26 years without a premiership. Let’s say that again. 26 years without a premiership. What’s more, a side who’s performances have more or less resembled a roller coaster. Up then down, up then down.
I’m not going to regurgitate old blogs but suffice to say Parramatta has over its history developed a culture that is not made for winning premierships. We’ll occasionally have good years when we luck upon a rash of promising youngsters who come through, but we inevitably fall back to the pack as we get over-taking by clubs that are more professional, ruthless and hungrier.
I set this as a background to discuss Parramatta and its coaches. Since the 90’s we been through them with only one achieving sustainable success - Brian Smith. I want to take a look at a few of the blokes that followed him, before returning to Smith.
Michael Hagan. Hages fit Parramatta to a tee. He’s a good bloke, tactically pretty clever, calm and laid back. He had a great first season. He inherited a team with a great mix of old and young players and for a year at least everything was sweet. Until we hit the Storm and their clinical execution shut us out. Then despite being touted as likely premiership favourites, Parramatta hit a few roadblocks, we blew a tyre and nobody in the joint had any idea how to get us back on track. Hagan’s tenure is a perfect representation of the Eels, really. We catch a wave on the back of our juniors but when we fall off, we’re not tough enough to get back up.
Daniel Anderson. Daniel Anderson is a Parra boy. He’s also a good bloke, but has a bit of intensity about him as well. Doesn’t suffer fools or molly coddle players. He got us to a grand final on the back of some amazing Hayne form and an open game plan, that fit perfectly with the Eels natural game - which is to play an open, exciting brand of footy. Then we hit Melbourne, who proved too professional and clinical and we fell at the final hurdle again. Anderson had a longer term plan for the Eels. He didn’t like lazy players or players who would sook when they copped a blasting. He liked players who worked hard, without someone having to hold a gun to their head. So we got rid of players like Mateo and Inu and we bet our future on guys like Jeff Robson and Daniel Mortimer. Anderson would have needed five-years to turn the club into his style of joint. In the end, I felt he was working against the inherent strengths of the club and I don’t feel he would have succeeded but most certainly that plan was going to take more time than the Parramatta club would afford him.
Stephen Kearney also has a longer-term plan. It’s based on putting a lot of emphasis on getting things right in the juniors. It’s based on trying to lay a foundation of what is needed to be successful week in, week out. Discipline and commitment matter most. Stephen Kearney is struggling because he is trying to put in place a structure that does not fit with the natural game of the players he has. He doesn’t have aggressive, intimidating forwards who not only make metres but stop the opposition getting on a roll. He doesn’t have reliable playmakers who can executive a gameplan. He doesn’t have seasoned second rowers who know the lines they have to run in their sleep, that enable you to get bodies in motion, and execute set plays.
Stephen Kearney needs at least three years, probably four to put his plan into place. Longer term, it’s a plan with a chance. We have enough talented athletes coming through our junior grades that if we can train a bit of aggression and ruthlessness into them, we’ll start to build up the kind of roster that Kearney can work with. It’s unlikely that if the Eels continue to lose there will be enough patience shown towards him, for him to ever see through his plan. Kearney can’t afford not to have success this year, it was in the business plan so he has a commitment to deliver.
So let’s go back to Brian Smith. Smith had a plan. He did a lot of work in building up our junior systems. He did a lot of work on lifting the skill levels. For the most part, he enjoyed a pretty successful time at the club. However, he was aided immensely by the fact that he was able to bring to the club a core group of senior players that fit with exactly the style of culture he was trying to create. The likes of Dymock, Pay, Smith, McCracken - all skillful players, but seasoned professionals. They were brilliant role models that the younger players could look up to and see what the coach wanted them to grow into.
I think Kearney’s biggest strategic mistakes was that he wasn’t able to recruit those “benchmark players”. Smith had a charmed opportunity with the Super League defections, Kearney had the opposite. He had to take over someone else’s side and has had a lot of salary cap pressures with the club committed to expensive contracts for many of its existing players. But to make that situation worse, he brought in players who didn’t really fit those role-model position. I think by the end of this year, Kearney is going to look back and realise it’s a lot harder than he might have expected to ‘mould’ players into the type of performers he needs. Had Kearney been able to bring with him a Cameron Smith, Cooper Cronk or Adam Blair - players who epitomised what he wanted from everyone else, I think he would have found this a lot easier than he has.
As such, we sit in a position that is neither here nor there. We don’t have a gameplan that really suits our players and we don’t have the players that really fit the gameplan. It’s a lot easier to change a gameplan, but it doesn’t get you to where you want to go in the longer-term. Maybe you compromise, but compromises seldom get positive results - they just end up slowing you down in terms of effecting long-term change.
I have advocated the Kearney direction even prior to his arrival. I still believe it is in the longer-term interests of the club to start with the juniors, focus on building a more disciplined player mentality from the juniors through to the seniors. I believe it’s important to have the basics right - physical capabilities and an understanding of how to execute a game plan and that you don’t try and get yourself out of trouble by throwing caution to the wind - you work harder. And then when you’ve got all that right, that’s where the skill and the brilliance is added to the recipe, and that’s when you start putting yourself in line to win premierships.
If it were me coaching or setting a plan, I’d be trying to do all those things. So yes I’m staying solid with the coach and his plan. I agree he has yet to prove he’s a capable enough man manager, and an astute enough strategist to execute his vision, but at this stage I don’t believe he’s had enough time to prove that. I would certainly have done any number of things differently - starting with biting the bullet and moving Hayne to six, so you had a long-term set of halves that were more easily patched up when either one was out. But hey, like all of us here at 1Eeyd Eel, we’re just keyboard coaches - we don’t have our careers riding on such decisions.
What I believe we have to accept is that there just aren’t clear, proven alternatives. You sack the coach and someone else comes in with a new plan. There isn’t anyone who is available who we know is going to come in with proven systems and instantly turn things around. It’s a far greater risk to start this process again, than to at least give the current strategy enough time to succeed or fail on its own merits. If by the end of the year it’s judged to be a failure, at least there will be lessons to have been learned. But anyone who thinks that finding a sustainable, successful strategy forward is going to be easy is, in my view, delusional because history has proven it just isn’t so.
I realise I’m swimming against the tide at the moment and I know many of the responses I’m going to get to this blog, but I’ve written it because I really hope that first and foremost decisions are made with the longer-term view as the priority. Long-term thinking doesn’t fit well with footy - the week between games seems an age, never mind stopping to consider what the future is going to look like years down the track, but regardless it’s something that has to happen.
P.S. Apologies this got so long, I failed to stop!
Replies
A couple of lean years but in three years time a premiership I am sure
Most would take it.
agree totally oneeyed, i have been saying simliar myself.
You have certainly articulated a cogent argument for the retention of the coach. But I believe you 'want' things to be how you see them but perhaps aren't admitting that they really aren't there.
Firstly, it was negligent of the Board to appoint a rookie coach to overhaul an entire club based on sitting next to a coach for a few years and having Bennett's phone number. This was an extreme risk. The Board would not give successful, two-time GF qualifying coach DA the same luxury. This was purely political and Kearney was brought in because he could be controlled. His price? A $450k golden handshake.
Kearney has overseen some of the most expensive recruitment decisions in our club's history and it hasn't made a blind bit of difference. We're worse than last year.
Kearney has coached out the attacking brilliance of many players as they play his structured, formulated, mind-numbing borefest game plan. He even told Hayne "to not win us games". He should be sacked for that alone. Fancy telling Benji Marshall to stop playing and sit up the back.
We're not even a threat to make the 8. Every team we play knows they can catch us in the last 20 mins. The players are demoralised and beaten before they start. No wonder Sandow wants to go home - I bet this scenario wasn't in the glossy brochures Ossie and SK showed him.
We need a senior Coach - either Graham Murray or Ricky Stuart or John Monie - to takeover first grade and punt Kearney to the juniors until his contract expires.
All these long-term plan fantasies mean nothing next to falling crowds, losing sponsorship, not selling merchandise. The club will be making a loss soon if this keeps up. This will be the clincher - not whether we think 'SK should be given a fair go'. Modern footy doesn't work like that.
Finally, if it's not working - it's not working. Move on.
Parranoid, I don't agree with you but thank you for taking the time to make such a thoughtful response. I don't pretend to believe my point of view is the correct one. We may stick solid with Kearney until 2013 and win the next two wooden spoons in a row, and we can come back to this blog, I'll admit I know jack all and those like yourself who never believed were right. It's been annoying me the few people going around this site at the moment, who would like to make out that everyone who supports Kearney has a totally blinkered, fanatical view of the matter. Like most things in life, these things are not black and white and the truth lays somewhere in the grey.
But I come back to the fact that:
1) I like how we managed to play pretty consistent football last year with a pretty terrible roster
2) I love the work that is being done at a junior level
3) I saw huge potential in that very short space of time of what the side actually looked like when it had its key players at its disposal
So I think when we do get our side back on the field, we can start to win games. Like I've said, I think Kearney has made mistakes going into this year, like expecting poor old Casey McGuire would be able to basically plug any gap in the side, and not really have a decent plan B to account for the unavailability of Hayne. I believe Moimoi is being wasted. However, I truly believe when we have all players on the park, some time for combinations to kick in, we can have a really successful middle part of the season that will put us back in contention for the finals. And I would find it unfathomable if the club did not support him through to that period, at the very least.
well said parranoid ! its nathan brown and brad fitler revisited & the 22% wining ratio to date is reflective of this! the writing is on the wall! Our Ex CEO Osbourne who rushed to appoint Kearney, allegations of shop lifting and mismanaging club funds! You question the professionlism of this managment of this great club!
Parranoid,
Worse than last year ?
Did we have to play without Hayne, B.Smith,Loko,and other players for shorter terms like Moimoi, Ben Roberts, Esi Tonga, and Luke Burt last year like we had to in first 3 weeks this year ?
Did we have 8 NEW players including a totally new halves pairing last year ?
I rest my case.
I couldn't agree more: word, line and sentiment.
Can we nominate it for our first top blog? :)
blah blah blah DA tried the same thing but lost the players and the results showed, Kearney is losing the players now too.
The problem is that game plan worked from 2006-2010 but things have changed again, even Melbourne and St George are showing more attack and opening up. Manly won last year by playing football, the Tigers got close by playing football.
We could have the best robots in the game running this plan and we would still be losing, look at how often teams chase 10 points in the final 10mins these days, they throw the ball around. Even in the Brisbane game when we were 12 points down with time running out we rucked the ball up and kicked on the 4th, the friggen 4th tackle when behind.
I dont see why the club cant set-up the junior teams to learn the grind but employ a slightly different style in 1st grade. This way by the time they come into grade they have that solid foundation and now work into an attacking play.
By the way i am happy to keep Kearney but think he needs to change things in 1st grade while like i said working the jnrs through his system. I just think DA had the same problems and was given the boot when trying similar things.
-
1
-
2
-
3
-
4
-
5
of 12 Next