Bennett is NOT a Supercoach

[Big Pete]

At least according to some UQ professor.

http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/...-of-the-title-super-coach-20120331-1w53g.html

I know this has been discussed before but has Mangan shed some light on some new info or is he being controversial for the sake of being controversial?

No surprise that a family member (and a former 'beloved' Bronco), Ben Ikin has responded with this...

http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/...s-to-bennetts-credentials-20120331-1w53d.html

Personally I think Mangan has highlighted a couple of interesting points that often go ignored but he's very hypocritical with his stats. One moment he criticises Bennett for having a superstar side, the next he pokes fun at Bennett's modest Origin record when he was easily the underdog and then goes onto praise Bellamy who's record is essentially null and void and Origin record is atrocious.

Discuss!

 

[Kimlo]

All I can say is you don't seem bloody study to know if someone is a good coach - what a joke. Next we'll have studies to determine if someone is a good player...

These things are subjective, no amount of statistics can tell the tale. He's a good coach. Fullstop.

If this same professor did a study on Aiden Tolman he would probably find him to be the (or one of the) best props in the game.

I find it laughable that he mentions Bennet's record against Nathan Brown as if to say that it was a strange decision that he replaced him... Brown couldn't get a job in the NRL and St George are now an infinitely better team since Bennet took over - they won a premiership for a start and are no longer the inconsistent rabble they used to be.

Why does success against other coaches even mean anything? If Bellamy started coaching an U20's 4th rate team, he wouldn't win a game against any coach, would that make him a bad coach?

He then mentions his success coaching Australia without any mention for total games, if I coach one game for Australia and win, does that make me the best coach?

To make things even more laughable, he compares Tim Sheens GF win as a bigger achievement then Bennet's, he's no where near Bennet's coaching level... There's too many other factors to consider for an isolated grand final win to make you a great coach. Chris Anderson won with the Melbourne team, certainly no super coach.

So is Wayne Bennett a super coach? ''Obviously we haven't made a definitive statistical model, so it's subjective,'' Mangan said. ''But no, I don't think so.

''I think he has outstanding characteristics in people management and there are some problems in keeping a group of superstars together, which is a skill in itself. But when you remove the advantage of having great players and being in one-team towns, then he doesn't appear to do any better than most of the top coaches.

''I'm not saying that he's not a good coach, obviously he is. But a super coach would tend to suggest that you're a cut above other people and the data doesn't suggest that at all.''

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/...super-coach-20120331-1w53g.html#ixzz1qiaB2ayG

UMMM... What??? Being a coach in the NRL IS ALL ABOUT PEOPLE MANAGEMENT AND RECRUITING... With the salary cap, that is arguably the most important quality of a coach.

Great players and one team towns... Hmm, I could swear St George had neither of those(certainly not Melbourne like anyway) yet he won the competition with them.

 

[Bucking Beads]

What does some professor know?? Ask the players they will give you all the answers you need

 

[m1c]

His comments regarding an earlier cricket paper where he admitted he tried to bring Bradman back to the field IMO makes it seem he is motivated to be controversial for the sake of it.

i agree with what has been said, I believe a lot of the arguments he's forming are off the mark because he's failed to put them into context. The quantitative is one thing, however a scenario such as this requires some qualitative analysis as well.

For example his 'bogeymen' just happen to have had the strongest sides of the era. Whilst Nathan Brown's superior achievement in taking the Dragons to the preliminary final is debatable given the presence of Trent Barrett, Jason Ryles, Mark Gasnier and Luke Bailey all at the peak of their powers.

Tim Sheens 2005 premiership greater than anything Bennett has achieved? I can understand the philosophy behind that, however outside of that his Tigers record is very poor.

I would like the read the paper because I've no doubt this journo' is probably pushing the anti-Bennett angle even further to cause a stir.

 

[Anonymous person]

"But when you remove the advantage of having great players and being in one-team towns, then he doesn't appear to do any better than most of the top coaches."

Bingo. With a great team he can get results. But then again, so can most other coaches.

People seem to forget Bennett's abysmal finals record with the broncos from 2001 through til 2008 just because we won a premiership. We won 1, but lost pretty much every other finals match in every other year. Hell, we even lost one in our premiership winning year.

He was also the first coach in decades iirc to coach an Aussie side to lose a world cup. During that series he made many ridiculous positional choices such as Trent Waterhouse on the wing. That's right, the wing.

Yes he won a premiership with the dragons, but despite what most of you think, he inherited a star studded team that had still been a quality team in the past. He also brought his regular late season fade to them, along with losing successive finals matches after finishing in the top 4 and being bundled out without a whimper along for good measure.

Now you all jump up and down about him winning the most premierships, but disregard things like the fact that hauler won 2 premierships within 4 years, and got to 3 grand finals in those 4 years, or that Bellamy consistently takes a team with 3 superStars and 22 nuffies to minor premierships and/or the top of the ladder for most of the season. He also does it with a team that has proably the highest player turnover rate in the nrl.

Bennett is a good coach, nothing more these days. He was the best back in the day when he had a team that would beat the current Australian team, but he can't take joe average and turn them into a player who know exactly what to do and when to do it to perfection like a coach like Bellamy can. He can "nurture" players that we can see have absolute superstar potential but are having trouble with consistency or application, that's his forte - although even that area shows that he's not perfect. Players like Dave Taylor, costigan, hodges, stagg, for example all improved in leaps and bounds after they left Bennett's coaching, after being stuck languishing with one good game here and there for years. He also turned down players like billy slater and Cameron smith when they wanted to join the club as youngsters.

With Newcastle he inherited a team chock full of rep and junior rep players who have struggled with consistency and fielding the same team due to injuries to key players. Much like st George.

That's enough essay for now, will continue later when I'm not in bed on an iPad lol

 

[Bucking Beads]

Well I guess there is no such thing as a super coach.

 

[m1c]

I'm not going to engage your points save for one. Even the author has admitted Newcastle is his test because the roster is not that great. Newcastle are definitely not blessed with a superstar laden roster. For one, their pack is horrible! Parramatta are the only team with a lesser performing pack, even then that's debatable using your logic.

AP logic dictates the Eels have international reps Hindy, Maitua and Fui; Origin players in Mannah, Poore and McGuire - star studded!!! What's their excuse?

BTW Bellamy has only legitimately taken a team to the top of the table once..

 

[Jeba]

Once again, AP is showing that he doesn't realize how hard it is to win Premierships in the modern game. Yes, Bennett's records in finals games in that period is very very ordinary, but fact is that since the turn of the century, he has won 3 Premierships. More than any other coach, and that's what goes in the record books. Yeh he had good teams, but fact is that he coached players like Lockyer, Webcke, Civoniceva, Berrigan, Tate, Carroll etc etc etc into becoming superstars. These stars WANTED to be coached by Bennett in their careers, and I think it speaks volumes when we had players like Carroll and Thorn leave the club and then come back, to be coached by Bennett.

I can't believe you've mentioned Hodges as playing his best football when he wasn't coached by Bennett. He had a couple of good years at the Roosters, but they were nothing compared to the form he showed in 2006-07 in particular, and even since then as well. There's another who left and came back, wanting to be coached by Bennett.

Oh and can you please tell me when Trent Waterhouse played on the wing in the Tri-Nations? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Tri-nations He wasnt named on the wing in any of those games, and I'm not calling you a liar, but it's obvious that if he did play on the wing it would've been because one of the outside backs got injured during the game. Who else fills in on the wing? Ben Kennedy? Andrew Ryan? Mark O'Meley?

 

[Jeba]

And can you PLEASE stop mentioning Bellamy's achievements with an illegal roster? They're irrelevant FFS.

 

[Big Pete]

He was also the first coach in decades iirc to coach an Aussie side to lose a world cup. During that series he made many ridiculous positional choices such as Trent Waterhouse on the wing. That's right, the wing.

You mean Tri Nations, because he played a pivotal role helping the Kiwis win the 2008 World Cup.

Waterhouse was never selected on the wing or in the backline for that matter. He did play a bit of centre when Tahu went down injured in the first game, with Tate playing wing if that's what you meant. Any coach worth his salt at the time would have made the same decision.

 

[Bucking Beads]

And can you PLEASE stop mentioning Bellamy's achievements with an illegal roster? They're irrelevant FFS.

I want to know how Bellamy gets all the credit for developing players yet Bennett gets zero credit for developing players??

 

[Dexter]

This article is dated April 1 isn't it ?

 

[Anonymous person]

but fact is that since the turn of the century, he has won 3 Premierships.

Lol love that you go back 12 years just so you can fit in another premiership. 2000 isn't really relevant now because the game has had monumental changes since then. Unlimited interchange being dropped completely changed the game. In the last 10 years, or even 11 since then, he has won 2 along with hasler, Bellamy (don't give a **** about you saying they don't count, they still won the grand final) and only 1 ahead of coaches like Murray/sheens/etc. he's had an absolutely terrible finals record with both the broncos and the dragons post 2000 as well, winning what, 6 or so matches out of say 20?

And I didn't say he named Waterhouse on the wing, I said he played him there. Which he did. He also lost the tri nations, which no other aus coach had for decades. "helped" the kiwis win - but he was not the coach.

And yes, hodges did play his best football at the roosters. He was the best, bar none, centre in the game for a good 2 years there or so. He came back to the broncos because they were the only ones who would take him, not to be with Bennett lol.

M1c - those rep and origin players are basically all fill ins who were chosen for little reason other than there was no one else lol. McGuire? Come on, the guy is a nuffie who only got picked cause he played for the broncos. Newcastle on the other hand have kidley, uate, tahu, Mullen, buderus, Boyd, snowden, etc.

Beads - Bennett can nurture up and comers who show huuuuuge potential, but he can't take a reject from another team and make them part of a well oiled machine without missing a beat like Bellamy can. If Bellamy needs a 2nd rower who has an offload, he will take a young guy who no other teams give a shot and turn him into a regular first grader who does his job to perfection and complements the team. Seriously, look at the players the storm have lost over the last 6-7 years, look at their current roster, and tell me how they are able to continually be in the top 2-3 teams every single years. It takes more than just the 1-7-9.

 

[Bucking Beads]

Bellamy has the best 1-7-9 combination ever IMO. That has to make coaching easy.

 

[Dexter]

So AP you are saying that Bellamy would still have a team finishing top 4 if Smith Slater and Cronk weren't there.? I think that's BS and you know it.

 

[Jeba]

So who would you have played in the centers when Tahu got injured?

Hodges' best season was 2006. There's no doubt about that.

And I just can't comprehend how you dismiss Bennett's Premierships because he had star studded teams, yet you consider Bellamy's Premierships as legitimate despite having a proven illegal roster. Why is Bellamy's achievement more regarded than Bennett's who played within the rules of the competition?

 

[ningnangnong]

I don't even know why anyone bothers arguing with AP. We already know the dude clearly has an agenda against Bennett, so just leave him be in his own little mystical world.

 

[The Brizz]

Hodges came back for very personal reasons among them being home sick, there were plenty of teams who wanted him simple fact is he wanted to come to Brisbane and no one else. I guarantee other clubs would have been after him.

Since 2000 or so the comp has become very hard to win and even harder to go back to back in and the fact the Storm had to cheat to be so consistently successful shows that the salary cap is making it hard for a coach to put a side together each year that was dominant. Fact is Bennett got a team to the finals every single year a lot of those years especially between 2003-2007 we had an inferior set of halves (Lockyer moving to 6 did solve this considerable) but he was with Perry a player with a very very limited skill set who basically played in many ways as a second hooker to get Lockyer quick clear ball. Sides very rarely win without 2 very good halves, Bennett took us in 2006 with Perry and 2010 with Hornby and a side in general was lacking in strikepower and were massively inconsistent he turned them into a unit that grinded out a premiership and was consistently very competitive. I think people underrate the impact he had culturally on the Dragons they went from talented chokers to a very average side on paper that ground out wins. Not one single player in those Dragons teams except occasionally Soward had/has the ability to take a game and win it on their own.

AP your biased against Bennett is simply clouding the very blatant fact that Bennett is the best coach this game has ever had, he develops and mentors young men into brilliant superstars and takes very average players and gets them playing way beyond their potential (Scott, Creagh, Weyman, Costigan at the Dragons to name but a few).

The Storm cheated end of story they would not have had the same team or opportunities had they played by the rules and anyone who tries to justify those titles in anyway is so deluded and stupid (or in your case biased) that your opinion is basically not worth the time it takes to read it. They cheated it is like saying Ben Johnson's 9.88 WR at the Seoul Olympics was a great achievement because he did "win" the final even though he was clearly cheating to do so. You are a deadset fool mate.