The fact that he played Tracey at fullback after naming him on the wing and critta went to centre I respect that. He has our goal line defence as good as most teams in the comp.
Dropping hutch for sexton is much muchness. Let’s not forget sexton only had 1 game at the titans last year. People are making it out like he was pushing for the 7 at the panthers. He wasn’t in the frame at the titans. Maybe he will make some better decisions when on the attack. Hutch is the show and go master it seems. But neither is a top 20 half in the comp. Maybe Taaffe gets a shot next week? Ballsey move if he does it. Let’s not forget he is under pressure from fans and media. So these close losses count for him. Imagine he makes wholesale changes every week like niff nuffs want.
He passed my concern with Tracey. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Tracey came fit if things weren’t different with our round 1 team. hutch and salmon are under performing. But we started the year minus 3 props (patolo, Sutton, fafita). Paosa got knocked out second game and only just returned. Knight is a passenger and rightly so has played reserves most of the year. Roster has flaws in it and with injuries we can’t pluck players out. We aren’t panthers or rooster who have 25 nrl calibre players. We might have 16 nrl standard players and 8 fringe players.
He is a rookie coach and learning. But I’d rather let him grow with the team. No one can deny we are better then last year and better then the year before. Fair enough not massive steps forwards but in the famous sporting phrase, you need to trust the process. Flange went into dragons, wanted changes and started picking up other clubs rejects. That worries me more. If my life depended on it. I’d rather Gus be in charge of setting up pathways and juniors (helped roosters, panthers and to a lesser extent warriors to the top of the table). And ciro is the batch of the next wave of young coaches. Does he have flaws yes. But he is not experienced. If in 3 years we still see salmon, hutch, knight, patolo, Sutton, Wilson, Turpin, sexton in the 22 man team list then that is a worry.
Kiraz on the wing made 270m the other day? Need to respect that back 5. Xerri set up Jac in the first nrl outing to 2 tries. He isn’t a bad coach. Just the fans have unrealistic expectations not realising that we were a basket case of a club. But we are incrementally getting better.