Price, McGregor and now Griffin had ordinary rosters except for MCG in2018 when we thrashed Bennents Broncos but lost Widdop and Simms for rest of finals. If they stayed healthy we would have won IMHO.

That acknowledged, as I have said to the forum for years. Good players make good coaches. Gibson, Bennett two considered the greatest coaches from multiple clubs both tanked when taking on struggling clubs. Sheens has won comp at two clubs but tanked badly at others. Ivan Cleary is less than 50% win ratio spanning 3 clubs but on top now with the wonderful roster at Panthers. Robo n Bellamy staying put with great records at power clubs with the $$ and circumstances to keep tip top rosters.

By all means get a new coach but swap the roster with Roosters and watch us start winning. ( Roosters have all their gun players coming back starting this week.

100%, also, its often the timing of when the squad develops is often under valued in fan assessments.; all of those guys mentioned and the timing with their squad’s First Grade development at Parramatta and Canberra, Broncos ….were pretty fortuitous (not discounting their obvious skill set). It is why i rate Harry Bath’s coaching performance and “what and how” he achieved it, so highly!

 

[The Silverdale Phantom]

The club has to make the position attractive.

it would be good to know what the overall budget will be that the new coach will get.

Thens there’s 1 to 2 years of rebuild under the new coaches reign, unless Hook is the “be and end all” of the problem which I don’t fully buy into.

I think Flanagan was one of the 2 powerful coaching assistants to Mary during his end of days and…let’s say it didn't end well.

Mary hated that era, 2 coaches to prop him up and he still fell over. He wasn’t a team player.

At least you have some change in mind. We have nothing but another 4 years of shite coaching and underperforming players.

There’s no new kids buying in. A lot of Tigers fans will be dead and buried …if the club still exists in 5 years.

You need some marquee, we don’t hear enough of dragons hunting big names.

They sit on the bench at top 8 clubs. They bring an origin player in after 75 minutes for the training run because they are 30 points ahead. That’s the state of the NRL. This season sucks.

 

[Slippery Morris]

As it has been stated, a good coach needs to get the best out of their players. Do some honestly believe Hook is getting the best out of the players? Wow.

You do know that after Hook got sacked from Bronco's and Penrith, and they made a GF within 2 years after he was gone. He left Broncos 2014 (Grand final 2015 - Broncos v Cowboys). Left Penrith 2018 (Grand Final 2020 - Penrith v Melbourne). Both lost the GF's but they did make it. That is clear evidence the guy was the problem and the teams improved when he left. We were optimistic and hopeful that he learnt and this trend would change for some reason but it got worse. In fairness Bronco's and Penrith also gave him 3 years Saints board are not that dumb in the end and they don't have Gould in charge of their football dept.


So Hunt bitching and moaning that the team will go backwards if Hook goes. That was clearly not the case at the Bronco's in 2014.

So people were probably of the opinion back then when Hook had those teams that he had a bad roster blaming the players, the board etc like we are hearing now and it was clear he was not getting the best out of the squad. . I do not believe the squad is bad as people are suggesting (if anything a potential of being a Penrith, Bronco's or Cowboys) but clearly coached poorly and Webster is good proof of how you can improve with a coach that gets the best out of a struggling squad.

What did Gould say, he was coaching the footy out of the players. We can clearly see that now especially in the last 20 seconds against the Raiders. They are getting dumber and dumber each game.

Hopefully this is a good omen and if Hook is gone this season we will see the Dragons in a GF in 2024 or 2025.Win or lose I don't care as long as they are competitive most of the season.

 

[TheRev]

It was a difficult time to replace Hook mid to late 2022, most of the good coaches had been snapped up by the dogs & warriors, I guess not the tigers in the end (but they were trying). Hasler wasn't available yet.. Ryles had even longer remaining on his Roosters contract... And if you sack a coach in the off-season, the incoming coach hasn't got his best chance of success because there isn't time to make meaningful roster changes... nor have a full off-season.

However the board knew in the off-season Griffin was going (they told him).. and perhaps didnt understand that they were writing off the entire 2023 season before a ball was even kicked off.. we knew it would happen as fans... and it was rammed home by the lack of marquee signings in the off-season, for me it was the first season I can remember where there was nothing to be excited about.. no hope.. no gun recruits... and you can't afford to do that when the other clubs are going from strength to strength, sucking up quality players for f*** all... because the stronger your roster, the cheaper & more easily you can recruit.

 

[Old Timer]

I love the theory that the coach coached footy out of the players.

FMD tackling is tackling, catching is catching, holding onto the ball is holding onto the ball, ill disciplined is ill disciplined, being dumb is being dumb, being selfish is being selfish and all of this is on the individual most especially the senior players.

Arm grabbing, fumbling, ill discipline and dumb arse penalties happens in all teams regardless of the coach but what we have is not just an individual doing it we have a plethora doing it game in game out and it costs us big time.

When the good teams have days of repeated issues as listed above they also look very ordinary and can be beaten sometimes quite convincingly. So did their coach coach that out of them that day or did the players decide that they need to concentrate on the basics better?

We have had for a very long time players running the show and not coaches and or the football department. Maybe player managers have us by the knackers who knows?

Maybe our split identity leads to the split personality that the team offers up every year because there is no doubt at different times we do see that our team can play good footy and has the skills that people keep saying we don't have.

Overall IMO we lack heart and commitment more than anything else and we have become a semi retirement place for players and officials and that is because we are neither St George nor Illawarra and have no will or idea as to how to fix that.

TBH our basics are so bad that I can't blame any coach saying do the bread and butter things well and then you can start to expand into other things FMD we use moldy bread and melted butter, drop it all on the floor and then tread in it.

Blame Hook all you want but we are being avoided by coaches and players alike and it's been that way for a very long time and even Bennett had to bring a lot of outside interests in to win the comp in 2010 and I still wonder to this day that if the Storm had of been playing for points that year if we in fact would have actually broken our drought and what people would have said about Bennett if we didn't win?

 

[Gourley's Socks]

I don't think that "coaching the footy out of them" is the whole story but I do think it's a factor.

When we have bygone-era defensive structures and poor or no intel on the opposition attack, we increase the pressure on defenders. When we have an all to simple attacking structure and an environment where creativity is frowned upon, that increases pressure on the attackers.

And I think that's why many of these more boneheaded plays and mistakes are made by the senior guys. They are the ones that feel the most pressure to lift the side: to push the miracle pass or to make the momentum-shifting hit.

It was the same in the McG years - there was never a plan B. So if we happened to meet a team as poorly prepared and as dumb as us then we could win it and sometimes handsomely. But when we faced good and smart teams, that pressure would mount and it would all invariably go to water.

We don't have the roster of a Panthers, Rabbits or Roosters. But we're also not maximising the limited potential of the squad we do have by playing some of the dumbest, most boring and predictable footy imaginable and then punishing anyone who might try to break from that rigid framework.

So while the players aren't blameless, for years now successive coaches have taken any spark that was there and doused it.

Or Doust it, if you will.

 

[Dragon David]

I was thinking about a way out for us with troubled boards and concluded that if possible, the NRL should make it a condition of licences that there be a democratic means of electing and sacking a board members after say 3 years.

Because what’s happening is a massive disenfranchisement with the nrl by fans and members as clubs with poor management struggle to succeed for decades.

Luke Lewis was on the radio recently talking about the need to share talent in the game, share the spoils of success and to give more people skin in the game.

Our board treats us with contempt and is full of idiots. They will get up one day and they won’t have a club to play with.

If clubs don’t have a form of democracy, the NRL should refuse its licence.

That will make them accountable instead of this life tenure entitled matey bullshit they enjoy now ot our expense.

The salary cap assumes certain things, that’s fine, but more is needed. Players are accepting a lot less money to stay with top 8 clubs and everyone else gets smashed. Year after year after year. I’m tired of being a second class fan. The NRL doesn’t care about us.

Hi Silverdale Phantom

What are your thoughts on John Dorahy being appointed onto the Wests Tigers Board?

He was and still remains a fan of the Tigers and was a great player for the Western Suburbs Magpies.

John Dorahy joins Wests Tigers Board of Directors

Wests Tigers is delighted to announce the appointment of former Western Suburbs player, John Dorahy, to the club’s Board of Directors.

www.weststigers.com.au

 

[getsmarty]

Dragon urges board to make call on Griffin quickly

St George Illawarra prop Josh Kerr has urged the club's board to make a decision on off-contract Anthony Griffin, unhappy with the media spotlight on the coach.

thewest.com.au

 

[getsmarty]

‘We’ll see how much the players care about their coach’: Anzac Day boilover all that can save Griffin

‘We’ll see how much the players care about their coach’: Anzac Day boilover all that can save Griffin

www.foxsports.com.au

 

[The Silverdale Phantom]

Hi Silverdale Phantom

What are your thoughts on John Dorahy being appointed onto the Wests Tigers Board?

He was and still remains a fan of the Tigers and was a great player for the Western Suburbs Magpies.

John Dorahy joins Wests Tigers Board of Directors

Wests Tigers is delighted to announce the appointment of former Western Suburbs player, John Dorahy, to the club’s Board of Directors.

www.weststigers.com.au

Thank you for the question DD.

I am against it because no matter his background, experience, passion and reputation:

A) He was appointed and not elected, which to me is tacit support for the undemocratic process and regime.

B) He is a hand picked throwback legend type dinosaur, in the same vein as Tim Sheens, Benji and Robbie. I see his undemocratic appointment as another distraction and compliance with the failed old boy matey plan.

C) I have more time for Mr Cook who quit our board because he didn’t want to be part of the ongoing management fiasco. The official story is very different.

Not worshiping club legends is not a popular position amongst my peers but some agree with me.

If the process itself is corrupted then all bets are off and the WT board is basically exploiting Mr Dorahy’s good name and reputation to justify its incompetence and legitimate itself.

I am pleased that the board is getting the message and doing something, although it’s remedy is too little and too late and it doesn’t address the systemic dodgyness and ineptitude of a board that is way out of its depth and doesn’t have a clue.

John has made a conscious decision to compromise himself and ruin his legacy. A matter for him. He is obviously not familiar with and lost touch with the common people.

Thanks again.