Um, no. Take your rose coloured glasses off. Worst coach in the NRL at the time. Team fell off a cliff two thirds through the season because Mary started believing his own maxims and got a big head after Bellamy said we were the benchmark in April or May. Fell into the finals. Won first game of finals because they threw McGregor's bash and barge game plan out the window. Threw the Souths game away when it was already won because they were mentally weak.
Take a look at the years before and after 2018. Diabolical. 2018 was what you call an anomaly. Or a fluke.
The one thing I DO agree with you on is that Flanagan would have done much better with that squad. Perhaps under him, there might have been a better, smarter, more well drilled team with an actual game plan and perhaps a GF.
I would think it's been stated as not being a "fluke" because the team we had was very good and should have done much better than they did. 2019 they should've been up there too, the de Belin case completely derailed the club and playing group whether people will admit it or not. After it happened, Frizell wanted out, Widdop was gone after his shoulder issues in 2018, Norman was brought in (he could've worked if the squad was still harmonised at the time, but they weren't), the influence of Nightingale was gone, Aitken, Lafai got found out once around a team not flying high which was always going to happen given how terrible they always were as defensive centres.
The squad was there in 2018, almost every single player in the team was at their peak. A better coach, and as you say, a better mentality, and we go very very close. Who knows if we could've beaten the Chooks with the form they were in even if we had these things. The situation we got ourselves in though, being outside the top 4, we were no chance. Had we gotten past Souths, we would've limped into the roosters game absolutely battered.
