This is more of a question for the older members of the forum. At the moment with Penrith, the other day I were watching a podcast where the people on there asked the question "When will this dominance end?, it could go on for years with no end in sight". It made me think a lot of Parramatta and that golden spell we had between 1975-1986. I wasn't alive in 1986, but I guess at the time people were asking the same thing "When will Parramatta's dominance end?" but it did and very abruptly starting in 1987. How did we go from a club that made all those grand finals and won all them premierships to not qualifying for the finals for 11 seasons straight?. I know we lost a few key players due to retirement and injury but we still had Sterling and Kenny there for a few good years after. We had some very weak squads in the early 1990s but was it a case of poor recruitment, lack of finances etc?.
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It will end - believe me it will. For me Steel and I was only 17 in 1987, it was about not replacing good with good and relying on too many young ones at times without some quality hard heads. I still recall Sterlo and Bert both being busted at times and the club bought some players who were past their best; I also say that we made some mistakes with coaching too! Cronin was a lovely guy from all reports but the team played slow etc. and we didn't have the hard heads leading - just my view. When Smith came and Super League it made Fitz open the coffers.
I also add in my view we had some quality youngsters with Scott Mahon/ Dave Woods / Penna and Jason Bell all at varying ages but they were good players, and no doubt I missed a couple. Sparrow Ericson too.
One guy who we bought around this era was Matt Goodwin from Penrith and to me he always played above his weight.
Well first off, we had two very strong rivals in the Dogs & Manly. If you go back to the records, we really only dominated one season, 82.
In 81 we finished 3rd, and the Roosters were the favs to win the title,
82 we won from beginning to end, and even then we lost the major semi to Manly.
In 83 Manly won the MP by 8 points and they beat us in the major again.
The Dogs dominated in 84 and thus time they beat us in the major.
In 85 we only finished 4th, largely because Sterlo & Kenny missed the first half of the season because they were playing in England.
Imagine now if Moses & Brown did that now !!!!
The 86 season we won the MP by 1 point, but only because Manly lost their last 5 of their last 7.
So we won four titles, but apart from 1982, I don't think you can say we dominated the way Penrith are now.
It was a combination of things , all bad . It was a slow decline from 87 , that season we were only 3 points out of the top 5 . 1 or 2 if only games hurt .
Injuries played a major part , recruiting by the late 80`s was abhorrent , Fitzgerald refused to spend and relied on the Junior nursey which as a whole , just didnt cut it .
By the start of 1990 players like Taylor , Budgen G , Mosely and Muggleton were shown the door and replaced with underwhelming signings like Gately , Horro , Bugden M and Goodwin and still relying on Juniors like Bartolo , Catanach , Drake , Crnkovich , Jackson , Bell and Penna .
Coaching wasnt up to par 1990 - 96 ..... Cronin followed by Hilditch . Suddenly Super League emerged in the mid 90`s and Fitzgerald opened his wallet and bought well , found a good Coach for 1997 and a return to Finals began .