Wayne's World No Longer Relevant

[Morepudding]

Surely I am not alone in being extremely disappointed in the direction the club has gone since Wayne's Return.

Now, first up people are going to say "He took us to a grand final in his first year back". Well, yes he did. With a team that he didn't assemble himself. Now I did not rate Anthony Griffin as a coach at all, but the vast majority if the squad in 2015 was one that was inherited from previous management. So yes good on Wayne for getting us to a grand final, but we still lost.

Since then, Wayne has tapped players like Justin Hodges and Corey Parker on the shoulder and told them to leave. Both of which I'd say were in far better form in their final year than Thaiday and Boyd (who is in complete crap form with 3 more seasons after this one... FML). In addition to this, he has let Ash Taylor, a player who has always received huge wraps, leave the club while under contract, he has let quality forwards Jarod Wallace, Jai Arrow, Ese'Ese all walk out. We have lost Corey Allan, another player who has received a lot of wraps. And we have spent huge money on Boyd and Bird who are probably the two worst performing players in the NRL this season... Especially at their dollar value.

Now people are going to disagree here, but Bennet has done this before. It goes without saying that we have essentially no depth. Outside of our top 17-18 we have very few players with NRL experience, and we don't have any reliable options in the Halves or Hooker position (hell, even our starting halves aren't reliable). Bennett has been accused in the past decade of recruiting players for now, and not worrying about the future and this is showing yet again. He left the dragons with a lot of issues in terms of depth and only now is it starting to improve, and did the same thing witht he knights (tinkler stuff didn't help). Now it appears he is doing a similar thing with us, in desperate search of a premiership.

The way clubs like the dragons are approaching this is really good. They have a football manager who does all the signing and has the clubs best interest at heart, and the coach essentially coaches what he has. Look at what happened to the Bulldogs under Des, he was so worried about winning comps he did all these backended deals and left them screwed. Bennett is doing a similar thing to us. He knows his time is almost up and wants to get another win before he bows out, but it's not going to happen.

We need to throw the cheque book at bellamy, and move on a lot of these over paid players Bennett has brought in.

 

[Jedhead]

Can we spend some money on getting a curator that knows how to manage turf. We have the best league stadium in the world with the worst playing surface. I have seen country paddocks stand up better to real horses running over it. The state of the playing surface is not even third rate. Why anyone would pay to see this shit is beyond me.

 

[badyon]

2015 - now

Regular season: Won 53 Lost 29 (the second best record in the NRL)
Post season: GF, Semi final, Prelim final

Did I mention SECOND BEST record in the NRL? And yet you are extremely disappointed? **** me dead...

In 1991, every man and his dog was saying Bennett was washed up, stuck in his ways and had to go. The CM was baying for blood every fucking day -- all offseason. And how did the next few seasons work out?

In 1999, we didn't win any of our first ten matches - and suddenly Bennett (once again) couldn't coach his way out of a paper bag. We still made the finals that year and won the comp the next year.

We've had the heart and soul of our pack out injured virtually all year - and yet we are just one win away from the top 4.

 

[Painin the Haas]

Ashley Taylor in September 2015 had no spot in first grade Bennett did the right thing by Ash. If he waited until October 2015 he probably would have kept him.

Eseese chased money, Wallace and arrow went for starting spots you can’t blame either party and our forward back is probably stronger now anyway

Hodges was on one leg as it was. Thaiday is a club legend even with a few bad games he deserved some loyalty. really he has got the tap too.

Bennett recruitment for the ‘now’ was at the knights where he/tinkler wanted a quick fix and it nearly worked for them but that place was in a mess

 

[Morepudding]

2015 - now

Regular season: Won 53 Lost 29 (the second best record in the NRL)
Post season: GF, Semi final, Prelim final

Did I mention SECOND BEST record in the NRL? And yet you are extremely disappointed? **** me dead...

In 1991, every man and his dog was saying Bennett was washed up, stuck in his ways and had to go. The CM was baying for blood every fucking day -- all offseason. And how did the next few seasons work out?

In 1999, we didn't win any of our first ten matches - and suddenly Bennett (once again) couldn't coach his way out of a paper bag. We still made the finals that year and won the comp the next year.

We've had the heart and soul of our pack out injured virtually all year - and yet we are just one win away from the top 4.

So 1991 is 27 years ago, and 1999 is 19 years ago. Times change. As for the regular season wins etc, that's all well and good but doesn't changet he fact we lose to the top teams more often than not.

 

[Broncapz]

Can I suggest you find a new club to support? Melbourne might be the only one to fit your criteria though.
Or maybe a less competitive league like Ligue 1 or La Liga?

 

[Dexter]

So 1991 is 27 years ago, and 1999 is 19 years ago. Times change. As for the regular season wins etc, that's all well and good but doesn't changet he fact we lose to the top teams more often than not.

Have you gone through that list of players who left and attached a $$ value to them then tried to fit the rest of our squad around them.
You will find it impossible. Everybody wants their payday and want to play NRL and be in the run on side.
There will always be decisions made which turn out to be wrong.

 

[Renegade]

I see what you're saying to an extent OP, it has been a pretty underwhelming season and the fact that Bennett has seemingly gone welp that's our halves for this season early on (re milf and kodi) and shuffled Bird around everywhere to try and fit him in rather than making him play reserve grade until he's found form and fitness, does make you raise questions about whether he's still got the ruthlessness that made him great. I mentioned as much a while ago about him perhaps missing that cutting edge that he possessed in years gone by. Remember when he said Shaun Berrigan would never play halves for us again, and he was twice the player Nikorima is and had shown a lot more in his time at HB.

It is definitely easy to be positive and say, yeah but we're only 2 points outside of the 8 and outside of 4th, but realistically with our for and against we are 4 points outside, because everyone ahead of us is in the positive for F/A outside of the sharks, who are still 33 points ahead of us (-46 to -13). If we lose to the Roosters, we will be further adrift. Again, it is easy to say well we have an origin period coming up where won't lose anyone/very little and that we'll make up some wins along the way, but can anyone think of one performance this year where you could pin your hopes to and say if we could just play like that... ?

You can't expect to win every game, but you can expect to have some sort of performances that make you take heart that the team is going somewhere and the structures are starting to make an impact. Isn't super assistant coach Demetriou in charge of both attack and defense? What's going on there if so? We don't look convincing in either facet - how long are we meant to wait until these start to stick. Why does a team like Melbourne recognize the speed and ability of someone like Addo-Carr and try and get him early ball with space to use his speed, whereas Roberts either gets a cold from a lack of action or gets the ball with the defense already up his arse? Melbourne also dropped their heir apparent to Cronk after a couple of games when he wasn't cutting it - whereas we've simply moved Nikorima to the bench and back to halfback?

it seems to me there is very little accountability going on with our performances. It's 10 rounds in, we've played like shit for almost all of our games, and despite underwhelming performances from the majority of our squad, you can pretty much name the side picked each week with your eyes closed saved for forced changes through injury.

I'm a WB fan and I'm not on the sack him bandwagon yet, but I see your frustration and I agree with it.

 

[Battler]

Wayne's downfall was putting his trust in Hunt. He flicked Taylor and told Ben that he was our HB for the foreseeable future only for him to play like rubbish and then run off to a huge contract. Hindsight is 20/20, but he should have cut Hunt instantly after 2015 and gone with Taylor.

It also doesn't help that Taylor virtually lied to us about coming back only to sign a kamikaze deal with the GC. I say kamikaze because it not only fucked our future up, but it also guaranteed that the tits will be outside of the 8 for the duration of Taylor's contract.

Edit: On the dragons. They have this year to win the comp. With Hunt on 1.2 mil and their pack playing like men possessed their squad is going to get torn apart after this season. They aren't really setting themselves up for a Storm like legacy IMO.

Have you gone through that list of players who left and attached a $$ value to them then tried to fit the rest of our squad around them.
You will find it impossible. Everybody wants their payday and want to play NRL and be in the run on side.
There will always be decisions made which turn out to be wrong.

What I want to know is how clubs like the Dragons, Titans, and Knights can pay extreme overs for blokes and still sign players/ have decent squads? At least with the Roosters and Storm they pay big for a core group of good players and then use jrs/ journeymen.

 

[Slippin Jimmy]

2015 - now

Regular season: Won 53 Lost 29 (the second best record in the NRL)
Post season: GF, Semi final, Prelim final

Did I mention SECOND BEST record in the NRL? And yet you are extremely disappointed? **** me dead...

In 1991, every man and his dog was saying Bennett was washed up, stuck in his ways and had to go. The CM was baying for blood every fucking day -- all offseason. And how did the next few seasons work out?

In 1999, we didn't win any of our first ten matches - and suddenly Bennett (once again) couldn't coach his way out of a paper bag. We still made the finals that year and won the comp the next year.

We've had the heart and soul of our pack out injured virtually all year - and yet we are just one win away from the top 4.

Throw in 2006 while you're at it. I was browsing this place way back then too. It was the same kind of comments from (mostly) different usernames.

I'm not saying blind faith is what's called for, but maybe consider history before writing Bennett off after 10 rounds of one season.

 

[Lockyer daughters up]

What I want to know is how clubs like the Dragons, Titans, and Knights can pay extreme overs for blokes and still sign players/ have decent squads? At least with the Roosters and Storm they pay big for a core group of good players and then use jrs/ journeymen.[/QUOTE]

Agree that the Storm have paid a lot of money on the core playing group and then used younger players. Can't say the same for the Roosters though. Uncle Nick has the ability to sign anyone he wants and still have plenty of money left in the cap for the next available star. He's a magician that bloke.

 

[Renegade]

Throw in 2006 while you're at it. I was browsing this place way back then too. It was the same kind of comments from (mostly) different usernames.

I'm not saying blind faith is what's called for, but maybe consider history before writing Bennett off after 10 rounds of one season.

Spurious comparison
in 2006 after 10 games:

for 238
against 178
total F/A +60
6 games scored 30+

7-3 record

as opposed to a current f/a of -46 after 10 rounds, having not hit 30 points once.

5-5 record

plus we also had a significantly better side with hunt, tate, hodges, berrigan, lockyer, webcke, civo, thorn, carroll.

just because something happened in the past, under completely different circumstances and with completely different personnel, doesn't mean it has any correlation at all to present day.

(i was also here in 2006 under the same pseudonym, most of us thought we were a chance depending on how we 1) got through origin and 2) how we went post origin, as in 03, 04 and 05 we had terrible post origin slumps that effectively killed us in the post season)

 

[Porthoz]

I see what you're saying to an extent OP, it has been a pretty underwhelming season and the fact that Bennett has seemingly gone welp that's our halves for this season early on (re milf and kodi) and shuffled Bird around everywhere to try and fit him in rather than making him play reserve grade until he's found form and fitness, does make you raise questions about whether he's still got the ruthlessness that made him great. I mentioned as much a while ago about him perhaps missing that cutting edge that he possessed in years gone by. Remember when he said Shaun Berrigan would never play halves for us again, and he was twice the player Nikorima is and had shown a lot more in his time at HB.

It is definitely easy to be positive and say, yeah but we're only 2 points outside of the 8 and outside of 4th, but realistically with our for and against we are 4 points outside, because everyone ahead of us is in the positive for F/A outside of the sharks, who are still 33 points ahead of us (-46 to -13). If we lose to the Roosters, we will be further adrift. Again, it is easy to say well we have an origin period coming up where won't lose anyone/very little and that we'll make up some wins along the way, but can anyone think of one performance this year where you could pin your hopes to and say if we could just play like that... ?

You can't expect to win every game, but you can expect to have some sort of performances that make you take heart that the team is going somewhere and the structures are starting to make an impact. Isn't super assistant coach Demetriou in charge of both attack and defense? What's going on there if so? We don't look convincing in either facet - how long are we meant to wait until these start to stick. Why does a team like Melbourne recognize the speed and ability of someone like Addo-Carr and try and get him early ball with space to use his speed, whereas Roberts either gets a cold from a lack of action or gets the ball with the defense already up his arse? Melbourne also dropped their heir apparent to Cronk after a couple of games when he wasn't cutting it - whereas we've simply moved Nikorima to the bench and back to halfback?

it seems to me there is very little accountability going on with our performances. It's 10 rounds in, we've played like shit for almost all of our games, and despite underwhelming performances from the majority of our squad, you can pretty much name the side picked each week with your eyes closed saved for forced changes through injury.

I'm a WB fan and I'm not on the sack him bandwagon yet, but I see your frustration and I agree with it.

I did think we were turning a corner after the Warriors and Storm games (despite the loss), but the Souffs game sent some warning bells, which turned into a slow whoop alert against the Dogs, and all hell broke loose against the scum from Brookvale.

There are mitigating factors which we have to take into account for our season, such as injuries and youth, which often result in the inconsistency we have seen so far.
I accept inconsistent performances from young inexperienced players, especially forwards, but they have been our best players all season alongside Glenn, Oates and Milford, sprinkled here and there by a Roberts moment of brilliance.

I was really filthy at Wayne for blaming the young forwards for something he's by far the most responsible for. It is a fucking cop-out of all magnitude to blame them, and well beneath someone of Bennett's stature.
These young forwards which Bennett threw under the bus, have been leading the way and saving our hide. Outside of the odd good performance here and there, it's his sacred cows (Boyd, Bird, Kodi, Sims, Thaiday) who have been continuously letting us down this season.

That is why I wholeheartedly agree with the paragraph in bold, especially the first sentence. It is absolutely incomprehensible how someone of Bennett's experience and knowledge, can't see what is so clearly evident to everyone else, even his most staunch supporters.
As such, I don't believe he doesn't see it, I believe he purposefully ignores it because he can't or won't admit failure, be it from himself, or from the players he has backed, much like many of his unconditional supporters...

I'm not in the sack WB bandwagon, because I do still believe he brings a lot of value to the Broncos in many aspects, some inside and most outside of on-field performance.
But he needs to be made accountable by White and the Broncos board, and if he can't put the team and the Broncos interests ahead of the individuals and/or his ego, he can't be responsible for the team selections and tactics. Get someone else to do that, and leave the human management tasks to Wayne.

 

[Renegade]

I did think we were turning a corner after the Warriors and Storm games (despite the loss), but the Souffs game sent some warning bells, which turned into a slow whoop alert against the Dogs, and all hell broke loose against the scum from Brookvale.

There are mitigating factors which we have to take into account for our season, such as injuries and youth, which often result in the inconsistency we have seen so far.
I accept inconsistent performances from young inexperienced players, especially forwards, but they have been our best players all season alongside Glenn, Oates and Milford, sprinkled here and there by a Roberts moment of brilliance.

I was really filthy at Wayne for blaming the young forwards for something he's by far the most responsible for. It is a fucking cop-out of all magnitude to blame them, and well beneath someone of Bennett's stature.
These young forwards which Bennett threw under the bus, have been leading the way and saving our hide. Outside of the odd good performance here and there, it's his sacred cows (Boyd, Bird, Kodi, Sims, Thaiday) who have been continuously letting us down this season.

That is why I wholeheartedly agree with the paragraph in bold, especially the first sentence. It is absolutely incomprehensible how someone of Bennett's experience and knowledge, can't see what is so clearly evident to everyone else, even his most staunch supporters.
As such, I don't believe he doesn't see it, I believe he purposefully ignores it because he can't or won't admit failure, be it from himself, or from the players he has backed, much like many of his unconditional supporters...

I'm not in the sack WB bandwagon, because I do still believe he brings a lot of value to the Broncos in many aspects, some inside and most outside of on-field performance.
But he needs to be made accountable by White and the Broncos board, and if he can't put the team and the Broncos interests ahead of the individuals and/or his ego, he can't be responsible for the team selections and tactics. Get someone else to do that, and leave the human management tasks to Wayne.

That's the catch .22 it seems with Bennett - a lot of these young players are coming because they want to play under him, but as a side we are like a car with cylinder issues (and i'm not even a car guy!).

if we get rid of him, sure we might run on all cylinders, but will those players stick around? Even if we move him upstairs, they won't be coached by him anymore so will that be enough to have them look elsewhere? I'm not saying we should hang onto him at all costs because we don't want to lose players, but at some point there has to be a trade off.

 

[Scorchie]

Can we spend some money on getting a curator that knows how to manage turf. We have the best league stadium in the world with the worst playing surface. I have seen country paddocks stand up better to real horses running over it. The state of the playing surface is not even third rate. Why anyone would pay to see this shit is beyond me.

They've explained this several times. The winter grass has been sown and is yet to take hold. Suncorp will be back to normal by origin.

 

[Foordy]

but he should have cut Hunt instantly after 2015 and gone with Taylor.

So he should have cut the halfback who lead the team to within 5 seconds of the premiership for a rookie that had done literally nothing (and FTR has still done nothing 2 years later) ...

are you fucking serious

 

[Wolfie]

Wayne's downfall was putting his trust in Hunt. He flicked Taylor and told Ben that he was our HB for the foreseeable future only for him to play like rubbish and then run off to a huge contract. Hindsight is 20/20, but he should have cut Hunt instantly after 2015 and gone with Taylor.

It also doesn't help that Taylor virtually lied to us about coming back only to sign a kamikaze deal with the GC. I say kamikaze because it not only fucked our future up, but it also guaranteed that the tits will be outside of the 8 for the duration of Taylor's contract.

Edit: On the dragons. They have this year to win the comp. With Hunt on 1.2 mil and their pack playing like men possessed their squad is going to get torn apart after this season. They aren't really setting themselves up for a Storm like legacy IMO.



What I want to know is how clubs like the Dragons, Titans, and Knights can pay extreme overs for blokes and still sign players/ have decent squads? At least with the Roosters and Storm they pay big for a core group of good players and then use jrs/ journeymen.

I'm not trying to be a smartarse, but i cant find a thing anywhere about Ash Taylor lying to us. All i can see he did was take a huge contract we couldnt match, just like any normal person would.

 

[Porthoz]

That's the catch .22 it seems with Bennett - a lot of these young players are coming because they want to play under him, but as a side we are like a car with cylinder issues (and i'm not even a car guy!).

if we get rid of him, sure we might run on all cylinders, but will those players stick around? Even if we move him upstairs, they won't be coached by him anymore so will that be enough to have them look elsewhere? I'm not saying we should hang onto him at all costs because we don't want to lose players, but at some point there has to be a trade off.

I'm not advocating sacking him, but "elevating him away" from player selection and tactics.