Misty Bee said:
MITS???? The jury's out. He USED to be very astute. So sad......
Man not Ball.
I would like, if I may, to take you through my opinions on the entire club/Smith thing, I will try to keep it brief, but little nuances may need to be explained in depth. So if I goes to long I am sorry, keep with it please.
To start I would like to state my belief of the opinions being expressed against Coach Smith.
1) Coach Smith is not a bad coach
2) Coach Smith did get us from cellar dwellers to Top 8 and above between 1997 and 2002.
3) Coach Smith doesn't seem to be able to inspire or motivate his team
moving to
4) Coach Smith has a structured style of play that the players don't like
moving to
5) Coach Smith has become stale at Parramatta and would most probably succeed elsewhere.
Also on a separate topic, I may be believed that I can no be critical of our coach, our CEO, our Board and our club. I would hope in this next piece that you can see these opinions of me are incorrect.
The reason I do this is that I believe that my views have been misread over the last 2 years, and that my opinions are not being read without prejudice. Please understand that this post is for all intents my opinions at this time.
To this Issues
1) Coach Smith is not a bad coach,
On this I agree, I believe that Coach Smith is a fine coach with ability far in advance of many others.
2) Coach Smith did get us from cellar dwellers to Top 8 and above between 1997 and 2002.
On this I agree, hell I was their singing with Suity the "We've got the best team in the comp" at the 2000 GF qualifier against Brisbane, and then the same game a year on. I was at most games in 1996, and became a season ticket holder in 1997. While these years may be described as unsuccessful because we didnt win the ultimate prize, I believe they were successful in the way the club performed.
3) Coach Smith doesn't seem to be able to inspire or motivate his team.
On this I agree in part but would place the blame on team leadership. The team as it stands this year, has had a tendency to drop it's head if it is in a slightly down position and the opposition score. I think this is because for a great deal of the time, we have been missing our on field leader, in Nathan Cayless. You can pump people up as much as you like but once they cross that line players can feel isolated. No matter how much we pay them or how professional they are, we pay them to have the skill, some other things we can teach them, but that isolated feeling I think that is something only other players can help out with.
Players like Cayless deal with being isolated by pumping others up and feeding off them. Players like Nathan Hindmarsh do it via their deeds.
Players like Dykes need to have players around them pumping them up. It can't be a runner like Jason Taylor; it has to be a team captain.
I think Daniel Wagon is like Nathan, a do as I do sort of leader that our play makers can't feed off.
People go back to the school teacher like way that Brian sat the team down vs. the Dragons. Some people have said on this board that they have never spoken with our coach, others say only once or twice. I have done it on several occasions in the past 7 years, and all I can say is that Brian is a quite man, that has an infectious intensity. Just watching him speak about certain thing and he puts off a sense of leadership and determination. He doesnt have to raise his voice too much, he doesnt have to jump around or slap his players on the shoulders to get them pumped, he does it in other ways. Now I cant say that I know how effective they are for the team, my read on these players may be wrong, and I may be wrong about the coach, but I get inspired every time I speak with Coach Smith.
4) Coach Smith has a Structured Style of play that the Players don't like
Again I would say that the structured play gives a great base for inspired play. If you let a lone player do what he feels is right, then that lone player may be the only one that knows what is going to happen. You need a structure to get plays going, but I think structured play helps players react and trust their gut feelings more. If in a structured move a player feels that something may not come off, he can decide to not execute the play, leaving a man outside him unused. But in a non structured play, will there be a man outside you if you do decide to execute the play? For mine it has been said in the press before that Adam Dykes has been asked to play in a style he is not comfortable in. I think that could be the structured play we are playing, and that leads me to believe that Dykes wants to do everything himself, an opinion I am sure will get support among others on this board, particularly pointing to the start of the year, and even in games like the win vs. the Broncos.
5)Coach Smith has become stale at Parramatta and would most probably succeed elsewhere.
On the other hand to this, many including prominent members of the radio media would hi-light to you the huge amounts of player turn over since Coach Smith joined the club, Players that have been here for the long haul include,
Daniel Wagon
Nathan Hindmarsh
Nathan Cayless
Michael Vella.
Disagree with the form of some of these players if you wish, but they are the only ones that could be feeling that Smiths coaching is stale, No other player has been at the club for that long to have heard smith repeat anything if he is repeating it. These players, plus Corey Person formed the core of the group that started the Pizza and Beer night to get to the bottom of the problem.
Parramattas Retention Policy.
I have said this to many but I am going to go over it again.
In 1999 I was told by a member of the board of the football club, witnessed by fellow members of the travelling crew, that Parramatta players signed to play NRL (so the top 25) are on at least $100,000 dollars a year.
This year I shared an apartment with a player manager for 3 days while we worked on a mutual project on the Gold Coast, this Player manager has players in the Broncos, Rabbits and formally Newcastle. When I told him the above information about minimum contracts in 1999, he was gob smacked. He knows that the minimum at some of these clubs is around $35 -$40,000 a year, which is about what your average person earns.
So if we are paying $60,000 over the top for the bottom 7 or so players on a sliding scale of $5,000 per 7 players starting at $75,000 you can gain about $295,000 in your salary cap plus the $100,000 that players start on in say the top 17.
This would be the reason that Parramatta have been unable to retain players that have hit heights at this club. We are paying more for juniors than we should be.
When Joe Joseph retired this year, I remember someone quoting him in saying that Parramatta would try to never again lose a player that they had developed for more money. With that comment I think we can see that last year we started spending less on players to come to the club, Players like McKinnon, Person, and co, meaning we are starting to save money under the salary cap, and as you can all see from this years recruitments that money is being put to good use, along with the extra Money from Dykes and Lyons Contract as well as I would think Cayless and Vaealikis injuries allowing us to save money.
I also believe that we have used some of this saved money to park some players contracts for next year, Players like Riddel, Tahu and Morrison could have been offered $50,000 signing bonus this year that will act as part of their first year payments, Meaning that we have used some of this years cap (thanks Jamie you were good for something) towards these recruitments.
While the board and coach were well within their rights to set a base salary for our NRL squad to attract and maintain young talent, it showed in our inability to retain that talent from the money being spent by other clubs.
Sacking Smith,
While I can empathise with your comments on sacking the Coach, I can not agree with them.
Sacking the coach would in my opinion destabilise this club, there is no heir apparent, and there is no one on the market that could take on the job. Peoples names have been bandied about by members of this forum, but how can any of you know that these people even want to come to this club or continue or resume to coach NRL rugby league.
If what has been discussed happens with Smith to Coach Coordinator and Daniel Anderson in as Head Coach, well and good. I have heard comments from the board that they are of the belief that Coach Smith is not getting as much help as he could from the current coaching staff. Some people point out to all the others in the coachs box, but some in the club feel they arent helping the head coach.
I support this club and that means supporting everyone in it, I will back the coach as long as he is here, I will back the board as long as they make the decision to keep the coach , or sign players or set minimum wages that is what they are elected to do. Through every mistake, and every victory, that is what it is to be part of a club. Not in my opinion to look from the outside and say, cut that person out of the club and hire someone else, they are hurting your club. But in saying that maybe some outside help may be required to see problems, but if you see problems from inside, I believe you fix them first, and in doing so, maybe the outside problems go away.
Mr Foreman please present your verdict.
