Damien Cook

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Read my post. Baa would have been stuck behind Gary Hughes for several years if he stayed at the Dogs and may not have become the great player he turned out to be because of the opportunity he got at Wests. No first grade coach would sack a premiership winning five eighth in Gary Hughes and replace him with a 19 year old who had yet to even play reserve grade yet let alone first grade. So stop trying to rewrite history and bag the Bulldogs club when they did nothing wrong back in 1980.
Fucking hell. I was making a clear tongue-in-cheek comment mate. FFS. You honestly think I'd be having a go at the club about Lamb? I may come across as stupid, well ... I am in fact stupid. But putting that to the side, I'm not THAT stupid to make such a comment seriously.

I'm just amazed you did! Fucking hell :grinning:
 

Nasheed

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Fucking hell. I was making a clear tongue-in-cheek comment mate. FFS. You honestly think I'd be having a go at the club about Lamb? I may come across as stupid, well ... I am in fact stupid. But putting that to the side, I'm not THAT stupid to make such a comment seriously.

I'm just amazed you did! Fucking hell :grinning:
I understood it to mean you were making a point about bringing up the past by making a slightly absurd, yet logical, comparison to a 35 year old recruitment decision.
Designed to make the reader think 'when do we just stop thinking about recruitment blunders in the past and get on with it? Where do we draw that line? It's done and we can't change history'.
 

Psycho Doggie

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Yes I was amazed when Des let him slip through our fingers. Just demonstrated that Des is okay at coaching other people's rosters but he's not great at identifying talent.
What you say seems like a good summary of Des. He obviously has something about him, he took his team (Sea Beagles and then us) to the finals 13 years in a row, winning 2 out of 4 GFs reached, some of that might be luck, but it isn't all luck. There is plenty of evidence for what you say, in 2012 the only signing of real note that joined us was Jimmy G. We lost Bobcat, Hodgson, Hickey, Idris, and Ben Roberts. We had good players (Ennis, Eastwood, Barba, Tolman at his best, Hodko Reynolds and Keating in the halves), but they were there in 2011 when we finished 9th.

Des is a thinker about the game, but he seems to really struggle with recruitment, and his man management can be really good, and also really bad. He might be better off as a strategy mentor or consultant, rather than head coach.
 

CroydonDog

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Read my post. Baa would have been stuck behind Gary Hughes for several years if he stayed at the Dogs and may not have become the great player he turned out to be because of the opportunity he got at Wests. No first grade coach would sack a premiership winning five eighth in Gary Hughes and replace him with a 19 year old who had yet to even play reserve grade yet let alone first grade. So stop trying to rewrite history and bag the Bulldogs club when they did nothing wrong back in 1980.
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Malla

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Could not afford him due to the amount of back ended deals Des had half our squad on.

Souths didn't even offer him a big deal at the time. Pretty sure it was a second tier deal to play behind Farah, but that's how bad of a salary cap position we were at that time.
 

BondiBulldog

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He’s the Australian incumbent hooker. So outside Cam Smith (and he could be actually more dangerous at the moment) he is the best hooker in the world. He is also a top 5 player in the world. The fact Souths haven’t won anything yet is ridiculous, he is recognized as the best hooker in the game and no way would Souths be where they are without him.
Michael Lichaa is the WORST hooker I have ever seen, literally, I can’t think of anyone close to as bad as him. I said it from his first season. It’s still relevant as we see him absolutely on fire every week and since the signing of Lichaa we have been on a steep decline and finding it hard to recover because of one monumental fuck up that even Steve Mortimer publicly apologized for.
 

kungfuman

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Des must of been angry at Cook for doing this, how dare he not pass it to Tolman.


i remember that well then next minute see ya! the only player in the team with speed at the time and nah fuckit we dont want speedy players in our team GOOD FUCKIN LUCK MANLY!
 

kungfuman

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I know it's been done to death but this forum is a place to vent our anger & frustration so I can understand Bulldogs supporters like me are struggling with it , that fact that we preserved with one of the worst dummy halves in the League - ( Lichaa ) for so long & we had Cook who showed his potential in just won game, It almost seems deliberate from Des Hassler to let him go, now we are scratching our heads on where we are going to find a dummy half when we had one of the best in our midst., same goes for the Morris brothers. Yeh sure we let Terry Lamb go, but we didn't just let him go and kept Joe Blow in his place. that was at a time when we had Steve Mortimer & Garry Hughes halves combination and we won a premiership, Now to watch cook play last night with all the accolades the commentators were giving him and knowing he'll get picked again for state of origin, makes my blue & White Blood boil & the fact that we are sweating on some decent signings and all we are getting served up so far are forwards and back rowers is not helping the situation, so if you don't like the whingeing don't read the post, but let us release our anger at this unbelievable situation.
ONE GAME
 

kungfuman

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Fucking hell. I was making a clear tongue-in-cheek comment mate. FFS. You honestly think I'd be having a go at the club about Lamb? I may come across as stupid, well ... I am in fact stupid. But putting that to the side, I'm not THAT stupid to make such a comment seriously.

I'm just amazed you did! Fucking hell :grinning:
You cant write a tongue in cheek you really have to be there ,it only reads one way serious.
 

bulldogsmyte

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I know it's been done to death but this forum is a place to vent our anger & frustration so I can understand Bulldogs supporters like me are struggling with it , that fact that we preserved with one of the worst dummy halves in the League - ( Lichaa ) for so long & we had Cook who showed his potential in just won game, It almost seems deliberate from Des Hassler to let him go, now we are scratching our heads on where we are going to find a dummy half when we had one of the best in our midst., same goes for the Morris brothers. Yeh sure we let Terry Lamb go, but we didn't just let him go and kept Joe Blow in his place. that was at a time when we had Steve Mortimer & Garry Hughes halves combination and we won a premiership, Now to watch cook play last night with all the accolades the commentators were giving him and knowing he'll get picked again for state of origin, makes my blue & White Blood boil & the fact that we are sweating on some decent signings and all we are getting served up so far are forwards and back rowers is not helping the situation, so if you don't like the whingeing don't read the post, but let us release our anger at this unbelievable situation.
Spot on. I agree with you on the Cook and Lamb situation as they are totally different as you stated. It was obvious to everyone except Hasler that Cook was far superior to Lichaa. Our club was just a playground for Desball. It's pathetic that fans try to compare the Cook situation to Lamb leaving the club for Wests in 1980 when he hadn't even played a single game for the Dogs at that time, not even reserve or third grade. Gary Hughes and his brothers were an integral part of our success in the 80 premiership and the years leading up to it. Baa got rapid exposure to first grade at Wests, became a great player there as he had to take on far more responsibility and came back at the right time to start a Bulldogs dynasty with Turvey.
 

TwinTurbo

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I know it's been done to death but this forum is a place to vent our anger & frustration so I can understand Bulldogs supporters like me are struggling with it , that fact that we preserved with one of the worst dummy halves in the League - ( Lichaa ) for so long & we had Cook who showed his potential in just won game, It almost seems deliberate from Des Hassler to let him go, now we are scratching our heads on where we are going to find a dummy half when we had one of the best in our midst., same goes for the Morris brothers. Yeh sure we let Terry Lamb go, but we didn't just let him go and kept Joe Blow in his place. that was at a time when we had Steve Mortimer & Garry Hughes halves combination and we won a premiership, Now to watch cook play last night with all the accolades the commentators were giving him and knowing he'll get picked again for state of origin, makes my blue & White Blood boil & the fact that we are sweating on some decent signings and all we are getting served up so far are forwards and back rowers is not helping the situation, so if you don't like the whingeing don't read the post, but let us release our anger at this unbelievable situation.
I assume that you are aware that CHN, Sue and Tolman are gone, that means we need to replace 3 forwards and we have only signed 1, Waddell.
That we have to have 30 players registered with the NRL and that we have to spend 95% of the Salary Cap. We can't just grab a 1/2 and 5/8 and say we are done.

In regards to Cook, it's worth keeping in mind that StGeorge also let him go, he didn't get a 1st grade game until he was 22, he was recruited by the Wabbits in 2016 as a back to the back up, didn't get a run until Round 22 when McInnes got injured, when Cook was 25 ie; a prime example of a late bloomer who had to learn his complex craft (being a hooker is not easy) before he even got game time. I would add that although he was always fast he did not have much endurance and would fatigue. He needed to learn how to manage his lactate curve and oxygen intake over 80 minutes, especially so now the way hookers have to play the game.

Go Dogs
 

Kempsey Dog

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He hasn't won anything for them yet... but he's a big reason they're playing this weekend.
That's true ... But if they fail to get past the prelim and don't win anything by the time he retires we will look back and won't care about losing him as much as someone like JT
 

Brendan7

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I still haven't recovered from this debacle!
 

blue & white blood

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I assume that you are aware that CHN, Sue and Tolman are gone, that means we need to replace 3 forwards and we have only signed 1, Waddell.
That we have to have 30 players registered with the NRL and that we have to spend 95% of the Salary Cap. We can't just grab a 1/2 and 5/8 and say we are done.

In regards to Cook, it's worth keeping in mind that StGeorge also let him go, he didn't get a 1st grade game until he was 22, he was recruited by the Wabbits in 2016 as a back to the back up, didn't get a run until Round 22 when McInnes got injured, when Cook was 25 ie; a prime example of a late bloomer who had to learn his complex craft (being a hooker is not easy) before he even got game time. I would add that although he was always fast he did not have much endurance and would fatigue. He needed to learn how to manage his lactate curve and oxygen intake over 80 minutes, especially so now the way hookers have to play the game.

Go Dogs
Yes I am aware, that we lost 3 forwards , and replaced one but we still have quite a few forwards ie - Stimson, Napa, Chris Smith, Elliot, RFM, Thompson, Ogden, Wadell ,Britt, Doorey, Roumanos, Jackson, Renough Atoni, Sione Katoa,and surely there must be more in the lower grades. now I assume that you aware that we also lost Cogger and Foren , and we still don't have any capable play makers and a decent spine, I feel with the money we have freed up from discarding players and what we have in the war chest we should build up our attack so this time next year we won't be facing the dreaded spoon again.
Now, ST George let Cook go because they had Mcinnes, We let Cook go because we had Lichaa and I think at the time we let Cook go he had already learned how to manage his curve & oxygen intake over 80 minutes so I really don't see the comparison you are making with both points.
 

blue & white blood

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Fucking hell. I was making a clear tongue-in-cheek comment mate. FFS. You honestly think I'd be having a go at the club about Lamb? I may come across as stupid, well ... I am in fact stupid. But putting that to the side, I'm not THAT stupid to make such a comment seriously.

I'm just amazed you did! Fucking hell :grinning:
You are not stupid you are a valued Bulldog Supporter.
 
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