The end of the road for 2013?

[Father Ted]

Wont quote it all, but nicely written post which is scaringly the same as my views on all things going on within the club.

One thing I would like to add is the way we have used the junior system, I feel like our recruitment has been the worst run aspect of our clubs management, not only our 1st grade side, but the lack of talent coming through the junior ranks, and the lack of communication between Price/McGregor & Doust.

There seems to be an abundance of superstars at other clubs, powerful young stars in the making, but apart from the purchase of Drinkwater and our only real talent to come through in years is Rein/King and they are far from sure things still, King maybe if he comes good, but there is just no other competition for first grade spots and its making our 1st grade squad weak.

Maybe its bad luck, maybe its poor player scouting for lower grades, but the jump in age between the potential talent/kids (i.e. Cummins/Quin/Hastings/Garvey/Runciman) is too great, and even then only 2 of those will probably be genuine 1st grade material & 3 of them are playing fullback.

And even bigger than that is the Illawarra Cutters, imo their sole purpose is grooming players for 1st grade, every week Price/McGregor should be talking about upcoming holes or injury cover and what player should be developing where, the absolute worst examples were the management of Kyle Stanley who supposedly was the next 5/8 yet had a chance to develop any skills there, someone like Quinlan was sitting on the wing until Lett left the club, why would they do that? Was Lett first choice of fullback for 1st grade? If so why did Flo keep getting the spot? imo Quinlan was more likely to be used in the halves or fullback? Is Todd Ryan ever going to play 1st grade? If not why is he starting over someone who might? Doust needs to be involved too if he wants to be in charge of recruitment.

Doust won a few points back with the signing of Widdop & Dugen, but.. he took far too long getting Dugen onboard and likewise with the halfback/Rangi situation (2013 slipping away fast), not that it should ever have been left this late anyway, yes the Bellamy incident was a huge part of it, but much like Price's coaching, there is too much Reactive management and nobody with vision.

Great post Rev.:thumb

 

[Black Forest Dragon]

Wont quote it all, but nicely written post which is scaringly the same as my views on all things going on within the club.

One thing I would like to add is the way we have used the junior system, I feel like our recruitment has been the worst run aspect of our clubs management, not only our 1st grade side, but the lack of talent coming through the junior ranks, and the lack of communication between Price/McGregor & Doust.....
.....but much like Price's coaching, there is too much Reactive management and nobody with vision.

Thanks Rev. The situation re: juniors is an eye-opener. It is very concerning and is a systemic problem, caused perhaps by clash of personalities? Some-one wrote on this forum Price and McGregor don't get on.

 

[Jubileeboy]

Some well thought out posts with good points. Nice to see opinions articulately written and less of the un-educated, speculative guessing that some provide.
My opinion on Price, for what it's worth....he is not a top tier coach but that doesn't mean I won't support him as he is the annointed man...the one given the task of steering us in the right direction. The problem here was that the club put all its eggs in one basket with the attempted signing of Bellamy. At the time and subsequent following months, there is no one better available. Sad state of affairs but in order to start with the signings for 2014, there needed to be a coach appointed. Players need to know who they are playing for (coach).
This won't change for another 12 months, so there is no need for any further pissing and moaning about his appointment.....after every loss ! I would not be surprised to see a Hornby/Young combination step up in the next 2-3 years with further involvement or assistance.
It's like trying to sign a top flight halfback....sometimes there just isn't one available and they are few in numbers.
My second point relates to the juniors. Yes, there is a gap in what we have but this is such a gamble and can destroy a young player if thrown to the wolves when clearly not prepared or has an off game in their first attempt at first grade. We don't have the luxury of a proper second grade competition that clearly gives them a taste of what is expected from them and this is partly to blame for the gap in ready made replacements. Any talented player from 16 and up is targeted by every club, every player manager, every recruitment guy/scout in the comp. It's a struggle to keep them when these kids get offered all and sundry. They have expectations of playing first grade as soon as they have turned 18 because they have been put on a pedestal.
We have done well with our juniors in blooding the likes of Stockwell, De Belin, Green, King and Rein. They are all a work in progress. It is hard to hang on to all of them and a look across at those juniors that have left has shown, not too many have come back to bite us on the arse.
Anyway, just my two bobs worth in response to some good previous posts. I don't profess to have all the answers in what is clearly a difficult situation to manage but that's what keeps us all coming back. Love the passion displayed by fellow supporters and remember, it's never an easy ride.

 

[Drain the Dragon]

Welcome the Pro-Price people to point out where he has added value to the team, or where, through his influence, hope lies.

You've made all good points and made them very well.
But when you decided to start pigeon-holing people as "Pro-Price", you lost me.

I don't consider myself "Pro-Price" or "Anti-Price" for that matter. I'm "Pro-Dragons", like the rest of us.

I just believe the simplistic view of blaming the coach for all the issues the club has, and inferring that people are defending him blindly is glossing over the difficulty of the entire situation the club and Price find themselves in.

In my view the main reason that the club has had difficulty bringing juniors through our system - and retaining them - can be in a large degree attributed to the strength of the roster we had for several seasons. Basically the squad was full of representative quality players, and youngsters coming through naturally went looking elsewhere for opportunity. Now when the club needs that generation of players to be assuming more senior roles, they aren't there, but we do have a premiership to show for it all.

I guess I'm just happy to have the cake, where others want to eat it too...

 

[st.phil]

Wont quote it all, but nicely written post which is scaringly the same as my views on all things going on within the club.

One thing I would like to add is the way we have used the junior system, I feel like our recruitment has been the worst run aspect of our clubs management, not only our 1st grade side, but the lack of talent coming through the junior ranks, and the lack of communication between Price/McGregor & Doust.

There seems to be an abundance of superstars at other clubs, powerful young stars in the making, but apart from the purchase of Drinkwater and our only real talent to come through in years is Rein/King and they are far from sure things still, King maybe if he comes good, but there is just no other competition for first grade spots and its making our 1st grade squad weak.

Maybe its bad luck, maybe its poor player scouting for lower grades, but the jump in age between the potential talent/kids (i.e. Cummins/Quin/Hastings/Garvey/Runciman) is too great, and even then only 2 of those will probably be genuine 1st grade material & 3 of them are playing fullback.

And even bigger than that is the Illawarra Cutters, imo their sole purpose is grooming players for 1st grade, every week Price/McGregor should be talking about upcoming holes or injury cover and what player should be developing where, the absolute worst examples were the management of Kyle Stanley who supposedly was the next 5/8 yet had a chance to develop any skills there, someone like Quinlan was sitting on the wing until Lett left the club, why would they do that? Was Lett first choice of fullback for 1st grade? If so why did Flo keep getting the spot? imo Quinlan was more likely to be used in the halves or fullback? Is Todd Ryan ever going to play 1st grade? If not why is he starting over someone who might? Doust needs to be involved too if he wants to be in charge of recruitment.

Doust won a few points back with the signing of Widdop & Dugen, but.. he took far too long getting Dugen onboard and likewise with the halfback/Rangi situation (2013 slipping away fast), not that it should ever have been left this late anyway, yes the Bellamy incident was a huge part of it, but much like Price's coaching, there is too much Reactive management and nobody with vision.

well said!

 

[Cagey Mac]

Great post Rev.:thumb

That's enough of you clerics flattering each other

 

[Drain the Dragon]

Doust won a few points back with the signing of Widdop & Dugen, but.. he took far too long getting Dugen onboard and likewise with the halfback/Rangi situation (2013 slipping away fast), not that it should ever have been left this late anyway, yes the Bellamy incident was a huge part of it, but much like Price's coaching, there is too much Reactive management and nobody with vision.

Not sure either the Dugan or Rangi negotiations are attributable to Doust being inept.

Dugan initially chose the Broncos for personal reasons, then when we became his next preference, the NRL deliberated (no doubt to make a statement of their own) before agreeing to the deal.

Rangi Chase has been caught up in a dispute over transfer fees, a matter between he and Castleford, who have him under contract. How Doust can intervene there is not obvious to me.

 

[Old_Timer]

Excellent posts guys. I know I have been labouring the point ad nauseum, but it all starts and ends with Price. No doubt he is an absolute sweetheart, held in high esteem by our players, but sadly for all the wrong reasons.

How many more excuses are we going to hear from Price and his supporters, before the penny drops that he simply does not cut the mustard? Aside from the odd victory against poor opposition, the evidence is mounting week by week and becoming more compelling. Last year was poor by our standards. This year we are worse. Next year .......?

Thankfully a goodly number of us are finally starting to concede that Price is the problem.

In Price's own words, "he did not see it coming" and therein lies the issue. A lack of vision, an inability to formulate, initiate, and review strategy, an inability to motivate, an inability to be self critical and proactive.

Our Club can continue on floundering as we are now, or sever his tenure, and start a genuine restructure.

 

[DUB888]

Excellent posts guys. I know I have been labouring the point ad nauseum, but it all starts and ends with Price. No doubt he is an absolute sweetheart, held in high esteem by our players, but sadly for all the wrong reasons.

How many more excuses are we going to hear from Price and his supporters, before the penny drops that he simply does not cut the mustard? Aside from the odd victory against poor opposition, the evidence is mounting week by week and becoming more compelling. Last year was poor by our standards. This year we are worse. Next year .......?

Thankfully a goodly number of us are finally starting to concede that Price is the problem.

In Price's own words, "he did not see it coming" and therein lies the issue. A lack of vision, an inability to formulate, initiate, and review strategy, an inability to motivate, an inability to be self critical and proactive.

Our Club can continue on floundering as we are now, or sever his tenure, and start a genuine restructure.

End of Story , great summation of our position.

 

[Country Dragon]

Excellent posts guys. I know I have been labouring the point ad nauseum, but it all starts and ends with Price. No doubt he is an absolute sweetheart, held in high esteem by our players, but sadly for all the wrong reasons.

How many more excuses are we going to hear from Price and his supporters, before the penny drops that he simply does not cut the mustard? Aside from the odd victory against poor opposition, the evidence is mounting week by week and becoming more compelling. Last year was poor by our standards. This year we are worse. Next year .......?

Thankfully a goodly number of us are finally starting to concede that Price is the problem.

In Price's own words, "he did not see it coming" and therein lies the issue. A lack of vision, an inability to formulate, initiate, and review strategy, an inability to motivate, an inability to be self critical and proactive.

Our Club can continue on floundering as we are now, or sever his tenure, and start a genuine restructure.

Who would you employ as coach?

 

[Drain the Dragon]

Who would you employ as coach?

Good question. The "Price-haters" can't come up with an answer to that one so far....

 

[Willow]

Pottor.

 

[Slippery Morris]

Who would you employ as coach?

Anyone but Folkes or any other person currently in this coaching mess.

Tim Sheens is available and would be good for a caretaker role till the end of the season with a potential 2 year extension if all goes well. Also going by the Roosters and Souths the ESL is also the way to go. There are good coaches there who have served their apprenticeships.

If Saints are smart they would throw someone in for the remainder of the season and see how he goes prior to committing to a further year or so. Nothing to lose. If they don't Price will break more unwanted records this season.

 

[FundyDragon]

Who would you employ as coach?[/QUOTE


Daley - head coach
Tommy - assistant

 

[Slippery Morris]

Great posts Black Forrest Dragon and The Rev.

 

[Old_Timer]

Good question. The "Price-haters" can't come up with an answer to that one so far....

Drain, the cycle of self perpetuating mediocrity and learned helplessness needs to be broken. Look at the body language of our players, what does it tell you? Do they look confident, in control? Or is it, at the first obstacle, they loose the plot. There is a substantial lack of leadership both on and off the field. Our problems are multi dimensional, deep rooted and seemingly no way out. We dug ourselves into this hole but sadly our current management structure does not have the smarts to dig our way out. There is only one short term answer and that is Sheens, even if only in a coaching director role, a la Gus and Penrith.

 

[TheRev]

That's enough of you clerics flattering each other

What were the chances of having 2 men of the cloth on 1 forum anyway? Must be divine intervention.

 

[Mr Red]

Good question. The "Price-haters" can't come up with an answer to that one so far....

oh really????
guess you must have missed all the posts/threads referring to Tony Smith as a candidate they should look into.
there was also a lot of talk about enquiring into the availability of Daniel Anderson...

personally i thought Tony Smith would be a good choice.

 

[Dezziedc]

I have expressed my thoughts on the situation in another thread but I will reiterate them here.

Nobody on these forums can presume to know what goes on at training, what the coach is thinking, what the players are thinking or any relationship issues within the club. Only the people directly involved know the intimate details of the day to day goings on at the club.

What we are forced to assume is that the club would not re-instate a coach that they thought was not performing the basic functions of a 1st Grade coach and could not do the job (or even the reasons and conditions behind the resigning). We have to have faith that Price has a game plan each week and he is working with the players each week to instil some sort of motivation and drive in the team. Unless someone has some inside information, we have to take this as being the way Price operates.

Now looking at it from the other side, even if he didn’t do this and was going down to the grounds each training session to sink some smuggled Crownies and count his cash, then surely the players would not be supporting him and they would have rejected the resigning.

Then to take it another step, we can suggest that even if they didn’t reject the resigning and are having problems with the coach in some form or another, they are first grade signings and should have a pretty good idea on what it takes to win and to play top quality football. As I mentioned in my previous post, players can win and work together as a team after only 2 weeks of being together (rep teams). These guys, may not be a rep team, but they have played enough footy throughout their career (most in rep teams) to know what needs to be done to rectify bad performances – look at how JD slipped into the team easily without any issue after a week or 2 of training. I struggle to see how they, as adults and professional sportsmen, need to be nursed through each game every week by the coach. If they aren’t able to do this then they are not first grade players. They shouldn’t be playing football at all.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not by any means wholly and solely pro-Price. But I do believe the responsibility does not lie fairly and squarely on his shoulders only. I believe the players have to take ½ the blame because they should have that professionalism and maturity to perform to a certain standard on the field. They have also worked with a premiership winning coach previously, so they should know how to get into the right mindset and how to play to potential and what is expected of them. Price has also worked under him so he should know how to approach players and he should be able to identify the type of communication required to get a player to perform. Neither side seems to be able to cross that bridge.

A couple of points:

• As has been mentioned elsewhere, I believe there is no leadership on the field – seniors need to take ownership of this – particularly Creagh
• Moving NYC players straight into first grade is not the solution – some are performing well but that is a different quality of football (as has been shown with Drinkwater)
• Cutters players need to start putting their hand up and pressuring for positions – currently there are limited options for Price as none are really jumping out of their skins – especially in key positions lacking in the main team
• Price does need to start taking risks or at least giving some of the Cutters boys an opportunity – and this means dropping the First grade players. Don’t be afraid to try different combinations

My head tells me that 2013 is gone at this stage. Although we are only 2 points out of the 8 (and miracles do happen), we are not performing consistently enough to maintain any pressure on those top teams. I think the time is now to start looking at what we can do for next year, and that means moving some of the NYC boys into the Cutters more permanently and bringing some of the Cutters boys up into the first grade team.

I for one hope we turn the season around starting this weekend. Nothing would make me happier (and as a result my family don’t have to put up with a grumpy father/husband after the game which pretty much lasts the next couple of days) than to see us make the 8. I ride every play and even when we are 18 points down with 5 minutes to play I still believe we can win. I am ever hopeful that we can dig ourselves out of this hole – or at the very least, make a good fist of it.

 

[TheRev]

Anyone but Folkes or any other person currently in this coaching mess.

Tim Sheens is available and would be good for a caretaker role till the end of the season with a potential 2 year extension if all goes well. Also going by the Roosters and Souths the ESL is also the way to go. There are good coaches there who have served their apprenticeships.

If Saints are smart they would throw someone in for the remainder of the season and see how he goes prior to committing to a further year or so. Nothing to lose. If they don't Price will break more unwanted records this season.

Yep there are probably 100 blokes that you could take a punt on that would be better man managers than Pricey, you wont get a 'sure thing' like Bellamy or Bennett but sometimes a fresh perspective is all you need to refocus the players, and they arent listening to Pricey.

You could look at Parramatta as an example of where a coaching change 'hasnt' worked (yet anyway), but if I was a Parra fan id still much rather have Stuart as my coach than Kearney.