Loudstrat
Coach
- Messages
- 15,224
I think this week we turned the corner and possibly closed a f*cking bleak chapter stretching back to 1987.
FFS, all the whingers and doomsdayers here - its all habit from following a sh8t and grossly underachieving club. I remember a great club that smashed all - not just the 3 straight - but the 76-86 period when we 7 GF's in 11 years under 3 different coaches, including the only good thing Gerald Fitzdenis ever did - sign Jack Gibson. He dined on that sucess for 25 insipid up-himself years. After the 86 GF he f*cked up continually - buying sh*t players to replace legends : Price for Lindner, Cronin for Woolfe, Sterling for Galbraith. We churned through that many good crops of youngsters, like the last few years, the Hayne/Inu/Mateo crop, the Lyon/Cayless/Hindmarsh crop, even back as far as the Mahon/Woods/Bell crop - without the cattle, leadership or staff to make a difference.
What saved our arse - and Fitzy's, was the signing of the Canterbury 4, Aaron Raper, Adam Ritson and John Simon during Super League (done in the Hilditch era, not Brian Smith). That took us back to our 1975 rebuild. Grand finals and premierships should have followed. But near enough was good enough - seasons inexplicably died at the 70th minute of THREE consecutive prelim finals. We actually won the ast one, but were simply shitfully prepared mentally, physically and structurally for Newy in 01. Had we won that our 2001 side would have been looked back as the greatest of the modern era.
The source of our current shit lies a few days before that GF - when Smith got his 5 year extention. We performed insipidly for those years despite making the finals - some of you will recall the joy of Andrew McFadden at half, then Adam Dykes, and then that useless pommy who might have been OK had Smith not been obsessed with the plodder Wagon. Quite simply Smith was nothing better than an average coach with good game plans - made to look better because he inherited a gun side, an 3 budding legends in Hindy, Cayless and Lyon.
Since October 01 we have been f*cked save for 3 years when we suddenly kicked into life in July - 05 (Taylor), 07 (Hagan) and 09 (Ando). These 3 coaches did better than Smith in that JT debuted Hayne, and held the club together after Smith's tantrum, Hagan had us firing and not choking in September (F*cking Olympic Park being an inch wider and we win the comp - our backs were brilliant that year), and Ando took us within a sh*t penalty of the GF.
By then, Fitzgerald's unique ability to be hated was sealing his fate. Has there ever been a single CEO that has pissed off so many cub legends in RL history? So much so that the Price/Grothe/Kenny/Leadbeater backed 3p came into power on the back of hate rather than a plan.
How did they react? Punted Ando (admittedly he was crap in 10), but replaced him with the utterly clueless Kearney. Why? So we could get him before anyone else would!!!!! This for a coach that only achieved anything with Wayne Bennett holding his hand!
Thankfully Mooks was flicked - but for Ricky Stuart???? In hindsight, it was Spagnolo's ego trip to sign the last ex-coach with any major distant success to floss out his resume with. We saw how that ended.
Since them there has been a boardroom power struggle that has seen a Stalinist purge to through the club everytime the board changes.
To me, this week has potentially been a closure of those times. Despite the media pani, I think our board s working ok - check out Manly's, and then think about what we DONT see at Canberra, Melbourne, Canterbury, Cronulla or Newcastle et al in recent times. Forget board unity for a sec - the REAL unity needs to be between Chairman-CEO-Head Coach-Coaching staff-players. I think we have achieved that maybe for the first time since 1983.
As for Ray Price - he can f*ck off. He is our George Piggins. Of all those legends assembled under Jack Gibson, I now only have respect for 3 of them - Cronin (for actually getting off his arse and doing something rather than whinging), Sterling (For his contined media brilliance) and Ella (for his remarkable work in the indigenous community). It pains me to see the likes of Price, Kenny, Guru snr et al continue to be village idiots n the public eye - and work not for Parra but for themselves. I am certain that the old legends from Canterbury, Manly, Saints and bar Piggins, Souths, keep their differences private and unite behind their club publicly.
Denis Fitgerald created that environment.
This week, that environment ended. I hope anyway. But I believe it has. The Chairman got his CEO, Coaching director and coach against a hostile board. The latter 2 are blue blood Eels. Arthur is talking positive - for the first time since....? Ando has been a very good refs boss, and seems to have the people skills that the job requires. Add to that a positive vibe from the players, including the new boys.
I think we have turned the corner - and killed the black dog that has been living with is since 1987.
This is the beginning of our renaissance. Lets all be positive about our future.
Or f*ck off. Simple.
FFS, all the whingers and doomsdayers here - its all habit from following a sh8t and grossly underachieving club. I remember a great club that smashed all - not just the 3 straight - but the 76-86 period when we 7 GF's in 11 years under 3 different coaches, including the only good thing Gerald Fitzdenis ever did - sign Jack Gibson. He dined on that sucess for 25 insipid up-himself years. After the 86 GF he f*cked up continually - buying sh*t players to replace legends : Price for Lindner, Cronin for Woolfe, Sterling for Galbraith. We churned through that many good crops of youngsters, like the last few years, the Hayne/Inu/Mateo crop, the Lyon/Cayless/Hindmarsh crop, even back as far as the Mahon/Woods/Bell crop - without the cattle, leadership or staff to make a difference.
What saved our arse - and Fitzy's, was the signing of the Canterbury 4, Aaron Raper, Adam Ritson and John Simon during Super League (done in the Hilditch era, not Brian Smith). That took us back to our 1975 rebuild. Grand finals and premierships should have followed. But near enough was good enough - seasons inexplicably died at the 70th minute of THREE consecutive prelim finals. We actually won the ast one, but were simply shitfully prepared mentally, physically and structurally for Newy in 01. Had we won that our 2001 side would have been looked back as the greatest of the modern era.
The source of our current shit lies a few days before that GF - when Smith got his 5 year extention. We performed insipidly for those years despite making the finals - some of you will recall the joy of Andrew McFadden at half, then Adam Dykes, and then that useless pommy who might have been OK had Smith not been obsessed with the plodder Wagon. Quite simply Smith was nothing better than an average coach with good game plans - made to look better because he inherited a gun side, an 3 budding legends in Hindy, Cayless and Lyon.
Since October 01 we have been f*cked save for 3 years when we suddenly kicked into life in July - 05 (Taylor), 07 (Hagan) and 09 (Ando). These 3 coaches did better than Smith in that JT debuted Hayne, and held the club together after Smith's tantrum, Hagan had us firing and not choking in September (F*cking Olympic Park being an inch wider and we win the comp - our backs were brilliant that year), and Ando took us within a sh*t penalty of the GF.
By then, Fitzgerald's unique ability to be hated was sealing his fate. Has there ever been a single CEO that has pissed off so many cub legends in RL history? So much so that the Price/Grothe/Kenny/Leadbeater backed 3p came into power on the back of hate rather than a plan.
How did they react? Punted Ando (admittedly he was crap in 10), but replaced him with the utterly clueless Kearney. Why? So we could get him before anyone else would!!!!! This for a coach that only achieved anything with Wayne Bennett holding his hand!
Thankfully Mooks was flicked - but for Ricky Stuart???? In hindsight, it was Spagnolo's ego trip to sign the last ex-coach with any major distant success to floss out his resume with. We saw how that ended.
Since them there has been a boardroom power struggle that has seen a Stalinist purge to through the club everytime the board changes.
To me, this week has potentially been a closure of those times. Despite the media pani, I think our board s working ok - check out Manly's, and then think about what we DONT see at Canberra, Melbourne, Canterbury, Cronulla or Newcastle et al in recent times. Forget board unity for a sec - the REAL unity needs to be between Chairman-CEO-Head Coach-Coaching staff-players. I think we have achieved that maybe for the first time since 1983.
As for Ray Price - he can f*ck off. He is our George Piggins. Of all those legends assembled under Jack Gibson, I now only have respect for 3 of them - Cronin (for actually getting off his arse and doing something rather than whinging), Sterling (For his contined media brilliance) and Ella (for his remarkable work in the indigenous community). It pains me to see the likes of Price, Kenny, Guru snr et al continue to be village idiots n the public eye - and work not for Parra but for themselves. I am certain that the old legends from Canterbury, Manly, Saints and bar Piggins, Souths, keep their differences private and unite behind their club publicly.
Denis Fitgerald created that environment.
This week, that environment ended. I hope anyway. But I believe it has. The Chairman got his CEO, Coaching director and coach against a hostile board. The latter 2 are blue blood Eels. Arthur is talking positive - for the first time since....? Ando has been a very good refs boss, and seems to have the people skills that the job requires. Add to that a positive vibe from the players, including the new boys.
I think we have turned the corner - and killed the black dog that has been living with is since 1987.
This is the beginning of our renaissance. Lets all be positive about our future.
Or f*ck off. Simple.
