Pisstake or not, this is a pretty good thread. It's a shame that the same tired old lines have to be brought out every time a hater-hater comes into the forum, but it's good to have them all nicely summarised in this discussion.
I'm going to take it further, and summarise the problem with Sheens in a single throwaway statement: we are over-coached by a perfectionist.
All the problems that have been raised in this thread stem from this. He's coaching a team of players, not players in a team. Any player who has not regularly trained in their position with the side will struggle to fit in or fill another position. This is why he reshuffles players rather than bring in "specialists" who aren't familiar with "how the team is supposed to work". Even players who do train with the side but don't "gel" with his style will struggle - as was the case with Matty Head (did someone ask who else would play halfback when J-Mo was in the side?) And when an A-list player goes down, the whole team starts to fall apart, and it's too late to start again from scratch.
Sheens doesn't coach to a game plan. He coaches a high performance machine. When it fires, it is beautiful to watch. But when you lose one of your precision parts it can be hard to find a replacement. Moving things around tends to minimise the impact, but it wont solve your problem. Your problem is unsolveable - you are coaching a side in a 30 week competition where injuries are the norm and your depth will always be tested, but you're coaching it like you're entering an annual drag race event. Death or glory. You miss your shot, you've got another year to spend tweaking the machine, trying to toughen it up and iron out the kinks, before having another crack at it next year...
Meanwhile everyone else is running an old jalopy with a few good modifications and some high octane fuel - nothing that can't be replaced if it breaks down.
It's like that old saying - you put all your eggs in one basket and the basket breaks, you're f*cked. It's too late for Sheens to go back to the drawing board with Wests Tigers, which is what needs to happen. It's time he let someone else come in and simplify our game. Time to turn the delicate Ferrari into a robust Ford.
