Bennett To Blame For Newcastle

[Big Pete]

How much blame does Wayne Bennett deserve for all the hardship at the Knights?

When Newcastle signed Wayne, they thought they were on the road to premiership success. Instead, they missed the finals two years in a row and after he left they won the wooden spoon largely with the roster he put together.

Newcastle fans seem to hold Wayne accountable for most of their problems, what do Broncos fans think?

 

[tommy]

I think Bennett took a shithouse team to a prelim final. Punched above their weight.

 

[ningnangnong]

The Knights had 300 rep players when he went there, so it's defs Bennett's fault.

But seriously, Newcastle have been an absolute shambles off the pitch for a number of years now - WB overachieved by getting them to a prelim final. They're going to continue to struggle until they sort out all the backroom crap and become a bit more of a professional operation.

It's a sad state of affairs when you consider how much of a rugby league town Newy is.

 

[Super Freak]

Great thread title. It made me click on it.

 

[Nepal Donkeys]

100% blame on Tinkler.

 

[Big Pete]

To an extent, it is Wayne's fault since he signed so many fossils and struggled to develop star talent.

However, I hold Tinkler accountable for the majority of their issues.

Off the field, the club was a mess and the way he left the club prevented them from cleaning up a lot of the problems he created.

Unlike his time at Saints, Wayne had to start from scratch. Have you guys seen the Knights 2010/11 roster? It doesn't make for pretty reading. Further they struggled to retain some of their best junior prospects and for a club that lives and dies on the players it develops Newcastle were almost barren in that department. If there's any silver lining to Bennett's time at the Knights, it's the success of the NYC and NSW Cup teams respectively.

While I struggled to view the Knights as a top 8 team in 2015, Rick Stone inherited a roster that should have achieved more than a wooden spoon. The big problem is that a lot of players went backwards under his tenure and he failed to bring through the young talent Bennett had identified in 2014 and develop them into genuine first graders. He failed to put his stamp on the side and as a result they were the easy-beats of the competition.

They're still struggling in 2016, but at least Brown has got everybody working off the same page. There seems to be a real unity at the Knights now and a bunch of players are beginning to emerge, players that benefited greatly from the junior pathways Bennett helped put together for the club.

 

[Kimlo]

They've been more or less garbage since Johns retired. They looked pretty decent in the prem year, and aside from that back to garbage.

I don't think it's a case of Bennett being to blame, but rather that even Bennett couldn't fix the shit show of a club they are behind the scenes. The whole Tinkler saga was a complete shambles. Contrast that to the Broncos, and Paul white, we're a world apart, even before we look at rosters or coaching staff.

 

[Broncoman]

Newcastle weren't that much when Bennett signed with them and fans got carried away and placed unfair expectations on him and disappointment followed. The Knights though haven't been a force for years and they've never seriously challenged since Johns retired. Still got a lot of flaws in the team but I think they've found a halves pairing they could settle on.

 

[Huge]

I read that many newcastle fans blame the newcastle mentality. It's been said that they didn't buy into WBs methods and should be looking at the team and its commitment ....no matter though, history will always show that time to be a failure in an otherwise stellar coaching career. If only AP was here to provide some balance !

 

[Foordy]

His time at Newcastle was a big reason why I didn't want him back ... i saw his recruiting tactics and the performances of his team and I'd thought he was past it.IMO, his time at Newcastle was a failure but not entirely all on his shoulders, Tinkler deserves much of the blame for that failure.

luckily he didn't bring that mentality with him and I was wrong about him being past it.

 

[vertigo]

What happened to McKinnon played a part in derailing their 2014 season, that along with the Tinkler bullshit and players not being paid.

There's a whole bunch of variables that Wayne didn't have to contend with off the field at the Broncos or Dragons.

 

[mitch222]

To an extent, it is Wayne's fault since he signed so many fossils and struggled to develop star talent

I wouldn't really say Bennett didn't develop any talent and to be honest, the aging players his signed were there to do a specific job.
Of his signings when he joined the club, they all made sense. He signed the following players of note
- Beau Scott
- Jeremy Smith
- Darius Boyd
- Alex McKinnon
- Robbie Rochow
- Dane Gagai
- Joey Leluia
- Danny Bederus
All of these signings were to fill specific weaknesses in the side and the older heads were for mainly leadership which was a huge void in the side at the time of his arrival. Then he also had a major hand in developing the Mata'utai brothers (Soine was an international under him and considered the next biggest prospect), elevated Gagai to the next level, bought kevin naiqama up, & bought Korbin Sims into first grade as well.
Whilst they will say he left them in bad shape, the reality is, they won 8 of their last 10 games under him and had some exciting talent that has regressed majorly. A head coaches job is to produce success on the field immediately, not train these players for the next coach to be successful so that's why Bennett signed these players when he did. He wanted success straight away and lets not forget Newcastle fans were on his back pretty much immediately for it to. They weren't gonna wait 4 years for him to build a side and neither was Tinkler

 

[Foordy]

I wouldn't really say Bennett didn't develop any talent and to be honest, the aging players his signed were there to do a specific job.
Of his signings when he joined the club, they all made sense. He signed the following players of note
- Beau Scott
- Jeremy Smith
- Darius Boyd
- Alex McKinnon
- Robbie Rochow
- Dane Gagai
- Joey Leluia
- Danny Bederus
All of these signings were to fill specific weaknesses in the side and the older heads were for mainly leadership which was a huge void in the side at the time of his arrival. Then he also had a major hand in developing the Mata'utai brothers (Soine was an international under him and considered the next biggest prospect), elevated Gagai to the next level, bought kevin naiqama up, & bought Korbin Sims into first grade as well.
Whilst they will say he left them in bad shape, the reality is, they won 8 of their last 10 games under him and had some exciting talent that has regressed majorly. A head coaches job is to produce success on the field immediately, not train these players for the next coach to be successful so that's why Bennett signed these players when he did. He wanted success straight away and lets not forget Newcastle fans were on his back pretty much immediately for it to. They weren't gonna wait 4 years for him to build a side and neither was Tinkler

explain the Craig Gower signing :takdir:

 

[mitch222]

explain the Craig Gower signing :takdir:

he took a punt
he also took a punt on Adam Blair last year and everyone jumped down his throat for it
look how that turned out
all coaches make so and so signings but the good ones make you remember the star signings more than the dud signings

 

[Morkel]

It's been quite well documented since it all fell over that the Knights hierarchy resisted a lot of the strategies that Bennett tried to implement. "That's not how we do it here in Newcastle" etc. Add to that the other extenuating circumstances:
* McKinnon injury
* Boyd depression
* Tinkler unable to butt out
* Tinkler ripping off local businesses and causing mistrust in the community
* Tinkler's arranged 3rd party deals for players that never got paid
* Tinkler ringing players to berate them on their performances
* Tinkler eventually being forced out of the club

It's pretty clear to see who the blame should be pointed at. Was Bennett perfect? Of course not. There would have been mistakes made along the way, it just happens. Even if Bennett had done everything perfectly, would they have even gone any better?

 

[OXY-351]

explain the Craig Gower signing :takdir:

To fill a weakness in the knights charity golf day roster.

 

[abashii]

explain the Craig Gower signing :takdir:

He heard Tinkler wanted to sign Mitchell Pearce.

 

[Big Pete]

I wouldn't really say Bennett didn't develop any talent and to be honest

Neither would I.

What I said was that he was unable to develop star talent. If you looked at the young up and comers Newcastle had - Gagai, K. Sims, Clydesdale, Roberts, the Mata'utia clan etc. most of them didn't kick on. The only one who did was Sione and as we know, that was manufactured somewhat as he wasn't ready for that type of footy over let's say a Will Chambers.

And I can see the argument that it was too early in their careers to become stars. However, that shouldn't have prevented Wayne and his scouts from identifying a couple of blue chip players and bringing them into the fold.

He was also a little late with his NYC recruitment. It's often neglected, but the Knights NYC squad went through a massive upheaval that year which saw the likes of Jaelen Feeney, Harry Pondekas, Pride Petterson-Robati, James Taylor, Tuialasi Togiatasi, Jacob Gagai, Josh Birch etc. brought to the club from other feeder systems. And even though only one of them has played first grade, it at least showed Wayne's intention to bring players through.

To me, Wayne betrayed one of his maxims when he was at the Knights. And that was his belief that it's better to go with a younger player with a higher ceiling than a player who has been taught everything and yet fails to deliver. There were just too many players like Cuthbertson, Fa'alogo, Hilder, Houston, Mason, Newton, Snowden, Tahu and Uate etc. who had ample opportunity to show their worth and simply weren't good enough to get the job done.

Throw in the rookies coming through at that time like Redman, Vaivai, Tetevano, Likiliki and it makes you wonder where Wayne's mind was at.