NEWS Magpies flyer Mam thriving at Broncos this NRL pre-season

[McHunt]

Top three based on...?

Milford: grand finalist, highest paid bronco in history
Dearden: Peter Sterling Medalist, rated as future captain
Croft: poached from Storm to save club, Junior Kangaroos captain

These were Kevvie's top halves.

Kelly arrived fat and washed up with a history of bad behavior. Souths cleaned him up.
Karmichael Hunt. Less said the better.
Maybe Kevvie can take some credit for Gamble, but if you were to rank him amongst the halves in round one 2021, he'd have been on the bottom.

These were Kevvie's other halves.

 

[Shane Tronc]

Milford: grand finalist, highest paid bronco in history
Dearden: Peter Sterling Medalist, rated as future captain
Croft: poached from Storm to save club, Junior Kangaroos captain

These were Kevvie's top halves.

Kelly arrived fat and washed up with a history of bad behavior. Souths cleaned him up.
Maybe Kevvie can take some credit for Gamble, but if you were to rank him amongst the halves in round one 2021, he'd have been on the bottom.

I don’t understand what point you’re trying to make. He had little to do with Croft and Dearden’s development? When he was working with Milford in 2015 and early 2016 he was on fire.
All I was saying was it’s good that Kevvie lets halves build their own identity. Yes the jury’s out on whether he can really develop young halves but my point didn’t really have much to do with that, it was just personal opinion.

don’t think Walters has had enough time to do much development yet. It’s not like you could say he’s got a shit track record with halves like Ricky Stuart. I think he’s just had shit halves to work with. Can’t imagine Croft would even know what his game looks like.

 

[McHunt]

I don’t understand what point you’re trying to make. He had little to do with Croft and Dearden’s development? When he was working with Milford in 2015 and early 2016 he was on fire.
All I was saying was it’s good that Kevvie lets halves build their own identity. Yes the jury’s out on whether he can really develop young halves but my point didn’t really have much to do with that, it was just personal opinion.

don’t think Walters has had enough time to do much development yet. It’s not like you could say he’s got a shit track record with halves like Ricky Stuart. I think he’s just had shit halves to work with. Can’t imagine Croft would even know what his game looks like.

I'm not criticizing Kevvie. I just have no evidence to agree with any positive comment on his work with halves of any level of experience at this point. I like what Ezra said, but it counts for nothing yet.

If you can credit him in any way with Tyson's attitude, that would be a tick in his plus box. And Albert finished the season on a high, so maybe that's also a positive. But the top tier of halves he was dealt by the club, not really. You would have to say he failed with Brodie and Tom. But to his credit, he moved them on. Milford, good luck getting to the bottom of that one. Hard to blame Kevvie, but he gets no credit for reforming him either.

No one in the history of rugby league has ever rotated that many halves, and, **** me, we looked clueless there.

I'd be reserving my judgement when we see how long his initial pairing with Adam lasts. If it turns into yet another conga line, I'm out.

 

[Marty Deutschmann]

I'm not criticizing Kevvie. I just have no evidence to agree with any positive comment on his work with halves of any level of experience at this point. I like what Ezra said, but it counts for nothing yet.

If you can credit him in any way with Tyson's attitude, that would be a tick in his plus box. And Albert finished the season on a high, so maybe that's also a positive. But the top tier of halves he was dealt by the club, not really. You would have to say he failed with Brodie and Tom. But to his credit, he moved them on. Milford, good luck getting to the bottom of that one. Hard to blame Kevvie, but he gets no credit for reforming him either.

No one in the history of rugby league has ever rotated that many halves, and, **** me, we looked clueless there.

I'd be reserving my judgement when we see how long his initial pairing with Adam lasts. If it turns into yet another conga line, I'm out.

All true, but in saying that.. 21 was already a write off tbh. I'm ok with rotating them til you find guys who are putting in. Now, they have to earn the spot

 

[Johnny92]

I don’t understand what point you’re trying to make. He had little to do with Croft and Dearden’s development? When he was working with Milford in 2015 and early 2016 he was on fire.
All I was saying was it’s good that Kevvie lets halves build their own identity. Yes the jury’s out on whether he can really develop young halves but my point didn’t really have much to do with that, it was just personal opinion.

don’t think Walters has had enough time to do much development yet. It’s not like you could say he’s got a shit track record with halves like Ricky Stuart. I think he’s just had shit halves to work with. Can’t imagine Croft would even know what his game looks like.

Agree with you, when Kev was around in 2015, 2016 Milf was at his best and there's a argument that's when Ben Hunt's club form was its best. They played eyes up footy and once Kevvie returned last season Milford was too far gone.
With Croft, Melbourne tried to make him a Cooper Cronk clone and like Deardon they played like robots.

 

[007]

I'm not criticizing Kevvie. I just have no evidence to agree with any positive comment on his work with halves of any level of experience at this point. I like what Ezra said, but it counts for nothing yet.

If you can credit him in any way with Tyson's attitude, that would be a tick in his plus box. And Albert finished the season on a high, so maybe that's also a positive. But the top tier of halves he was dealt by the club, not really. You would have to say he failed with Brodie and Tom. But to his credit, he moved them on. Milford, good luck getting to the bottom of that one. Hard to blame Kevvie, but he gets no credit for reforming him either.

No one in the history of rugby league has ever rotated that many halves, and, **** me, we looked clueless there.

I'd be reserving my judgement when we see how long his initial pairing with Adam lasts. If it turns into yet another conga line, I'm out.

Woah dude.

Croft - just couldnt deal with the pressure and tried too hard. That's on him not Kevvie.
Dearden - again just couldn't deal with the pressure and tried too hard. That's on him not Kevvie.
Milford - i doubt even most psychologists could get to the bottom of that without needing a drink.

Croft, Dearden and Milford were all on a path to abstract failure long before Kevvie arrived. Seibold couldn't even get into their heads on a technical basis (as well as playing group issues).

You need to understand and realise the rotation of halves as painful as it was, was simply because the cattle wasn't there. Each had their opportunities and none of them produced anything resembling long term first grade quality. In retrospect i don't think Kevvie was asking for them to dominate a whole game, but he was searching for something from them. It just never materialised.

Ultimately NRL isnt a baby sitting competition to wait and pray someone comes good. We didnt have the luxury of other clubs for guys to be carried. Be that right or wrong as to the clubs position, they simply just did not fire or showed the ability to do the job to win or control games. Kevvie is no potato and he also had to try and run the team as well as bail water when he walked into the club.

IMO Croft, Dearden and Milford were failures in the situation and all had to be moved on. Be it they might fire sometime for another club, but the chances are low and in professional sport its up to the player to invest and turn the tide. Zero point wasting time hoping and trying - the club needs to win games and competitions.

 

[McHunt]

Woah dude.

Croft - just couldnt deal with the pressure and tried too hard. That's on him not Kevvie.
Dearden - again just couldn't deal with the pressure and tried too hard. That's on him not Kevvie.
Milford - i doubt even most psychologists could get to the bottom of that without needing a drink.

Croft, Dearden and Milford were all on a path to abstract failure long before Kevvie arrived. Seibold couldn't even get into their heads on a technical basis (as well as playing group issues).

You need to understand and realise the rotation of halves as painful as it was, was simply because the cattle wasn't there. Each had their opportunities and none of them produced anything resembling long term first grade quality. In retrospect i don't think Kevvie was asking for them to dominate a whole game, but he was searching for something from them. It just never materialised.

Ultimately NRL isnt a baby sitting competition to wait and pray someone comes good. We didnt have the luxury of other clubs for guys to be carried. Be that right or wrong as to the clubs position, they simply just did not fire or showed the ability to do the job to win or control games. Kevvie is no potato and he also had to try and run the team as well as bail water when he walked into the club.

IMO Croft, Dearden and Milford were failures in the situation and all had to be moved on. Be it they might fire sometime for another club, but the chances are low and in professional sport its up to the player to invest and turn the tide. Zero point wasting time hoping and trying - the club needs to win games and competitions.

Like I said I'm not judging Kevvie on his halves rotation in 2021 - but lots on this forum were - but I'm also not willing to say he's a great halves coach either. And the the fact that our three top halves (do I really not to explain who they were and why they were our top halves?) didn't blossom under this tutelage but ending up being flicked doesn't help his case.

Again, I'm not up Kevvie, but I'm not willing to praise him for it either.

All true, but in saying that.. 21 was already a write off tbh. I'm ok with rotating them til you find guys who are putting in. Now, they have to earn the spot

Only one needs to earn his spot over the preseason, but if he's dropped within a few weeks, I can tell you this forum will be all over Kevvie.

 

[BroncsFan]

I'm not criticizing Kevvie. I just have no evidence to agree with any positive comment on his work with halves of any level of experience at this point. I like what Ezra said, but it counts for nothing yet.

If you can credit him in any way with Tyson's attitude, that would be a tick in his plus box. And Albert finished the season on a high, so maybe that's also a positive. But the top tier of halves he was dealt by the club, not really. You would have to say he failed with Brodie and Tom. But to his credit, he moved them on. Milford, good luck getting to the bottom of that one. Hard to blame Kevvie, but he gets no credit for reforming him either.

No one in the history of rugby league has ever rotated that many halves, and, **** me, we looked clueless there.

I'd be reserving my judgement when we see how long his initial pairing with Adam lasts. If it turns into yet another conga line, I'm out.

I think the most important aspect of the halves situation last year was that he moved on from who should've been his top tier halves pairings when it became clear it wasnt working and did so reasonably quickly.

He clearly wasnt a fan of Dearden even though he was a top junior the club had identified.

He worked with Croft as much as he could, because he played his ass off and tried as best he could to follow a game plan, but he's just nowhere near talented enough.

Milf he also tried hard with and stayed with as long as possible, but he just couldn't get him out of his funk... to Milf and Kevvie's credit he had Milf playing pretty well at the back end of the year when he returned to the team.

He could've done a Madge / Seibold and just stuck it out with those 3 to the bitter end and refuse to drop them, but he had the balls to drop Milf (the franchise's highest ever earner) and moved them on for much lesser known names and had them producing much better results than what you would expect.

I would be interested to see the rotation of players once we got past that mid-season reset.

I think he gave pretty well everyone a shot prior to that reset and then somewhat settled on a group moving forward from there.

There was some fluctuation in the halves, but I recall that being injuries and suspensions more than anything with Kelly missing long chunks and then Gamble being suspended.

But after the reset I think the core group he went with was largely

1. Tesi
2. Oates
3. Herbie
4 & 5. Cobbo, Arthars, etc.
6. Kelly
7. Gamble
8. Flegler
9. Turpin
10. Haas
11. Glenn
12. Riki
13. Kobe

Bench rotated a bit but kept picking up niggling injuries to guys like TC, or suspensions to Flegler, etc.

The only real point of fluctuation was in that right side pairing, but Staggs was always getting center and then they put him on ice for the season. Kevvie ended up giving several players a run out there with Cobbo basically being the only constant and now Arthars has been loaned out and depth backs brought in... so maybe Kevvie wasnt confident in many of his options outside of Cobbo.

I think Kevvie has done a decent job of resetting the culture and pruning the team down to what core he wants.

He's done well given the huge chunk of salary cap we are playing without... and there could've been a real slide after the mid season reset with shoulders being tapped and senior players being moved on very abruptly, but instead it seemed to reinvigorate the players that survived and I thought we would've picked up more wins had it not been for injuries, etc.

 

[theshed]

This was a great thread for a few posts.

 

[BroncosFever]

If you can credit him in any way with Tyson's attitude, that would be a tick in his plus box.

Outside of Tyson himself, who would you credit it to?

Tyson Gamble is no spring chicken, he's been in and out of the NRL a few times, he's a fierce competitor and that is all attitude. You either want to be there or you don't. Wouldn't be a stretch to attribute that to Kevvie.

 

[McHunt]

Outside of Tyson himself, who would you credit it to?

Tyson Gamble is no spring chicken, he's been in and out of the NRL a few times, he's a fierce competitor and that is all attitude. You either want to be there or you don't. Wouldn't be a stretch to attribute that to Kevvie.

1. Tyson himself
2. Kevvie for giving him a go

 

[Johnny92]

Outside of Tyson himself, who would you credit it to?

Tyson Gamble is no spring chicken, he's been in and out of the NRL a few times, he's a fierce competitor and that is all attitude. You either want to be there or you don't. Wouldn't be a stretch to attribute that to Kevvie.

Only thing really you could put down to Kevvie is the fact that he gave Tyson a shot in the top grade, if Tyson's game steps up another level this season you could put some of that down to coaching.
Kevvie has done all the halves options a solid by bringing Reynolds in and now its the players attitude which determines how much they want learn off him.

 

[WASSHHH]

I saw enough from the team post DD and Ikin joining to suggest Walters is, at the very least, a decent NRL coach in the making when all he has to do is simply focus on coaching.

When he started, there was so much external (and probably internal) noise, he inherited so much shit and a captain that was duking it out with Boyd as the most lacklustre, insipid captain of the NRL era that the poor bastard was spread so thin with barely enough time to run from spot-fire to spot-fire.

With fans (as well as the big-wigs, sponsors and so on) growing increasingly impatient given the unprecedented failure of the previous 2 years, he had to try and find quick, cheap wins by rotating players. It didn’t work, but at least it allowed him to move some players on.

I’m more than happy to give him until the middle of 2022 to see what he’s got before I start panicking.

 

[Scorchie]

I still find it hilarious we have the second greatest five eighth/fullback of all time in Locky, a solid 6 in Kevvie and better-than-Joey Langer in the club and we had to import a half to fix our problems.

And yet players like Dearden fall for the “I’m going to NQld to learn off Thurston and…Chad” trap. I feel for Tom, I really do, but a year in Cup would’ve done him good.