https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOmvq-Z7VJo
Interesting to hear him talk about BA, saying he kep the key players onside and when in pressure those key players rally the others to support him but when push comes to shove over the board discussing the future of BA the key players are the ones asked and they support him. He is right, all coaches do it and the ones who do not get sacked from the key players. But are we possibly seeing the non key players speaking up now?
Replies
Yes. Brad weakened both our backline and the halves to accommodate Jake.
The backline was weakened by unavailable players:
Opacic
Blake
Russell
Sivo
Niukore
All injured or suspended for those two games.
Brown played centre in two games, with Arthur at 6. The first game we smashed Newcastle at home, the second we got belted by the Cowboys in Darwin. All Jake's fault obviously.
Where's Jake now pau? If he was so good then, why can't he make a top 17 roster with two more off seasons under his belt pau pau? He should have never been chosen that's why.
What you have described isn't the problem of Rankin or alike it's the sporting structure Parra has in place that promotes these soughts of moves.
Why was Rankin kept there holding back a young charge if we had any I don't know.
Gus was right in his interview the other day we aren't a development club we don't have the right people or structures in place for our pathways to succeed at every step along the journey to FG.
Whose responsible whose laying the road map for this.Until we get what you've described above right among other things we will always be stuck in a quandry and a slave to the player market because we can't develop our own.
It's a little bit of everyone's fault.
We are blessed over the years to have made some astute purchases in our spine and front row and it kept us amongst the better teams for a number of years.
The Eels are a very reactive club and Brad Arthur is a very reactive and stubborn coach. He won't generally change something until it's absolutely certain it's a failure and over the last few years his emotional sentiment has got in the way of him being the best coach he can be for the Eels. There's been senior players like N Brown who he's had obvious falling outs with . I've seen enough this year to suggest BA was the one with the problem in that relationship not N Brown. Once he was done with Tim Mannah that was it .. didn't even give him another game in NRL.. he played 3 seasons too long but was shuffled out the door quickly .. and the Jake selection and 'development ' was monumentally embarrassing for him and the club .
once again the club is going to be slow in getting rid of him. They have tried to address the pathways problem over the last couple of years and have appointed some good people to look over it . The roster has mostly been locked in with the same guys many of whom are getting older and haven't performed since 2022.. and the coach will be given every excuse under the sun to see out his contract. Injuries , suspensions , tough draws, origin periods , shortened offseasons.. you name it . Meanwhile the clubs standards , attention to detail, discipline, culture and development of our systems is slipping fast . The coach is the driver of these things and regardless of who we have available they have regressed since 2022 . The worst part in all this is if we bounce back a little in 2025 they will see it as improvement and probably extended him for his 13 and 14th years in charge to give him another chance to aim for week 2 of the finals . The higher ups are asleep at the wheel.
I can't see us bouncing back in 2025, and that is regardless of who is coach and who is on the board and R&R committee. The next few years we'll struggle to stay out of the bottom 4. A massive player cleanout may help here, but we don't have the number of juniors making their way towards NRL level to be able to do that effectively.
I think there are a number of factors leading to this, but we definitely seem to be very risk averse when it comes to financial matters at the club. We play the game by the book according to what was dished out to us by the NRL and media in 2016 - I'm sure that we are the only club operating like this. We never publicly speak out against the NRL and take everything on the chin. Our junior system were in a mess and we knew that there was a problem in having quality NRL ready backups in the club. The years of reserve grade being represented by Wenty certainly didn't help here as some of those players were not even on the Parra books and so were ineligible to be called upon. They had no real link to Parra. Why did we not address the gap in our juniors and key back-up players? Surely this was obvious to the club, especially with ageing NRL players. Why do we persist in signing mainly journeymen and hope that we squeeze something more out of them? These are all things that go way beyond the coach. The whole club needs a complete reset if we are to see any sort of success within the next 10 years.
The fans are really starting to see through his shit now as reinforced by Mannah above . We know he has his cliques in the side and the guys who are completely comfortable earning a living playing under him pretending to us and themselves they are doing everything they can to bring success . It's a sham. We see them not turn up a number of weeks during the season , hot and cold effort off what looks like hot and cold preparation . We see the same mistakes week on week , the self imploding , the bad decisions ... the culture of the NRL side is rotting . BA will leave Parra the most hated coach we've had when he completely underachieves with this squad and someone has to come in and freshen up the place and develop the culture and standards from the ground up. Which is a shame because 2020-2022 this was not the case . He got the club as far as his methods could before he and they became completely stale. Hes always said he loves the club and would walk away if he wasn't the best man for the job .. that changed to why wouldn't I want to be here I live 7 mins from training .. to I've been around enough to know if the board has lost confidence in me. It could get ugly folks.
I think BA's time can be looked back on fondly in how he went overall, we had some good times. But the longer it goes it seems, the more he is tarnishing the legacy. BA wont do it, but if they miss the 8 i can only see him leaving if he falls on his sword. I looked back on an interview with Reid before season started, the emphasis he had on getting the kids ready this year when most were still 18 and hardly played Cup concerned me then a little now it does even more as it can be used as a bit of leveridge to keep his job. Bring these kids along, like in 2018 to 2019. The quicker they are ready and show promise the more chance he saves his job as there is promise.
Was what Mannah said really a surprise to anyone? That leadership teams/groups exist and they are given different responsibilities than the others?
I mean, this isn't just Organisational 101 stuff, it's Society 101 stuff. Group dynamics, hierarchies, it's been happening for thousands of years.
Teams are bonded by shared experiences and shared struggles. Strongly bonded teams will often implode as a group before they turn against one another.
It's the role of the strategists (ie the Board and the CEO) to identify when team cohesion is working for you, and when teams need to be blown up...you can't expect the teams to make those decisions.
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