So once cam retires, Munster, Papenhuyzen, Grant, Smith, Hughes, Hynes will all of a sudden lose their ability and become plodders.
Get a grip. You want to see what a team full of "potential" and bad coaching looks like? Look no further than the Broncos.
They are successful because the culture requires it. Do you think for a second Milford would be able to get away with what he's done here if he was in Melbourne? He wouldn't last half a pre-season. Not to mention passengers like Ofahengaue who get upgrades then fall to pieces.
Those players will still be elite in regards to their narrow strengths. They won't become plodders, but without Smith their roles become very different. None of those guys are organisers, who will be directing the plays? At the moment they all have a very narrow scope of responsibility, as does every Storm player, which is why they almost always regress elsewhere.
We have seen what happens elsewhere where a coach takes the hard-nosed approach but doesn't have the luxury of an on-field coach or such narrowly defined roles. Maguire had the Rabbitohs firing for a few seasons but quickly burnt out the playing group. The Storm don't care, they just find another player to handle that very narrow scope required, because they've always had their conductor there. But you put those same players in a system of absolute intensity, but in a role where they are required to also undertake tasks outside their primary ability, the perfection expected by somneone like Bellamy is impossible to maintain.
You put B.Smith, Munster, Paps and Hughes in a team, there is no organisation there. Smith is a running ball-playing lock, the other three are primarily runners of the ball, you ask one or a pair of them to organise the way Smith always has, they simply lack the ability, and a Bellamy screaming down their throats is just going to wear them down and ultimately disollusion them. Just like Maguire did at Souths.
We've joked for years how Bellamy will retire as soon as his meal-ticket hangs up the boots, as he won't want to be exposed as the fraud he is. Now it's happening, and because the fans are so desperate for hope, people are now hoping that Bellamy is
our answer. He's not. He's nothing without Smith.
Theoretically, what if we do get Bellamy here as a director, and we still struggle to make the 8? Who gets the blowtorch applied? The million-dollar-a-year part-timer whose job it is to yell at players, or the unproven head coach whose coaching abilities have a massive question mark? Bellamy will get a free pass regarless of outcome.
Do we need to instill some discipline in our team? Absolutely. The entire team needs to be lined up, told of the expectations moving forward, and anyone who even blinks can be shown the door. I just don't think Bellamy is the answer for that, certainly not enough to warrant basically pulling our pants down, bending over, and pleading for him to buttfuck us on the negotiation tables.
