Alan79
Kennel Legend
- Joined
- Mar 10, 2007
- Messages
- 13,518
- Reaction score
- 19,905
The way I see it. The first thing that the board had to do was become cap compliant. At that time the only way to do so was to release players. Part of the issue they faced was that it was really late in the season and most clubs had used up their salary cap space. So unfortunately I think we had to pay more wages than we'd have liked to move players on. Our signings before we moved on everyone that we did had to be very astute purchases. I think Meaney and Cogger fit the bill in this regard. Chrighton hasn't impressed me yet but he was also a budget buy before we cleared space. I think CHN was our next recruit and should prove to be a good player for us. Sue was a gamble. He still might play his best football for us, but he's far from a polished player.
The main issues we had were
1. We had a limited budget as did other clubs.
2. Most off contract players were not re-signed because they weren't priorities for the clubs they were at.
3. Our production line wasn't in a healthy state, thus we weren't able to promote much quality from within.
4. A number of our off contract players were aging and at a stage where injury concerns could be exacerbated by their age, so the Morris twins for example were a big money gamble.
So our roster quality wasn't going to improve based on both limited budget and the fact that most players with potential were locked up already. The board could either make the choice of short term pain (let our best two backline stars go and hope that the youngsters we promoted to replace them stepped up) Or give the Morris twins longer term contracts which might have blocked the paths of any youngsters that might have become available or improved through the off season.
They opted for the short term pain. We will be able to sign quality sooner because they made that decision. But we're suffering on field this year with an understrength backline. There was no way to sign established quality in the spine on a budget. That really covers the NRL squad.
That leaves the aspects of the rebuild that happens behind the scenes. I touched on the poor position of our production line. And as far as I can see this is the area the new board was able to focus on. We've expanded our junior recruitment prospects by sponsoring a couple of large regional competitions and seem to be clearing the way to improve the coaching and recruitment staff in the lower grades. Because it's quite clear that the youngsters we've promoted aren't quite up to scratch in every position. Ogden has been good for a debutante. But someone like Okunbor has major issues that should have been ironed out during his development.
The approach the board has taken is a long term plan that will give us sustainability in our roster moving forward. Unfortunately in the short term we as fans might not be impressed with our results on game day.
As far as Pays coaching goes. He was not the coach I would have chased. An experienced coach might have been a better bet to combat the inexperience of our roster. But the old board picked him due to the vocal fans screaming loudly that we needed to inject Bulldogs DNA into the position. However in Pays defence, a gameplan can easily go awry if those having to implement it on the field get flustered. Biased refereeing against us hasn't helped at all. And I'm not excusing Pay or the team. But realistically there are rosters packed with talent coached by highly touted coaches who aren't in a much better position in terms of results at this stage.
So to my way of thinking we just have to ride out the year and hope that head office makes some intelligent signings. It's going to take time to bring in talent from 1-17, but hopefully by next year we have a few extra players round that can improve our performance.
It's not fun to watch right now. But we're heading back to the formula that we followed in our golden eras. We need our junior quality to be better when they debut just as much as we need to recruit quality in the short term. There aren't any easy solutions right now. So screaming about things might offer stress relief, but it won't speed up the rebuild.
The main issues we had were
1. We had a limited budget as did other clubs.
2. Most off contract players were not re-signed because they weren't priorities for the clubs they were at.
3. Our production line wasn't in a healthy state, thus we weren't able to promote much quality from within.
4. A number of our off contract players were aging and at a stage where injury concerns could be exacerbated by their age, so the Morris twins for example were a big money gamble.
So our roster quality wasn't going to improve based on both limited budget and the fact that most players with potential were locked up already. The board could either make the choice of short term pain (let our best two backline stars go and hope that the youngsters we promoted to replace them stepped up) Or give the Morris twins longer term contracts which might have blocked the paths of any youngsters that might have become available or improved through the off season.
They opted for the short term pain. We will be able to sign quality sooner because they made that decision. But we're suffering on field this year with an understrength backline. There was no way to sign established quality in the spine on a budget. That really covers the NRL squad.
That leaves the aspects of the rebuild that happens behind the scenes. I touched on the poor position of our production line. And as far as I can see this is the area the new board was able to focus on. We've expanded our junior recruitment prospects by sponsoring a couple of large regional competitions and seem to be clearing the way to improve the coaching and recruitment staff in the lower grades. Because it's quite clear that the youngsters we've promoted aren't quite up to scratch in every position. Ogden has been good for a debutante. But someone like Okunbor has major issues that should have been ironed out during his development.
The approach the board has taken is a long term plan that will give us sustainability in our roster moving forward. Unfortunately in the short term we as fans might not be impressed with our results on game day.
As far as Pays coaching goes. He was not the coach I would have chased. An experienced coach might have been a better bet to combat the inexperience of our roster. But the old board picked him due to the vocal fans screaming loudly that we needed to inject Bulldogs DNA into the position. However in Pays defence, a gameplan can easily go awry if those having to implement it on the field get flustered. Biased refereeing against us hasn't helped at all. And I'm not excusing Pay or the team. But realistically there are rosters packed with talent coached by highly touted coaches who aren't in a much better position in terms of results at this stage.
So to my way of thinking we just have to ride out the year and hope that head office makes some intelligent signings. It's going to take time to bring in talent from 1-17, but hopefully by next year we have a few extra players round that can improve our performance.
It's not fun to watch right now. But we're heading back to the formula that we followed in our golden eras. We need our junior quality to be better when they debut just as much as we need to recruit quality in the short term. There aren't any easy solutions right now. So screaming about things might offer stress relief, but it won't speed up the rebuild.
..
