I know you guys are going to point to the effort tonight (which was outstanding) and the fact we're ahead of 12 other teams. This is a rant but I didn't want to be seen as just a negative whinger.
As someone who's played footy a while ago at a reasonably high level, I never made NRL so don't know all the answers, but i'm going to tell you guys what I see.
BA is an effort coach. His talk is always centred around the 'effort areas' of the game. We have a talented roster that is good enough to compete in finals games, but our game plans pretty much start and end with effort. NRL is an impossible sport to out enthuse and beat your opponent at the effort areas every single week. You just cant do it. Some weeks you've been up for a long time, some youre playing a way more desperate team who's been under the pump, often teams get the energy of the crowd and lift, sometimes theres unevenness in the turnaround. If we lose , BA generally points to us being off in our effort areas, and we as fans have excused the team because of factors like i just listed. "It was Cam Smiths 300th game any one would've got blown away". "we had 6 days turnaround they had 8", "we've been up for 3 weeks in a row" " they were coming off a loss".. we're conditioned to it. We slacken in effort areas when we don't see reward. When games are out of hand we often get smashed.
Bankwest stadium has helped us a lot. especially last year.. we fed off the energy in the stadium and got the effort we were searching for. Our forwards run harder, and when we catch momentum we can get rolling through the middle. We often front load our efforts in games and fade at the back end, and we can have purple patches in games. Effort is obviously important. Invariably off a big win, we come out the next week flat. While winning creates confidence in some teams , our performances are more up and down. BA will nearly always pick an experienced first grader whos effort he can rely on if we have injuries. Even if theyve shown time and time again they can't add much to the team he'll stick with them for years becuase he's confident in their effort.
The good teams in this comp give what effort they have but have rock solid structures that enable them to compete. They don't win every game, but theyre in every game. Everyone on the field knows their role. They know where they have to get to on the field in the attacking sets, the defence rarely has break downs. Theyve been coached to attack areas of weakness in the oppoistion and to stay disciplined with it. The execution is worked on throughout the season and they improve and can start working on other areas. How to close out a game, pushing up in support, staying disciplined, fine tuning their attack and defence. We do none of this. At the start of the season our effort was higher than almost every team in the comp. We were playing with desire. Running hard, pushing up through the middle,winning a lot of collisions, overing well in defence, celebrating individual wins... but that tank emptied. It emptied weeks ago.
Almost every one involved in the game , right down to fans .. has seen Waqa and Fergo's side get attacked relentlessly all season. The players on that side don't seem to know their role within the defence and are all trying to solve the problems indivisually. How hasn't this been fixed by the coach? The attack has sucked all season. We scored 8 points aginst the Dogs round 1 and apart from flashes of promise it hasn't got much better since. BA has a roster with attacking players other coaches would kill for, but he gets nothing out of them. We rely on dominating possession, winning the efoort areas and jagging enough trys along the way. The more dominant we are physically, and control the possssion the more points we score. The problem is when you play the good teams it comes more down to executing on your limited chances. You don't play a Melbourne, Roosters, Canberra, Penrith and totally smash them in physciality and posession... like what Penrith did to us tonight. We've never been able to score trys against the top 4 teams in the comp. Our effort based attack isn't enough. BA had no excuses going into this season. It was a season to build upon last year. We had settled combinations but had shown an inability to score in big games. Something had to be done about it. We've done nothing .We attack worse than we did last season and with recklessness and little disipline.
The scary thing for me is , we could see another 2018-like season soon if we're not careful. We don't have a bunch of young guys guys coming through that add something different. We don't seem to have many new guys on our radar to fill roster holes and as soon as the players arent seeing much rewards for their efforts, the effort and confidence naturally drop off. Once that happens we will fall back quickly. It's time we realise BA doesnt know how to coach a top 4 side. Our strong side combined with effort will beat plenty of teams in this comp, but just like 2017 and 2019.. we don't trouble the top 4 teams. He hasn't evolved his coaching like you would expect a 7 year coach to do. Alarm bells are ringing for mine. We could be working towards a premiership window, but for mine it's looking like this coach has got all he's going to out of this team and we could start going backwards quickly.
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Can someone please summarise this for me. Too much reading.
Just keep coming here and looking at the pictures in the header bro
From what I can gather from this epic novel it can be summed up in a few words.
Our Illustrious Third Rate U8s Bush Coach has NFI about FG Rugby League and it requirements.
Spot on as usual GWF, don't have much more to add. The whole side looks tired and down on energy which can't be good in those effort area's.
Mate , they're cooked ! Even games they win they have to work twice as hard as anyone else because they can't score points and there's spots where they will leak them . I absolutely can't fault the effort this season at all. BA and the leaders have had them up to fight almost every week. We're a top 4 roster with a bottom 4 coaching staff.
Effort doesn't matter? Panther's effort was better than ours tonight. Roosters, Storm etc simply play at a higher level every week. But you're right, effort is BS. We need a magic solution. Maybe Benji?
We need an attacking coach. I know Johns is arguably the best player ever but that doesn't neccesarily make him a great coach. Also, with his commentary and other stufff, we need someone more commited and is actually allowed inside our bubble. If you look at panthers, they have so many coaches for specific areas (e.g Barret for attack) that it relieves pressures from each coach and lets them focus on training players on what they know best. I like BA as a coach because he is good with his players and is about effort. But I feel like their is too much responsiblity on him and unfortunately attack doesn't seem his strong suit. So I think being should stop hating BA and more think about bringing an attacking coach to help BA out.
mate we need a guy who knows what to do with the roster.
Id be targeting Bennett for 2 years with his choice of assistants with the aim of one of them being his successor. Murphy can go back to touch football and BA can go back to the bush.
But...we wont be proactive. We'll wait till we've exhausted every avenue with BA and we need another rebuild.
All we are doing is assuming. What do we know about what is happening at training. I will be happy to eat my words and be proven wrong but I think we need to chill down and stop attacking BA. Also you look at all the successful clubs and you see that you need more than a good roster and a good head coach to win a premiership. You need a good coaching staff such as Penrith where they have coaches for vital aspects of the game. I like BA but I don't think he has the support he needs in the coaching department.
Mate I believe we have been chilling out for 9 years BA have nothing to offer for us he lacks game management and planning so far what we have been seeing from the team is a great effort from the players who are trying very hard but they need a proper coach
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