Hey OT, just look at Flanno's record. He turned many players from rocks to diamonds. I cannot recall any going the other way. That is why there is so much optimism. Saints have the juniors and players to succeed but the coaches in the past have failed to bring out the best in them. I think Mary did the better of the 3 as he got some to play for Origin or on the cusp e.g Lomax. He was close to getting a NSW jersey and has gone backwards big time.
We can only hope Flanno has the same success as he did in the past not like the other 3 who have never tasted success. All Flanno needs to do is get the players we have play to their potential and we will come along way to the previous years just like the Panthers did post Hook days.
I'm of the opinion that many in this place vastly over rate both our juniors and many of our signings.
We do so in the hope that our positive posts will translate into results and alas that is far from what happens.
It's a bit of chicken and the egg thing in that was the coach bad or was the player in fact not that good and no matter who the coach was he wouldn't get much better.
Plenty of times so called good or going to be great players have left and in reality how many have really bitten us on the arse despite some going to very good coaches and much better systems?
All the malarkey that Bellamy, Bennett and Robinson would turn our roster in something special is just that malarkey.
They may have done better than Hook & Mc Fooknuckle but the reality is they would have got stuck into the roster and changed it because it wasn't very good and no self respecting coach would want to own it.
Now Hook & Mc Fooknuckle probably didn't want to own it either but with their obvious lack of pulling power and Haran & Co running the show they had what they were given and nobody of note would do all that much better with it but all the while we kept faith and kept rating it blaming coaches.
Not to say coaches shouldn't shoulder lots of blame but in fairness its not as if they had lots of gems to play with let alone polish.