Opinion Going backwards (Poll)

[Nate DAWG]

Defense is down to cattle not taking their opportunities. Mason said it on a podcast a while back the young players have an opportunity to shine. Some of them have and in particular the forwards have flopped. I believe Morrin is probably the only one who survives the exodus of deadwood.

Not sure how Morrin survives unless he puts on at least 10kgs

 

[Jonboi]

Who's Jack Shit? Is he a middle forward?

 

[04 Dreaming]

Regardless of who started the thread or if you are a pyhsico team Positive or pyhsico team Negative, the facts about how we are travelling are a little concerning regardless of the many excuses we can offer via injury, bad luck or lopsided penalty counts..

Since the "Rebuilds and 5 Year Plans" began after 2016 our record in a very small snap shot is;

Year P/A G/P AVPG Ladder Wins

• 2017 435 23 -18 12th 9
• 2018 474 24 -19 12th 8
• 2019 477 24 -19 12th 10
• 2020 504 20 -25 15th 3
• 2021 710 24 -29 16th 3
• 2022 575 24 -21 12th 7
• 2023 549 18 -30 15th 6 (6 rounds still remaining)

Based on the above even if we were to improve our defence over the 6 remaining games down to just -20 points against we will still finish with an average of appox -28 per game against and our worst total against since we won the spoon in 2021. We have the Panthers next followed by Dolphins, Knights, Raiders, Manly and finally the Titans.

If we some how maintain our current average we will end up with 729 total against eclipsing our 710 with the spoon and our average will be almost -31, which surely cant actually happen given the mass changes in staff and roster etc..

Everything in the numbers above points to what has been our biggest issue since Des left, DEFENCE. Apart from last year with a brief turnaround in numbers from a few late season wins bringing the average back to -21, it has steadily been on the decline since 2017 and this year could easily be our worst. If you dive deeper into our defence and look at missed tackles, penaltys against, and tackle efficiency etc, its even far worse of a picture and for the life of me I cant understand how people like Gus and Ciraldo cant see it.

I am not calling for sackings, board changes or burning down the club (although should that ever happen...). But, what I am asking is apart from excuses and reasons looking to justify whats happening, do they even acknowledge this is the main problem that we have to fix before we can even think about becoming a force again??

Outstanding post

This is essentially the crux of my current beef with the club - the fact that no one seems to want to put their hand up and be accountable for yet another disastrous season, where we have underachieved, and been embarrassed on several occasions. The defensive stats as you’ve highlighted is pretty much as bad as it can possibly get

There is no acknowledgement of what’s going wrong, no apology to the fans for some of the absolute muck that is served up. Instead we get rammed down our throats how they’re “still young, effort is there” and that we’re apparently “on the right track and improving” despite no evidence of it

If ever there was a time to apologise to the fans it was after the 66-0 to the Knights of all teams, which has to go down as one of our darkest days in history. Instead we got a Gus excuse and deflect conference, playing blame games and insisting everything is ok and going well, when clearly it’s not

Khoury and Warburton -each on par with Reed in terms of failure in leadership. Where are they? Absolutey absent in times where great leadership is most of in need. Very disappointing

 

[OldDogFan]

Whatever happened to patience? But the rebuild has been ongoing for the last seven years you say. We as fans must realise that every time a new board and admin is voted in the the process resets back to day 1 due to new agendas, new ideas. It's just like politics and that's why it seems like it's taking forever, but in reality we are only into Year 2 of the 'new' rebuild. We need to be patient and hope the board stay in long enough to allow their plan to come to fruition.

 

[OldDogFan]

Another issue that is slowing down our 'rebuild' is the fact that the NRLol have introduced the Phins which has removed 30 players from the pool which would have otherwise been available. Pity help ANY club that needs to rebuild at this stage. People might want to whinge and b!tch about our poor performance but the NRLol are also balls deep into the issue, because they created it.

 

[D0GMATIC]

Not sure how Morrin survives unless he puts on at least 10kgs

10 kgs and/or 10 cms make Morrin and Topine viable options, but alas . . .

 

[D0GMATIC]

Another issue that is slowing down our 'rebuild' is the fact that the NRLol have introduced the Phins which has removed 30 players from the pool which would have otherwise been available. Pity help ANY club that needs to rebuild at this stage. People might want to whinge and b!tch about our poor performance but the NRLol are also balls deep into the issue, because they created it.

It's long been the nrlol agenda to remove teams from Sydney and ideally relocate them to other parts of the country.

 

[wendog33]

I reckon he was kind of looking that way, but was thinking 1 year, not 2. That is why they didn't go the Flanagan route, because no way he is going somewhere on a 1 year deal. He was possibly thinking let Potter run things for another year, but then it turned out that CC wants to come straight away, and that forces a decision.

From some respects it is a bold decision, CC is really in the fire right now, if this doesn't break him entirely, it could make him into a decent coach. We don't learn much when things are going well, it is the hard times that really test us that we can really learn from.

That's why for me the question remains, how much is the assistant learning?

Worryingly he seems like a slow, stubborn learner....but eventually after lengthy failures in some areas, he does change some selections and game theories.

Hoping he learns some more

 

[OldDogFan]

It's long been the nrlol agenda to remove teams from Sydney and ideally relocate them to other parts of the country.

D0GMATIC, I am a bit of a conspiracy theorist and I believed that Greenberg was trying to sell us out to be relocated to Perth and Hasler was the perfect candidate to achieve that, with the help of Raelene the netball witch. What foiled their plan was they had underestimated the loyalty and strength of the Bulldogs fan base, and the NRLol are p!ssed off because we remain strong.. Why do you think they continue to treat us harshly on and off the field?. It may be just a conspiracy theory but I'm sticking to it.

 

[DinkumDog]

Another issue that is slowing down our 'rebuild' is the fact that the NRLol have introduced the Phins which has removed 30 players from the pool which would have otherwise been available. Pity help ANY club that needs to rebuild at this stage. People might want to whinge and b!tch about our poor performance but the NRLol are also balls deep into the issue, because they created it.

Even worse is an 18th team is being considered .

 

[OldDogFan]

Even worse is an 18th team is being considered .

I would rather 12 very high quality teams that can play each other twice during the season (1 home and 1 away game) to create an exciting competition where the team coming 12th is capable of beating the team leading the comp and no result is to be expected, rather than a comp of 18 to 20 teams where there are three or four good sides seven or eight competetive teams and the rest bottom of the table dwellers and the draw is a lottery. You can't have profit over entertainment and the dope running the show doesn't give a flying fŭck... s long as his resumé looks good, who cares.

 

[Dogmonster]

I cant see us signing 1 decent front rower let alone 2, so not going anywhere.

 

[OldDogFan]

Getting back to the original post of this thread "Are we going backward under the great Phil Gould?". No we aren't, we are progressing but very slowly..... it's the NRLol that is going backward.

 

[Bitemarks]

Whatever happened to patience? But the rebuild has been ongoing for the last seven years you say. We as fans must realise that every time a new board and admin is voted in the the process resets back to day 1 due to new agendas, new ideas. It's just like politics and that's why it seems like it's taking forever, but in reality we are only into Year 2 of the 'new' rebuild. We need to be patient and hope the board stay in long enough to allow their plan to come to fruition.

Previous "rebuilds" were about buing players. Gould's rebuild revolves around building up our juniors programs. One is a band aid, one is a genuine long term solution.

 

[1967]

Outstanding post

This is essentially the crux of my current beef with the club - the fact that no one seems to want to put their hand up and be accountable for yet another disastrous season, where we have underachieved, and been embarrassed on several occasions. The defensive stats as you’ve highlighted is pretty much as bad as it can possibly get

There is no acknowledgement of what’s going wrong, no apology to the fans for some of the absolute muck that is served up. Instead we get rammed down our throats how they’re “still young, effort is there” and that we’re apparently “on the right track and improving” despite no evidence of it

If ever there was a time to apologise to the fans it was after the 66-0 to the Knights of all teams, which has to go down as one of our darkest days in history. Instead we got a Gus excuse and deflect conference, playing blame games and insisting everything is ok and going well, when clearly it’s not

Khoury and Warburton -each on par with Reed in terms of failure in leadership. Where are they? Absolutey absent in times where great leadership is most of in need. Very disappointing

Word count … Fizbo …. Word count …

 

[DinkumDog]

I would rather 12 very high quality teams that can play each other twice during the season (1 home and 1 away game) to create an exciting competition where the team coming 12th is capable of beating the team leading the comp and no result is to be expected, rather than a comp of 18 to 20 teams where there are three or four good sides seven or eight competetive teams and the rest bottom of the table dwellers and the draw is a lottery.

Yeah 12 or 14 teams are probably the right number but no-one can force a merger or relocation so it would have to be natural attrition but the NRL are terrified of alienating the fan base. 16 teams barely functioned well and anything above that is ridiculous. Remember the 20 team comp in the mid-90’s? It was a joke and partially what led to Super League. History repeats.

 

[OldDogFan]

Yeah 12 or 14 teams are probably the right number but no-one can force a merger or relocation so it would have to be natural attrition but the NRL are terrified of alienating the fan base. 16 teams barely functioned well and anything above that is ridiculous. Remember the 20 team comp in the mid-90’s? It was a joke and partially what led to Super League. History repeats.

Too right.. but the NRLol can't let a truly spectacular sport get in the way of corporate $$$, because if your team (and there are now plenty of them) are leading by four or more at half time!..........

 

[King Gus]

So far 148 votes
103 saying we are on the right track.
Close thread.

 

[D0GMATIC]

D0GMATIC, I am a bit of a conspiracy theorist and I believed that Greenberg was trying to sell us out to be relocated to Perth and Hasler was the perfect candidate to achieve that, with the help of Raelene the netball witch. What foiled their plan was they had underestimated the loyalty and strength of the Bulldogs fan base, and the NRLol are p!ssed off because we remain strong.. Why do you think they continue to treat us harshly on and off the field?. It may be just a conspiracy theory but I'm sticking to it.

Im with you O.D.F. It has been going for a while, whilst our previous management may have dragged us to the bottom of the table, the nrlol have no intention of letting us climb the ladder.

 

[SPEARTAKVIDREFS]

Could we possibly go backwards and do any worse than last season?
All things considered, although Im really pissed off and disappointed with this season, its far too early to make a judgement.