Finals Week 3

[Wolfie]

He was on 900k a year! He was originally bought to play 6, it was a failure. It wasn’t luck, he wasn’t the player we needed & they shouldn’t have signed him. A lot of people were saying it at the time, it didn’t make sense.

We signed him to play at lock. It just doesnt make sense what you are suggesting. We had Milford at 6, and we were chasing Taylor to play at 7. If we wanted Bird for 6 why would we have been chasing Taylor?

Not sure what you are referring to with your quote about luck. I was referring to the luck in terms of injury. You could sign 2 of the best players going around and they could both go down injured for a year or 2. A fit Bird would have been an asset. Sadly, it just didnt work out like that.

 

[Huge]

Because in my mind when you lose a half you replace them with a half, you don’t gamble 10% of your cap.

That's an assumption on your part that Bird was SOLELY brought to the club to replace a half. Fine to have an opinion but at least acknowledge that you have absolutely no knowledge about the plan for Bird or for that matter, anyone at the club.

 

[Browny]

Gee Foran absolutely fed it to Klein when old mate got knocked out and play continued.

Bennett got the biggest cheer of the night every time he came up on the big screen lol

 

[Dash]

We signed him to play at lock. It just doesnt make sense what you are suggesting. We had Milford at 6, and we were chasing Taylor to play at 7. If we wanted Bird for 6 why would we have been chasing Taylor?

Not sure what you are referring to with your quote about luck. I was referring to the luck in terms of injury. You could sign 2 of the best players going around and they could both go down injured for a year or 2. A fit Bird would have been an asset. Sadly, it just didnt work out like that.

900k for a centre to play lock is also insane.

 

[Sproj]

@Wolfie you cannot unequivocally say Bennett was 0% to blame. There is no doubt the club, namely White and the board, played a far bigger part in how it all went down but the team was going backwards and the final that year just highlighted that.

There is no doubt the side would be much better on field now if Bennett was still at Red Hill, there is no logical argument against that.

But come on, if Wayne wasn’t coach, would we have re-signed a broken Boyd and Gillett to long, upgraded contracts? Would we have given Milford a million dollars? Would we have wasted almost a million dollars on a centre to maybe play lock? Did all of that money locked up mean we didn’t have as much as we needed to go after a halfback?

Is South’s now losing Reynolds, Gagai, Su’A et al also not due to Bennett at all? Is the idea Bennett leaves clubs in poor conditions when he leaves purely fictional?

Yes a lot of this is conjecture for sure but it is easy for Wayne to mouth off because he didn’t have to deal with the mess left behind at the Broncs and can easily say it was everyone else’s fault. When South’s do the same thing in the next few seasons, he can say exactly the same thing.

 

[lynx000]

So on the money. I was one of the posters who could not understand why it was 'untenable' that WBs contract be honoured. Poster after poster kept telling me that if I didn't understand why, it was a failure on my part.

Those fucking stupid numpties on here who wrote those things were conclusively proven wrong yet if challenged now they still try to justify their poor calls.

WBs contract should have been honoured. Monumental **** up.

I was one of the ones that wanted him gone, but I was completely and utterly wrong. We should have not only run with his current contract but acceded to his plan for succession and given him the extra year or even two if he wanted it. Monumental **** up by all concerned.

 

[Wolfie]

@Wolfie you cannot unequivocally say Bennett was 0% to blame. There is no doubt the club, namely White and the board, played a far bigger part in how it all went down but the team was going backwards and the final that year just highlighted that.

There is no doubt the side would be much better on field now if Bennett was still at Red Hill, there is no logical argument against that.

But come on, if Wayne wasn’t coach, would we have re-signed a broken Boyd and Gillett to long, upgraded contracts? Would we have given Milford a million dollars? Would we have wasted almost a million dollars on a centre to maybe play lock? Did all of that money locked up mean we didn’t have as much as we needed to go after a halfback?

Is South’s now losing Reynolds, Gagai, Su’A et al also not due to Bennett at all? Is the idea Bennett leaves clubs in poor conditions when he leaves purely fictional?

Yes a lot of this is conjecture for sure but it is easy for Wayne to mouth off because he didn’t have to deal with the mess left behind at the Broncs and can easily say it was everyone else’s fault. When South’s do the same thing in the next few seasons, he can say exactly the same thing.

Depends what you are trying to blame him for i guess, but i didnt say he had no blame at all, there were things he didnt get right as i've said in the past.

Contracts, from what i know from players i've spoken to, he had very little to do with in terms of the value. He would of had an input about who he wanted and if he thought the length of a contract was right, but all these big contracts( in terms of dollar value )and player options were nothing to do with him. The club had a structure to deal with the cap and manage it. Thats not on the coach. There are people in place to stop our cap being so imbalanced and they should have been on the ball more. I dont think you will see Donaghy and Ikin making the kind of errors.

In regards to the players, i doubt anyone saw Boyds decline coming as rapidly as it did. Yes he was coming off that hamstring injury, but he wasnt broken. He was probably payed market value when they gave him his contract, they just gave him 2 years too many. Gillett was a strange one, could never work his contract out. In defence of Bird, we dont know his contract value, i've see figures bandied around with anything from $700k a year to a million a year, so i'd be guessing $850k a year is probably around the mark. If he stayed fit, i think he would have made a superb ball playing lock but we will never know, but a good player in that position in the current game would be valuable. Milf is another who looks worse with hindsight and got lucky the halves in the game suddenly started getting huge money.

And your point about us not having money for a 7 because we signed Bird cant be right because we still chased Taylor after we signed Bird.

Him at other clubs is interesting. I honestly cant say i know much about his time at Dragons in regards to their cap, but Newcastle was a hell of a lot to do with Tinkler being clueless. Souths i dont see an issue with. They have a policy where they wont offer older players long contracts which isnt down to Wayne. Souths are just regenerating their roster imo like most clubs have to. They upgrade younger players with bigger contracts and let some bigger earning, older players go. Just the way the game is.

 

[Wolfie]

900k for a centre to play lock is also insane.

I agree, i think it was steep at the time, but how important good locks have become it would be worth it if he worked out. All ifs and buts i know, but i think the best locks in the comp would fetch that kind of salary.

 

[McHunt]

I agree, i think it was steep at the time, but how important good locks have become it would be worth it if he worked out. All ifs and buts i know, but i think the best locks in the comp would fetch that kind of salary.

What would you pay Patty to play lock?

 

[Wolfie]

What would you pay Patty to play lock?

I wouldnt, he's a prop.

 

[Big Pete]

I just mean complacency as in we turned up to the dragons game expecting to win on the back of some excellent form and we got our pants pulled down.

it wasn’t an isolated occasion throughout the season either. We beat the best teams (other than the storm) but would lose games we shouldn’t have because we were arrogant.

a reporter asked Wayne during the season why we could beat the top teams and then lose to the bulldogs or whoever it was and he answered honestly in that he didn’t know.

Bennett did a remarkable job of lifting the team but a lot of those games could have gone either way and it usually took some piece of individual brilliance or slice of luck to go the Broncos way.

I don't think the Broncos were better than the Roosters and context played a big role, especially in the return match-up at Allianz.

The Roosters had beaten the Rabbitohs in what many considered the Grand Final come early, they rested players and lost to a Raiders outfit who were out of contention and were clearly just prepping themselves for a finals tilt.

Obviously losing to the Broncos wasn't a part of their plan but I don't think they were that upset the Broncos ambushed them with their best performance of the season either.

Brisbane were a team that relied on individual brilliance from players like Pangai Jr, Oates, Roberts, Nikorima etc. and when they couldn't produce they were found wanting. That's much easier to do in the regular season it's much harder to replicate in the finals where everyone is producing their A game.

I just don't think complacency necessarily fits. If anything they did remarkably well to win those games against the Rabbits and Roosters and just couldn't replicate that standard - they just didn't have that capacity.

 

[Sproj]

Depends what you are trying to blame him for i guess, but i didnt say he had no blame at all, there were things he didnt get right as i've said in the past.

Contracts, from what i know from players i've spoken to, he had very little to do with in terms of the value. He would of had an input about who he wanted and if he thought the length of a contract was right, but all these big contracts( in terms of dollar value )and player options were nothing to do with him. The club had a structure to deal with the cap and manage it. Thats not on the coach. There are people in place to stop our cap being so imbalanced and they should have been on the ball more. I dont think you will see Donaghy and Ikin making the kind of errors.

In regards to the players, i doubt anyone saw Boyds decline coming as rapidly as it did. Yes he was coming off that hamstring injury, but he wasnt broken. He was probably payed market value when they gave him his contract, they just gave him 2 years too many. Gillett was a strange one, could never work his contract out. In defence of Bird, we dont know his contract value, i've see figures bandied around with anything from $700k a year to a million a year, so i'd be guessing $850k a year is probably around the mark. If he stayed fit, i think he would have made a superb ball playing lock but we will never know, but a good player in that position in the current game would be valuable. Milf is another who looks worse with hindsight and got lucky the halves in the game suddenly started getting huge money.

And your point about us not having money for a 7 because we signed Bird cant be right because we still chased Taylor after we signed Bird.

Him at other clubs is interesting. I honestly cant say i know much about his time at Dragons in regards to their cap, but Newcastle was a hell of a lot to do with Tinkler being clueless. Souths i dont see an issue with. They have a policy where they wont offer older players long contracts which isnt down to Wayne. Souths are just regenerating their roster imo like most clubs have to. They upgrade younger players with bigger contracts and let some bigger earning, older players go. Just the way the game is.

All good points and to be clear, I’m not pinning things on Bennett but I don’t believe for a second he had nothing to do with player contracts, every coach does to an extent. I place far, far more blame on the board though to be clear!

What I meant with the Bird signing is that because he got as much as he did, did it mean we couldn’t offer Taylor / whoever as much as we needed to later?

Regardless, all I’m saying is Wayne has some blame as well, just nowhere near as much as our board who deserve all the criticism they get and more.

 

[Wolfie]

All good points and to be clear, I’m not pinning things on Bennett but I don’t believe for a second he had nothing to do with player contracts, every coach does to an extent. I place far, far more blame on the board though to be clear!

What I meant with the Bird signing is that because he got as much as he did, did it mean we couldn’t offer Taylor / whoever as much as we needed to later?

Regardless, all I’m saying is Wayne has some blame as well, just nowhere near as much as our board who deserve all the criticism they get and more.

He is involved in the contracts, and this is only me speaking from my knowledge of players i know who have signed with Brisbane, but he doesnt get involved in what they get paid or these ridiculous player options we seemed so fond of giving out. There may have been the odd one he was more involved with, but i think it was very rare in his second spell. I do think he cops it a bit Bennett from his first spell as coach where he had a lot of control over everything at the club compared to his second spell where the whole system had changed and i dont think some can accept that.

In regards to Taylor, i think with him it was more we wouldnt go over about $700-750k a year for him. I think we had enough cash at the time to sign a 7, i just dont think there were a lot of options. Again, with hindsight, we probably made the right call not to up our offer

I do think Wayne made errors as well, but i dont think they had the impact some like to think they did. It could have been something as simple as people controlling the club found it hard to tell Wayne no at times. Like i said before, I think our administration is in much better and more professional hands now.

 

[McHunt]

I wouldnt, he's a prop.

When was the last time he played prop?

 

[Sproj]

When was the last time he played prop?

Every game he’s ever played.

 

[mrslong]

Let’s go panthers!
if they make the GF then we are definitely getting ourselves a premiership winner next season. Bring it on.


can we stop with the Wayne rehash plz. It’s an old and boring topic, not unlike Wayne himself.

 

[Wolfie]

When was the last time he played prop?

Honestly cant remember, but thats on the coaches. Never really thought of him as anything more than a prop who can fill in at lock, its just we have been that weak there he has been shoehorned into the role.

 

[McHunt]

Every game he’s ever played.