Coaching issues

[Hong Kong Raider]

Warriors have an inferior squad to us. If you swapped the coaches and Webster was in charge of the Raiders, we would be top 4 this year based on our draw, whilst Warriors would be bottom 4.

Can’t agree there. They have some no names in their squad, but they’ve also got some rep level talent in key areas that we don’t.

I agree with the coaching difference though. They were crap before this year with largely the same squad. Webster’s got them all performing well individually and as a team

No one on this forum was remotely interested in Shaun Johnson when he was available. Would Ricky have gotten the best out of him if he had joined us ? You and I know the answer to that.

Ditto CNK. He can actually chime in and not die with the ball. DWZ has had his best year and trumps Hoppa, Rapana and Cotric. Jackson Ford is a plodder but has played better than Young (at least post SOO) and Whitehead. Egan has been better than all our four hookers. AFB has been better than our rep props. Whose fault is that?

Isn’t that arguing that they don’t have an inferior squad, it’s just that we wouldn’t have been able to get the best out of them due to poor coaching? If they’re all playing better than our guys, maybe they are better than our guys

Absolutely not. My argument is they have better coaching and an inferior squad. Before the start of the season, if you did a man for man match up, we would come out on top in 15 to 16 positions. Warriors would get probably Tohu Harris over us in the lock position. For e.g., there's no way you would take AFB over Papa or Tapine before the start of the season, or Rocco Berry / Adam Pompey over Kris and Timoko. Kris got into the NZ squad over their players.

This is a team whose FB we released, whose halfback wasn't rated by Fitzgibbon the incoming coach of Cronulla to offer him another deal, whose five eighth hardly played any 1st grade and was in NSW Cup when they signed him, whose hooker spent three seasons previously at the Warriors without setting the comp alight.

Who's played better this year - Metcalf or Jack? One is only on approx $300,000, whilst the former NSW SOO/Aust rep player is on $ 1 million.

[denissnowy]

Warriors have an inferior squad to us. If you swapped the coaches and Webster was in charge of the Raiders, we would be top 4 this year based on our draw, whilst Warriors would be bottom 4.

Can’t agree there. They have some no names in their squad, but they’ve also got some rep level talent in key areas that we don’t.

I agree with the coaching difference though. They were crap before this year with largely the same squad. Webster’s got them all performing well individually and as a team

No one on this forum was remotely interested in Shaun Johnson when he was available. Would Ricky have gotten the best out of him if he had joined us ? You and I know the answer to that.

Ditto CNK. He can actually chime in and not die with the ball. DWZ has had his best year and trumps Hoppa, Rapana and Cotric. Jackson Ford is a plodder but has played better than Young (at least post SOO) and Whitehead. Egan has been better than all our four hookers. AFB has been better than our rep props. Whose fault is that?

The interesting thing is that Webster is happy for him to not be the ball playing fullback. On his face to face episode he just wanted CNK to continually challenge the line and eventually they'll crack.

If people haven't watched it, it is well worth watching. Really good insight into empowering individuals and effectively forcing individuals to take ownership of their development.

Webster's methods for creating standards v Ciraldo's would be an interesting case study

[Ultima]

I think what upsets me most about this year, apart from every game I had to struggle through watching making me question why I keep doing this to myself, is that we had the opportunity to really get some of our younger players growing into their positions.

Savage could have had a good crack at fullback, instead of using Kris who will never be a fulltime fullback. We could have also given Chevy Stuart a shot to keep Savage honest.

We could have given Strange a real go at 5/8, he could have been there with Wighton in the team at the same time, learning off him (hopefully the good habits not the bad), getting up experience.

Instead we stumbled through the season, barely keeping our head above water for all our wins while occasionally being completely washed out, and next year we are in a DRAMATICALLY worse position with ZERO experience for our players who could have at least been developing in firsts.

Next year we are down Wighton, Frawley, Schneider, Valemei, Croker, Webb, Clarkson (Development) - so far at least. Even that is insane. The club thought 'hey we need at least two backup halves on top of our juniors" but for next year has decided "hey we need zero backup halves" and I guess we are hoping Strange can carry us in his second season assuming the coach doesn't think he is a centre... Who else even plays 5/8 next year?!??! Whitehead again?

And we have signed, Sasagi... That's it... Surely we have in excess of $3,000,000 of cap just wasting away now (the money we had on those plays we lost plus the increase in cap for next year plus I really doubt we were anywhere near our cap considering the year before we lost Hodgson, Elliot, CNK, Sutton and only signed Saulo and Levi).

Sometime during the next year we will need to re-sign or lose - Trevilyan, Mariota, Horsburgh (MO), Whitehead, HSS, Young, Fogarty, Schiller, Rapana, Papali'i (MO), Cotric, Saulo, Hola, Mooney, Woolford. A few of them we could afford to lose scary if we lost more than half yet even scarier if we keep them all by throwing the spare cap too!

It really feels like we started to take apart the engine to rebuild it with-out having even ordered in the replacement parts... The club is NOT in a good way management wise and the future is looking **** bleak as we just aren't prepared for it AT ALL.

[Ultima]

Well thank **** that's over...

[FROG]

Proud of that performance. Ata was enormous today. Really came of age I thought. Mooney was solid as well. For all the crap that we all put on whitehead, I thought he stood up as well... we were never going to win this year. To go out the way we did is not half bad I reckon

[The Nickman]

That was a great game to watch, real shame they didn’t throw the ball around like that all year, I feel like we really could’ve made a mark if we did

[Azza]

That was a great game to watch, real shame they didn’t throw the ball around like that all year, I feel like we really could’ve made a mark if we did

Agreed. That was a different team out there today.

[Billy Walker]

That was a great game to watch, real shame they didn’t throw the ball around like that all year, I feel like we really could’ve made a mark if we did

Well said

[Off]

It's all about the "W's".

Sent from my SM-A536E using Tapatalk

[Roger Kenworthy]

That was a great game to watch, real shame they didn’t throw the ball around like that all year, I feel like we really could’ve made a mark if we did

Yup it was a wide open top 4 this season and we spent 24 games trying to be masters of the grind. When we threw that out and tried to score more points than the oppostion we actually went okay.

[Hong Kong Raider]

No shame in losing like that today. We used the ball. But still we had a lot of tackles in their 20 w/o much to show for it. It takes us 4-5 tackles to settle it in the 20 m zone w/o throwing anything at the defence. The kicks were predictable. No grubbers.

Wouldn't mind if we abandoned Crawley and Madge as assistants. The For and Against shows it hasn't worked.

Stuart needs to work on recruitment now. Recruiting a Knights reserve grader so far isn't good enough.

[BadnMean]

Wouldn't mind a coach who has a team able to set some blockers for a FG attempt.

We had a scrum in XT with 30 second left... Fogarty left potting it all on his lonesome. Jack and others in frame twiddling their thumbs.

Oh FGs are just on the halfback? No one else has a thing to do? Oh well, bleed green. Maybe Hudson and Fog will get the team kicking Fgs in a more holistic way next year while Ricky abuses the media and kicks chairs.

[Rickmando]

We finished 8th, playing away to a rampant Newcastle. Today was a throw at the stumps.

It was even great to see us fight back into the game. Not with any great skill from where I was sitting, but with a lot of heart.

We absolutely dominated the first half of ET. But it was hard to shake the feeling that at that point we were being set up negatively, conservatively, not to lose. We wanted to do ANYTHING other than take the field goal that would have forced the knights to play catch up football.

It was like we only considered the FG when there was 0:03 on the clock, and the consequences of a potential miss wouldn’t be felt…

[Botman]

Wouldn't mind a coach who has a team able to set some blockers for a FG attempt.

We had a scrum in XT with 30 second left... Fogarty left potting it all on his lonesome. Jack and others in frame twiddling their thumbs.

Oh FGs are just on the halfback? No one else has a thing to do? Oh well, bleed green. Maybe Hudson and Fog will get the team kicking Fgs in a more holistic way next year while Ricky abuses the media and kicks chairs.

JUst another example of what i've been saying all year long. We're poorly coached on the details.
FG's and how we set them are a game of details. We dont do it well, because i dont think we really practise them (supported by players commentary) and as such, we poorly execute them

[BJ]

If Stuart is here (which is a moot point) we definitely need an assistant who understands modern football attacking structures and skills. In attack We look like a team from over a decade ago.

[RedRaider]

If Stuart is here (which is a moot point) we definitely need an assistant who understands modern football attacking structures and skills. In attack We look like a team from over a decade ago.

I think we will go better in attack without Jack at 5/8. Great ball runner but inconsistent and inaccurate passing game cost the Raiders momentum. Even Sticky put him at center to bring in a player also leaving the club at 5/8. His last couple of seasons as our marquee player have been average at best.

More important for me though is our defensive play. Madge apparently had control of it. Well we were very poor. Raiders had twice the points scored against them as the Panthers. Twice. By comparison they scored one third more than us with the ball. If we are focusing on the areas of improvement and ranking them, then for me it is defence first and then the attack. It does not mean we cannot do both but for me the focus needs to be on the D. Madge has one more year to run on his contract. Here's hoping it produces better outcomes than his first year with the club.

[The Nickman]

If Stuart is here (which is a moot point) we definitely need an assistant who understands modern football attacking structures and skills. In attack We look like a team from over a decade ago.

I think we will go better in attack without Jack at 5/8. Great ball runner but inconsistent and inaccurate passing game cost the Raiders momentum. Even Sticky put him at center to bring in a player also leaving the club at 5/8. His last couple of seasons as our marquee player have been average at best.

More important for me though is our defensive play. Madge apparently had control of it. Well we were very poor. Raiders had twice the points scored against them as the Panthers. Twice. By comparison they scored one third more than us with the ball. If we are focusing on the areas of improvement and ranking them, then for me it is defence first and then the attack. It does not mean we cannot do both but for me the focus needs to be on the D. Madge has one more year to run on his contract. Here's hoping it produces better outcomes than his first year with the club.

Yeah, should be driving people back in tackles, AMIRITE, Red?!?

[Ultima]

Been a busy weekend, thought I need to bring this thread back to the front page again though.

Our last game was the same shocking bench use again, the lack of any real utility player in backup because we insist on running two hookers who we will NEVER use as a utility player. Same odd timings of keeping some players out there too long, others on the bench until it was too late, honestly the same **** he STILL hasn't learnt from even with hundreds of games where it was a problem....

Then there is our recruitment, going after positions we have too many players for anyway, ignoring our weaknesses.... Look at Sezer, we let him go after he got us to a grand final and he has looked better than our halves have for years on his comeback from the ESL!

Then we have the CHN drama... What a **** show, this is what happens when your organisation is run by people who inherited it through genetics....

Finally there was his Bull comment on saying all our players were **** last week, which they weren't AND isn't it his job to get them ready for the game? Hold them accountable? You know, coach them?!?!?! Shouldn't that be his **** fault!

[Colk]

Been a busy weekend, thought I need to bring this thread back to the front page again though.

Our last game was the same shocking bench use again, the lack of any real utility player in backup because we insist on running two hookers who we will NEVER use as a utility player. Same odd timings of keeping some players out there too long, others on the bench until it was too late, honestly the same **** he STILL hasn't learnt from even with hundreds of games where it was a problem....

Then there is our recruitment, going after positions we have too many players for anyway, ignoring our weaknesses.... Look at Sezer, we let him go after he got us to a grand final and he has looked better than our halves have for years on his comeback from the ESL!

Then we have the CHN drama... What a **** show, this is what happens when your organisation is run by people who inherited it through genetics....

Finally there was his Bull comment on saying all our players were **** last week, which they weren't AND isn't it his job to get them ready for the game? Hold them accountable? You know, coach them?!?!?! Shouldn't that be his **** fault!

Agree on most parts. We need a fair few positions filled though.

[Hong Kong Raider]

Geez this didn't take long, only Round 4.

[Colk]

Geez this didn't take long, only Round 4.

Well it was always going to happen. We are in a “rebuilding” phase

[Rickmando]

Geez this didn't take long, only Round 4.

It’s evergreen!

[Billy Walker]

Been a busy weekend, thought I need to bring this thread back to the front page again though.

Our last game was the same shocking bench use again, the lack of any real utility player in backup because we insist on running two hookers who we will NEVER use as a utility player. Same odd timings of keeping some players out there too long, others on the bench until it was too late, honestly the same **** he STILL hasn't learnt from even with hundreds of games where it was a problem....

Then there is our recruitment, going after positions we have too many players for anyway, ignoring our weaknesses.... Look at Sezer, we let him go after he got us to a grand final and he has looked better than our halves have for years on his comeback from the ESL!

Then we have the CHN drama... What a **** show, this is what happens when your organisation is run by people who inherited it through genetics....

Finally there was his Bull comment on saying all our players were **** last week, which they weren't AND isn't it his job to get them ready for the game? Hold them accountable? You know, coach them?!?!?! Shouldn't that be his **** fault!

I didn’t think there was a CHN drama? I was assured the club was handling it the best possible way. Can you expand on your concerns?

[Bigcheese]

You’ve been hanging for our first terrible performance Ultima.

What positions did we try to recruit for where we’re stacked? We needed second row and recruited 2, we needed 5/8 and recruited 1 ( who can also play fullback ) and we needed a backup half and recruited 1. We’re also targeting a young half in Sanders, missed out on Fafita 20 times and enquired about the cowboys second rowers. Sure we need a decent hooker but I suspect they’re riding with what we’ve got until one of our juniors kicks on.

No idea what the CHN drama is, is Ricky’s coaching responsible for his heart problems?

[Colk]

You’ve been hanging for our first terrible performance Ultima.

What positions did we try to recruit for where we’re stacked? We needed second row and recruited 2, we needed 5/8 and recruited 1 ( who can also play fullback ) and we needed a backup half and recruited 1. We’re also targeting a young half in Sanders, missed out on Fafita 20 times and enquired about the cowboys second rowers. Sure we need a decent hooker but I suspect they’re riding with what we’ve got until one of our juniors kicks on.

No idea what the CHN drama is, is Ricky’s coaching responsible for his heart problems?

Haha that is pretty funny on the last point. That is just bad luck for most importantly the player (poor bloke) and somewhat unfortunate for the ckub

[Ultima]

We finally score over 40 for the first time in years, be it against a current disaster of a side. The next week we are against a team who hasn't won a game and we look like we just assumed we would win and don't show up at all...

I use to think Stuart's worst quality was his use of the bench but seems it's actually mentally preparing the team for basically anything...

Excluding last week can anyone remember a game where you actually felt confident we would win regardless of our lead? We are so piss weak mentally I would feel nervous giving one of our players a task to pick up a mate from the shops because they would fall asleep and forget what they were doing halfway through it...

[The Nickman]

We finally score over 40 for the first time in years, be it against a current disaster of a side. The next week we are against a team who hasn't won a game and we look like we just assumed we would win and don't show up at all...

I use to think Stuart's worst quality was his use of the bench but seems it's actually mentally preparing the team for basically anything...

Excluding last week can anyone remember a game where you actually felt confident we would win regardless of our lead? We are so piss weak mentally I would feel nervous giving one of our players a task to pick up a mate from the shops because they would fall asleep and forget what they were doing halfway through it...

Oh crap, I missed the game… how much did we lose by?

[Rickmando]

“We’ve seen this movie before”

“Classic Raiders let-down spot, at home to the worst team in the league and off a big win”

“Up by 10 with less than 10 to play, I’m nervous”

When do we stop joking about this stuff and start building some groundswell to get rid of the coaching that has been clueless to do anything about it for the past 10 years?

Stop acting and thinking as though Rick is the only man who can coach this club, because of all his passion and coach speak mumbo-jumbo. When it comes to the crunch, there is 2 decades of proof that this bloke simply can’t coach rugby league.

[Azza]

Oh, shut up.

[Rickmando]

Oh, shut up.

You’re being conned

[Azza]

Oh, shut up.

You’re being conned

I'm not actually sure who I was talking to there tbh.

[IBG]

Do you blokes really think we will win every game by 30?

Even when Penrith was the most dominant team in the comp, teams would "get up" for it and they'd barely eke out a win sometimes, especially against some of the bottom teams.

The Titans were winless which means if you think about it they were much closer to a win than another loss, statistically speaking.

Yes we were clunky but the Titans were way up for this game and would have beaten a lot of teams tonight, including our team last year if they were playing tonight.

Settle down.

[Finchy]

Do you blokes really think we will win every game by 30?

Even when Penrith was the most dominant team in the comp, teams would "get up" for it and they'd barely eke out a win sometimes, especially against some of the bottom teams.

The Titans were winless which means if you think about it they were much closer to a win than another loss, statistically speaking.

Yes we were clunky but the Titans were way up for this game and would have beaten a lot of teams tonight, including our team last year if they were playing tonight.

Settle down.

No, just games against winless teams, coming last, at home, when we're in good form.

But I knew we wouldn't be posting any big score tonight. Amazed we actually got the win at all.

[The Nickman]

Do you blokes really think we will win every game by 30?

Even when Penrith was the most dominant team in the comp, teams would "get up" for it and they'd barely eke out a win sometimes, especially against some of the bottom teams.

The Titans were winless which means if you think about it they were much closer to a win than another loss, statistically speaking.

Yes we were clunky but the Titans were way up for this game and would have beaten a lot of teams tonight, including our team last year if they were playing tonight.

Settle down.

No, just games against winless teams, coming last, at home, when we're in good form.

But I knew we wouldn't be posting any big score tonight. Amazed we actually got the win at all.

The way the titans played tonight we lose that game more times than we win over the last ten years.

I’m happy with the win, plenty to work on before next week, but let’s bank the two points and move on.

[-PJ-]

I thought it went really good, now let’s go get some soft serve.