Coaching issues

[Bluesbrother]

People are complaining about our poor hookers. Fair I guess. But...

FB is the most important attacking position in the modern game. We have an undercooked rookie there. Until he finds his feet, we'll look a bit rubbish in attack- with basically no attacking input from the FB (see '23 Kris but less physicality).

And that's fine, Chevy might click in a game, or a month or next season. But attacking with a zero ball play half (Fog) and basically no attack from FB leaves people looking for other answers. What do you expect from that set up?

For years Hodgo was our creative/structural fulcrum and most hookers- Smith aside_ just don't provide that and aren't paid that way.

I appreciate that BnM. I thought Chevy played a great game relative to his experience level, he will do well in the top grade if that is his first effort.

I’m not even sure the lack of a fullback attacking presence even matters though when we aren’t even capable of getting set up to utilise him. All those trips to the red zone and yet we never got composed or organised enough to remotely trouble a team who are statistically the worst defence in the comp.

The issue is, when the going gets tough you have to be able to fall back on systems, structures and the coaching of individual players to know their roles. We have seen time and time again over the past 10 years that it doesn’t matter who the individual cattle are out there - the common theme is that in tight games or contested situations, we have no plan to fall back on. We are headless chooks out there. This applies to defence almost as much as the attack btw. There’s no way we should have conceded such soft tries when we’d played most of the game with the ball.

Now you can cite a lack of leadership in these situations, and you wouldn’t be wrong there, but it’s still telling that in 10 years Rick hasn’t either recruited any on-field leaders who can establish the aforementioned composure and game management, or can’t coach them in a way that empowers the leaders to transfer their leadership to these on-field moments.

All these talk tracks in midweek press conferences. Yet so often in the heat of battle we aren’t able to “walk the walk”. I think it’s time we changed the message and the messenger. The hardest ceiling put on all this emerging playing talent will be the current coaching regime.

So you won't be content until Ricky is gone? Seems a bit ridiculous when he has rebuilt the squad multiple times and taken us to greater heights than anyone else in the modern era. Despite a renewed approach this season, you're still not happy? I don't get what you're looking for? Do you want us to copy other teams and play like they do only for us to realise our talent across the squad is completely inferior?

If he was to leave I'd expect to see a similar thing that's happened to Souths.

This whole Ricky has to go stuff is the world's greatest moot point. We currently sit third in a season where most external pundits thought we would be bottom four. He has a young squad, exciting players signing/re-signing and getting releases to come here. Listen to Chevy's parents last week about the esteem in which they hold him.

There is a breathe of fresh air with the assistants and NSW cup voices around him this year and he continues to be a huge force in the wider game and one that the players respect and clearly love playing for.

So many teams out there with 'the next big thing coaches' who are scrapping for relevancy and perpetually rebuilding through rubbish results. The club is rock solid behind him and will be for however long he wants the job I suspect. We look and feel like we are coming into a period now of what looks like a new era with even more success beckoning, which just makes the calls for a replacement all the more misplaced.

We are all entitled to an opinion no doubt, but don't ever kid yourself that Ricky will ever not be seen as anything other than top dog at the Raiders and rightfully so especially if the results continue to come.

Many sports fans genuinely just struggle to enjoy the ride. The "premiership or bust" approach to fandom is certainly not exclusive to the NRL.

Demanding success in something you have zero control over makes for a pretty miserable experience for those fans most of the time, but each to their own.

FWIW I think Stuart has a few flaws as a coach, but the effort he has put in to re-tooling this squad from almost the ground up, not once but twice, is really commendable and exciting to see.

I'm really enjoying watching this crop of kids come through and I'm happy to be patient in waiting for the end product.

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Agree completely.

[Bluesbrother]

Levi isn't the issue. His service this year is better than woolfords last year and he is looking pretty good so far.

The structure in attack was there but with no fullback to exploit the space created. I lost count of the number of times fogs or the second rowers had acres of space next to them for a pass where raps would be but the fullback wasn't there.i also thought our depth on the left was insane. Both of these come down to our 18yo fullback and 19yo 5/8. Both played pretty well for their experience level but it's what happens with rookies in the spine and they are going to need another 18 months to 2 years to get there. Killing the rest of the team or certain players for what was actually an extremely dominant performance is counter productive.

I'd have to disagree there. Chevy and Strange need to develop for sure. That was always going to be a long term process. At the moment, they are getting valuable experience and we are winning games. What's your alternative?

Well that's my point exactly. We have 2 rookies in the spine and it will look good sometimes, it will look terrible sometimes and it will look ok sometimes. It will also effect other players in the team. It's just what happens.

OK, cool. Thanks for clarifying that.

[Bluesbrother]

People are complaining about our poor hookers. Fair I guess. But...

FB is the most important attacking position in the modern game. We have an undercooked rookie there. Until he finds his feet, we'll look a bit rubbish in attack- with basically no attacking input from the FB (see '23 Kris but less physicality).

And that's fine, Chevy might click in a game, or a month or next season. But attacking with a zero ball play half (Fog) and basically no attack from FB leaves people looking for other answers. What do you expect from that set up?

For years Hodgo was our creative/structural fulcrum and most hookers- Smith aside_ just don't provide that and aren't paid that way.

I appreciate that BnM. I thought Chevy played a great game relative to his experience level, he will do well in the top grade if that is his first effort.

I’m not even sure the lack of a fullback attacking presence even matters though when we aren’t even capable of getting set up to utilise him. All those trips to the red zone and yet we never got composed or organised enough to remotely trouble a team who are statistically the worst defence in the comp.

The issue is, when the going gets tough you have to be able to fall back on systems, structures and the coaching of individual players to know their roles. We have seen time and time again over the past 10 years that it doesn’t matter who the individual cattle are out there - the common theme is that in tight games or contested situations, we have no plan to fall back on. We are headless chooks out there. This applies to defence almost as much as the attack btw. There’s no way we should have conceded such soft tries when we’d played most of the game with the ball.

Now you can cite a lack of leadership in these situations, and you wouldn’t be wrong there, but it’s still telling that in 10 years Rick hasn’t either recruited any on-field leaders who can establish the aforementioned composure and game management, or can’t coach them in a way that empowers the leaders to transfer their leadership to these on-field moments.

All these talk tracks in midweek press conferences. Yet so often in the heat of battle we aren’t able to “walk the walk”. I think it’s time we changed the message and the messenger. The hardest ceiling put on all this emerging playing talent will be the current coaching regime.

So you won't be content until Ricky is gone? Seems a bit ridiculous when he has rebuilt the squad multiple times and taken us to greater heights than anyone else in the modern era. Despite a renewed approach this season, you're still not happy? I don't get what you're looking for? Do you want us to copy other teams and play like they do only for us to realise our talent across the squad is completely inferior?

If he was to leave I'd expect to see a similar thing that's happened to Souths.

This whole Ricky has to go stuff is the world's greatest moot point. We currently sit third in a season where most external pundits thought we would be bottom four. He has a young squad, exciting players signing/re-signing and getting releases to come here. Listen to Chevy's parents last week about the esteem in which they hold him.

There is a breathe of fresh air with the assistants and NSW cup voices around him this year and he continues to be a huge force in the wider game and one that the players respect and clearly love playing for.

So many teams out there with 'the next big thing coaches' who are scrapping for relevancy and perpetually rebuilding through rubbish results. The club is rock solid behind him and will be for however long he wants the job I suspect. We look and feel like we are coming into a period now of what looks like a new era with even more success beckoning, which just makes the calls for a replacement all the more misplaced.

We are all entitled to an opinion no doubt, but don't ever kid yourself that Ricky will ever not be seen as anything other than top dog at the Raiders and rightfully so especially if the results continue to come.

Couldn't agree OSG. So many good points.

[Finchy]

So you disagree with it?

[Bluesbrother]

So you disagree with it?

Couldn't agree MORE. Is what I meant to say.

[Raoul Duke]

I'm more concerned that Ricky watched that game against the Titans and said he thought we played well.

I'm also concerned that what he seems to have taken away from it is how brave the team were in dealing with the ruck being slowed down...This is the NRL, anyone who has watched more than a handful of games know that refereeing interpretations are inconsistent and that the better teams are the ones who can overcome this by changing tactics or by simply having the fitness and quality to rise above. This whole victim mentality needs to stop, it's simply not the way you build a winning culture.

[Green Blogger]

I'm more concerned that Ricky watched that game against the Titans and said he thought we played well.

I'm also concerned that what he seems to have taken away from it is how brave the team were in dealing with the ruck being slowed down...This is the NRL, anyone who has watched more than a handful of games know that refereeing interpretations are inconsistent and that the better teams are the ones who can overcome this by changing tactics or by simply having the fitness and quality to rise above. This whole victim mentality needs to stop, it's simply not the way you build a winning culture.

What he actually said is that he was really happy with the way that they stuck to their processes in light of the niggling tactics from the opposition and that in previous years they would not have done that. I would argue that the point being made is that the winning culture is showing clear signs of development.

[Seiffert82]

I'm more concerned that Ricky watched that game against the Titans and said he thought we played well.

I'm also concerned that what he seems to have taken away from it is how brave the team were in dealing with the ruck being slowed down...This is the NRL, anyone who has watched more than a handful of games know that refereeing interpretations are inconsistent and that the better teams are the ones who can overcome this by changing tactics or by simply having the fitness and quality to rise above. This whole victim mentality needs to stop, it's simply not the way you build a winning culture.

What he actually said is that he was really happy with the way that they stuck to their processes in light of the niggling tactics from the opposition and that in previous years they would not have done that. I would argue that the point being made is that the winning culture is showing clear signs of development.

That's exactly what he was saying.

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[-PJ-]

I'm more concerned that Ricky watched that game against the Titans and said he thought we played well.

I'm also concerned that what he seems to have taken away from it is how brave the team were in dealing with the ruck being slowed down...This is the NRL, anyone who has watched more than a handful of games know that refereeing interpretations are inconsistent and that the better teams are the ones who can overcome this by changing tactics or by simply having the fitness and quality to rise above. This whole victim mentality needs to stop, it's simply not the way you build a winning culture.

What he actually said is that he was really happy with the way that they stuck to their processes in light of the niggling tactics from the opposition and that in previous years they would not have done that. I would argue that the point being made is that the winning culture is showing clear signs of development.

That's exactly what he was saying.

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And we weren’t bad, credit to the Tits.

They had no ball. Des had a plan to disrupt our flow and it was working fine.

Sure the plan was questionable but hey that’s Des.

Our boys remained calm and for the majority of the game we were the better side.

[Seiffert82]

Not to forget we had a first game fullback and a 5/8 with all of 5 games of NRL experience.

Easy to blame the coach for not playing rookies and then when we run out with a backline that average 21 years old, except for Fogarty, we blame the coach because the backline looks clunky under pressure.

Honestly.

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[-TW-]

I'm more concerned that Ricky watched that game against the Titans and said he thought we played well.

I'm also concerned that what he seems to have taken away from it is how brave the team were in dealing with the ruck being slowed down...This is the NRL, anyone who has watched more than a handful of games know that refereeing interpretations are inconsistent and that the better teams are the ones who can overcome this by changing tactics or by simply having the fitness and quality to rise above. This whole victim mentality needs to stop, it's simply not the way you build a winning culture.

Some of the analysis of the game showed we did play pretty well in terms of isolating certain players and directing attack to certain areas of the field

As frustrating as it was at the time, if they weren't allowed to scrag the ruck as much as they were we would've been able to score more points

Most of the tries scored against were bad 1 on 1 reads or poor tackles (Schiller, Levi), doesn't suggest structural issues

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[Finchy]

Not to forget we had a first game fullback and a 5/8 with all of 5 games of NRL experience.

Easy to blame the coach for not playing rookies and then when we run out with a backline that average 21 years old, except for Fogarty, we blame the coach because the backline looks clunky under pressure.

Honestly.

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I don’t think people are bagging Ricky for a clunky backline attack based on one game with rookies, I think it’s based on the past 10 years when we’ve had plenty of attacking experience there, and not much has changed.

[BadnMean]

Not to forget we had a first game fullback and a 5/8 with all of 5 games of NRL experience.

Easy to blame the coach for not playing rookies and then when we run out with a backline that average 21 years old, except for Fogarty, we blame the coach because the backline looks clunky under pressure.

Honestly.

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I don’t think people are bagging Ricky for a clunky backline attack based on one game with rookies, I think it’s based on the past 10 years when we’ve had plenty of attacking experience there, and not much has changed.

I actually think overall we look a lot better than last year. We are using the edges more and have looked fluent in some games.
Giteau instead of Madge may be making a difference. We'll see over time but so far the curve is up, all things considered.

[Seiffert82]

Not to forget we had a first game fullback and a 5/8 with all of 5 games of NRL experience.

Easy to blame the coach for not playing rookies and then when we run out with a backline that average 21 years old, except for Fogarty, we blame the coach because the backline looks clunky under pressure.

Honestly.

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I don’t think people are bagging Ricky for a clunky backline attack based on one game with rookies, I think it’s based on the past 10 years when we’ve had plenty of attacking experience there, and not much has changed.

I agree with BnM. We generally look well organised out there and are running some good plays. Sometimes the combination between the centre and backrower looks a bit disorganised, but we are putting plays together that get our centres into space or at least open up 1v1 opportunities.

The Titans were all over the ruck and systematically defending offside for much of the game. They also tackled well. That's hard for an incredibly inexperienced backline to overcome.

Fogarty put up some great kicks, but again the Titans outside backs defended those well.

I don't think enough credit is being given to the the way the Titans defended their line. It's almost as good as we'll see this season.

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[Bluesbrother]

Whilst the first half performance was disciplined I think we went away from that and had lapses of concentration in the second half. For Ricky to say we played well objectively was not a good thing to say. A win can gloss over some issues. What I am confident of though is we're an improving football team. I can say with certainty in the review we'd be looking at that second half and working out why we couldn't score.

The game this week is a big test and we will be aware of that. It's not up to the coaches to win us thus game, it's up to our players to step up and demonstrate a professional mindset. Otherwise we will get a bath and it will be very embarrassing.

[greeneyed]

Whilst the first half performance was disciplined I think we went away from that and had lapses of concentration in the second half. For Ricky to say we played well objectively was not a good thing to say. A win can gloss over some issues. What I am confident of though is we're an improving football team. I can say with certainty in the review we'd be looking at that second half and working out why we couldn't score.

The game this week is a big test and we will be aware of that. It's not up to the coaches to win us thus game, it's up to our players to step up and demonstrate a professional mindset. Otherwise we will get a bath and it will be very embarrassing.

I don't think he said the team played well. He praised the team for dealing with the deliberate cheating from the Titans.

[Azza]

Whilst the first half performance was disciplined I think we went away from that and had lapses of concentration in the second half. For Ricky to say we played well objectively was not a good thing to say. A win can gloss over some issues. What I am confident of though is we're an improving football team. I can say with certainty in the review we'd be looking at that second half and working out why we couldn't score.

The game this week is a big test and we will be aware of that. It's not up to the coaches to win us thus game, it's up to our players to step up and demonstrate a professional mindset. Otherwise we will get a bath and it will be very embarrassing.

I don't think he said the team played well. He praised the team for dealing with the deliberate cheating from the Titans.

He says at 30 seconds "we played well tonight"

[Bluesbrother]

Whilst the first half performance was disciplined I think we went away from that and had lapses of concentration in the second half. For Ricky to say we played well objectively was not a good thing to say. A win can gloss over some issues. What I am confident of though is we're an improving football team. I can say with certainty in the review we'd be looking at that second half and working out why we couldn't score.

The game this week is a big test and we will be aware of that. It's not up to the coaches to win us thus game, it's up to our players to step up and demonstrate a professional mindset. Otherwise we will get a bath and it will be very embarrassing.

I don't think he said the team played well. He praised the team for dealing with the deliberate cheating from the Titans.

He said "we played well tonight". I don't disagree with what you're saying and what he meant. I just hope he doesn't let those obvious lapses slide because we got the win.

[greeneyed]

OK, I stand corrected.

[Finchy]

Actually that’s exactly what he said - “We played well tonight”. But then he went into a bit more about it being a professional performance and not getting frustrated, so he was hopefully just referring to dealing with the Titans cheating.

*EDIT everyone beat me to it...

[Azza]

OK, I stand corrected.

You're probably right though, he quite likely meant it in the sense of "we managed the Titans rubbish without completely losing the plot".

[gangrenous]

I didn’t see the game live, so watched it without the emotion knowing the result (was still a fun watch!).

I thought the Raiders played really well. They just didn’t capitalise with points. If it was the same players without attacking capacity that’d concern me, but we’re bringing in players with real threat and so I’m happy enough to wait for that to click.

[Seiffert82]

The only metric of performance the punters usually care about is the number of tries scored for and against. Same with any sport.

However, there are obviously a significant number of other metrics the coach will be looking for. The perception of playing well is a bit more complex than feeling a 30 point win is better than a 1 point win, or looking at where the opposition is on the table.

In that first half we played significantly better football than we did against Parramatta. It just wasn't reflected on the scoreboard.

But yes, I think he was particularly pleased with our composure for *most* of the game.

[Raoul Duke]

OK, I stand corrected.

You're probably right though, he quite likely meant it in the sense of "we managed the Titans rubbish without completely losing the plot".

Even if that's the case, I stand by my point - because it is the victim mentality that concerns me. Tell me how much the interpretation of the ruck had to do with our impotence in attack? It certainly didn't stop us from getting to the pointy end of the field.

A professional coach would acknowledge the areas we need to improve, not cry about how unfair everything is and praise the boys for just barely dealing with the tactics of a cellar-dwelling team that has been conceding almost 30 points a match until this point. Our inability to deal with adversity has been a trademark of this team for far too long.

[Ultima]

So listening to the press conference it was basically all about Stewart and the young players... We get that young players will have more errors, etc. and I've got no issue with that. No one asks the more important questions though like why didn't some of these players get a shot earlier, why are your senior players making mistakes too then? Why is Starling at all?

Out of all the issues last night our bench use was the most insane... It was always a terrible bench being four forwards but it just shows how Starling has absolutely zero utility value....

Matches interchanges: (Time played|last rest)
21:18 Mariota (0) on, Papalii (21) off. (18-0)
32:49 Papalii (21|11) on, Tapine (32) off. (28-0)
32:50 Saulo (0) on, Smithies (32) off. (28-0)
38:16 [HIA] Mooney (0) on, Saulo (6) off. (28-0)
40:00 [HIA Cleared] Saulo (6|15) on, Mooney (2) off. (28-0)
40 [Injury] Mooney (2) on, Fogarty (40) off. (28-0)
57:48 Tapine (32|40) on, Papalii (46) off. (34-6)
65:44 Smithies (32|48) on, Mooney (27) off. (34-6)
66:14 Starling (0) on, Saulo (32) off. (34-6)
75:11 Mooney (27|10) on, Levi (75) off. (34-10).

Total times for non forced interchange players:
Levi 75
Mariota 59
Tapine 55
Smithies 47
Papalii 46
Mooney 33
Saulo 31
Starling 14

Most questionable things:
Why was Mariota forced to stay out there from the 21st minute until the game was done?
Why bother with Starling at all?
Why take Levi off with five to go?
Tapine's first stint was too long.
Papalii's first break was too short, even more so when we had other unused forwards.
We would have had 50% of our bench sitting there fresh for the second half if not forced to use one for a HIA, in a half where we got absolutely wrecked...

I would love to see anyone explain the logic of this bench utilisation....

[NoMan]

Ata was probably playing 2nd row with Sisagi in the halves.

[BadnMean]

So listening to the press conference it was basically all about Stewart and the young players... We get that young players will have more errors, etc. and I've got no issue with that. No one asks the more important questions though like why didn't some of these players get a shot earlier, why are your senior players making mistakes too then? Why is Starling at all?

Out of all the issues last night our bench use was the most insane... It was always a terrible bench being four forwards but it just shows how Starling has absolutely zero utility value....

Matches interchanges: (Time played|last rest)
21:18 Mariota (0) on, Papalii (21) off. (18-0)
32:49 Papalii (21|11) on, Tapine (32) off. (28-0)
32:50 Saulo (0) on, Smithies (32) off. (28-0)
38:16 [HIA] Mooney (0) on, Saulo (6) off. (28-0)
40:00 [HIA Cleared] Saulo (6|15) on, Mooney (2) off. (28-0)
40 [Injury] Mooney (2) on, Fogarty (40) off. (28-0)
57:48 Tapine (32|40) on, Papalii (46) off. (34-6)
65:44 Smithies (32|48) on, Mooney (27) off. (34-6)
66:14 Starling (0) on, Saulo (32) off. (34-6)
75:11 Mooney (27|10) on, Levi (75) off. (34-10).

Total times for non forced interchange players:
Levi 75
Mariota 59
Tapine 55
Smithies 47
Papalii 46
Mooney 33
Saulo 31
Starling 14

Most questionable things:
Why was Mariota forced to stay out there from the 21st minute until the game was done?
Why bother with Starling at all?
Why take Levi off with five to go?
Tapine's first stint was too long.
Papalii's first break was too short, even more so when we had other unused forwards.
We would have had 50% of our bench sitting there fresh for the second half if not forced to use one for a HIA, in a half where we got absolutely wrecked...

I would love to see anyone explain the logic of this bench utilisation....

Things were going hard on a young team so Ricky left their captain and best player (Tapine) out there as long as he could and then brought his most experienced player and leader (Papa) back on when Tapine needed a rest, for the same reasons. That seems reasonable. Adding another rookie (Mooney) during the bloodbath may not have been wise. And Mooney got a good run in the improved second half.

Mariota was forced to some degree by Sisagi shifting I think.

Levi and Starling are a mess full stop and the sooner it's corrected the better. But because Levi has played 100 FG games (most poorly) we are stuck with him it seems.

[Seiffert82]

Other than the Levi/Starling situation, Stuart is nailing his job this season IMO.

He's keeping a cool head and allowing his young players to come in with quite a simple game plan.

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[Botman]

I haven’t seen the last few games but outside of some errors in judgement (imo anyways) on players inside the 17, I generally agree Stuart is doing a good job this year

It’s going to be a yo-yo year. Stuart seems to understand that and is enjoying the challenge of it. The challenge just got harder losing the one guy we really couldn’t afford to lose but I’ve not got a lot of complaints otherwise

[Rickmando]

Stuart is hitting some of the right notes, especially around the youth coming through and seemingly being a bit less dogged with his usual veteran deference.

But how can you fellas forgive the fact that for the *check notes* 11th(!) year running, our attack looks like 13 blokes who’ve just met in the car park 5mins before the game kicked off? Aren’t you fed up with watching such clunky and amateurish work inside attacking 20?

[Seiffert82]

To some extent, which brings me to my one criticism over the dummy half selection and interchange issues.

The recruitment of Hodgo transformed this club for a period, and we'll never know the full impact of the serious injuries to Trevilyan. That aside, it's an issue that will hopefully be resolved sooner rather than later.

Fogarty gets a lot of criticism from some people about his lack of ball playing ability. I understand that, but his kicking last season and this has been elite.

I think our backline is great. Hopefully Stewart proves to be the ball playing fullback that adds another dimension.

I'm probably not as concerned about it as many. At times we look great, but it's clearly a work in progress.

Having a long-term quality RHS second rower will help in a big way IMO.

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[Rickmando]

To me, it’s less about the cattle and more about the lack of structure that we display every single year. We have become one of the most boring, predictable and frustrating teams to watch and nothing seemingly ever gets done to address it.

Even now, all our young exciting outside backs talent is having the handbrake so firmly applied by the playmakers seemingly having no idea about the offense they are running, if it continues as it has we are never going to see them get close to their upside.

Regarding our two better years under Rick’s tenure (2016 and 2019) - I think it’s again telling that it’s taken the cattle to overcome the poor system instead of the system enhancing individual player skills. 2016’s success lay very much with Hodgo calling the on-field shots and Jack giving us excellent attacking shape from fullback. Leipana wouldn’t have succeeded without those guys creating that environment. Bateman was the elevator in 2019. But was he ever put into space or part of plays that created overlaps? No, he had to improvise.

Who knows what kind of ceiling we’d have hit if we had coaching to enhance the sum of our parts instead of individuals having to put the team on their backs?

[PerthRaider86]

The main thing that frustrates me during games is our line speed. Good teams, when you start inside the 10m, are up in your face and its tackle 4 before you get to the 30m line. We just let teams roll forward and seem to let 50/60m every set instead of tryting to keep the oposing team in their half.

That and the fact its always one out hit ups close to the line instead of sweeping plays involving the backs.

[The Nickman]

To me, it’s less about the cattle and more about the lack of structure that we display every single year. We have become one of the most boring, predictable and frustrating teams to watch and nothing seemingly ever gets done to address it.

Even now, all our young exciting outside backs talent is having the handbrake so firmly applied by the playmakers seemingly having no idea about the offense they are running, if it continues as it has we are never going to see them get close to their upside.

Regarding our two better years under Rick’s tenure (2016 and 2019) - I think it’s again telling that it’s taken the cattle to overcome the poor system instead of the system enhancing individual player skills. 2016’s success lay very much with Hodgo calling the on-field shots and Jack giving us excellent attacking shape from fullback. Leipana wouldn’t have exceeded without those guys creating that environment. Bateman was the elevator in 2019. But was he ever put into space or part of plays that created overlaps? No, he had to improvise.

Who knows what kind of ceiling we’d have hit if we had coaching to enhance the sum of our parts instead of individuals having to put the team on their backs?

He's right, you know.

[Finchy]

To me, it’s less about the cattle and more about the lack of structure that we display every single year. We have become one of the most boring, predictable and frustrating teams to watch and nothing seemingly ever gets done to address it.

Even now, all our young exciting outside backs talent is having the handbrake so firmly applied by the playmakers seemingly having no idea about the offense they are running, if it continues as it has we are never going to see them get close to their upside.

Regarding our two better years under Rick’s tenure (2016 and 2019) - I think it’s again telling that it’s taken the cattle to overcome the poor system instead of the system enhancing individual player skills. 2016’s success lay very much with Hodgo calling the on-field shots and Jack giving us excellent attacking shape from fullback. Leipana wouldn’t have exceeded without those guys creating that environment. Bateman was the elevator in 2019. But was he ever put into space or part of plays that created overlaps? No, he had to improvise.

Who knows what kind of ceiling we’d have hit if we had coaching to enhance the sum of our parts instead of individuals having to put the team on their backs?

He's right, you know.

About the cattle, or the lack of structure?