Alot on here are upset that Hook did not give Sloan a fair go this year. Just listened to Kenty on NRL360 and I think he is in the Hook camp so he might have an ulterior motive, but what he said and something I agree with to a certain degree is, all coaches want to win as their jobs depend on it so why would he not play Sloan if it would help the team?
Is Hook that dumb, vindictive, etc? some might say yes.
I'm not a Hook fan but even I don't think it was vindictive. The thing that stood out to me from early in the year was it was a "safety first" type of play - presumably with the highest of hopes to merely sneak into the eight so everyone would pat one another on the back for a solid improvement on last year.
Except that none of this happened. And there were two things that peeved me about that:
How many 10-8 tussles have we seen this year? Safety first doesn't cut it in the 6-again era. The days of building pressure through high completions and field position are gone when the bloke with the whistle can so arbitrarily swing momentum.
But more frustratingly, Hook's re-signing could only have been a message from the board acknowledging that this was (yet another) rebuild year. It was license to try some things to see what works and prepare us well for a real tilt in 2023.
Instead what we discovered was there are a bunch of fellows on the roster who used to be decent footballers. Just another wasted year and a golden opportunity lost.