Below is the email reply I received from Raelene Castle and below that is the original email I sent her about the bid to re-sign Des Haller. It came from her email address which I have removed here.
Obviously from her response things are going to have to get much worse over a long period before they consider replacing Des. Obviously they believe just making a Grand Final is good enough. If our players see that management believe the job's done just by reaching the GF then no wonder we haven't gone that extra step the last 2 GFs we played in. Yes as she says, Des is the only coach to have made 2 GFs in the last 4 years - but she should remember also that in that same 4 years 4 other coaches have also actually WON Grand Finals. Rather than making the top 8 or GFs every year I and I think most Dogs fans would be happy to sacrifice making the top 8 every year for an actual Premiership win. Only a Grand Final win is worth watching on replay. What fond memories do you want to re-live of a GF loss ?
From: Raelene Castle
Sent: Friday, 6 May 2016 4:49 PM
To:
Subject: Des Hasler
Dear Brad
Many thanks for your email and I always appreciate frank and full feedback from our fans.
I can sense your level of frustration and can understand that you would like to see the team winning more consistently. I also would like to see that, as would Des and he is working on that.
We do not agree with your assessment of Des and the Board believes that he has proven with his track record as a Coach that he can reach finals and then get teams to perform in finals. His record in this area speaks for itself. He is the only Coach to reach 2 Grand Finals in the last 4 years. I can assure you he has not lost the dressing room.
Please show some patience for the rest of 2016, we aren’t even half way in the competition and are 5th on the table. It is where we end the season that counts and the roller coaster ride that we go through over 26 weeks, is all part of being a fan.
We appreciate your continued passion and support.
Raelene
Hi Raelene,
I hope you are very well.
I am still considering writing to the Bulldogs major sponsor Jaycar founder Gary Johnston (and all other sponsors) but I thought I would try yourself first in the hope my email actually reaches the real Raelene Castle and I do not simply receive the standard reply from a Bulldogs staff member.
I am writing in relation to yesterday’s report in the Daily Telegraph which quoted yourself about the Bulldogs attempting to re-sign Des Hasler as coach until the end of 2019.
I just hope to make you aware of the complete frustrations of what is obviously the far majority of Bulldogs members / supporters (and even media commentators) at the coaching methods of Des Hasler and the recruitment methods of Noel Cleal.
If you read the posts in the comments section beneath the same Daily Telegraph online media report, or if you read post after post on the Bulldogs supporter website The Kennel as I have – even just the headline “topics” of discussion - you will realise how EXTREMELY unhappy 9 out of 10 Bulldogs fans are – not so much about our inconsistent results on the field this year but more about the boring, simplistic STYLE our team play each and every week which is very unappealing / unattractive as a form of live paid entertainment or as ratings counted television entertainment. Even media commentators Andrew Voss, Greg Alexander and as you would know Terry Lamb have come out recently saying major changes are needed to the way our team play. I encourage you to please read as many posts on The Kennel as possible to give you a true idea of the fans’ sentiment I am talking about.
Below is a typical example of a post on The Kennel at the moment in relation to Des.
“Why extend his deal before he's actually delivered a premiership or at least shown that we are heading in that direction? We have been on a downward slide since 2012 and our attack is so stale and predictable it's infuriating to watch. His selections and recruitment are questionable and he puts little to no effort into the lower grades and junior development.
What's the point of rewarding the last 3 years of mediocrity by making him comfortable for another 3? This is a huge mistake by Castle. Des is out to look after Des”.
I cannot fathom why we would even contemplate at the moment re-signing Des as our team’s performances aren’t improving, they are becoming progressively worse, especially this year and every sign points to things becoming even worse, not better unfortunately. Nothing is likely to change under Des obviously because even from his behaviour at post-match interviews with journalists we witness Des’ arrogance towards anyone who questions his tactics. He is far too stubborn to change his ways – ways which have become out of date unfortunately just like other past premiership winning coaches (eg: Tim Sheens who even lost the job as Australian coach recently). A recent article about Fox Sports statistics on NRL halves passing to each other during games physically demonstrates that Des’ methods have passed their use by date because the stats revealed our halves pass to each other the least out of any team in the NRL. Des continues making our two major playmakers stand on opposite sides of the field – while ALL other teams are moving away from this.
I have been a Bulldogs supporter for most of my 51 years watching every Bulldogs game since I was around 10 years old and I can honestly say - as I have seen similar quotes by others on The Kennel - that the current team play the worst brand of unimaginative unskilled football I have ever seen from any team in 4 decades.
During matches it is so infuriating to us fans (see The Kennel) when it is so obvious that our players do not have any idea / a plan what to do with the ball when attacking close to the opposition try-line. It is extremely frustrating that our major playmakers constantly show poor skills at kicking the ball during general play to put pressure on the opposition defence – a vital part of any decent playmakers’ game. We just have player after player running one-out, not even looking to pass the ball so as an easy target they continually get dominated by the opposition defence. There is no evidence whatsoever that our team of professional full-time players and coach (the club pays $1M a year) practice any actual football skills at training. It is a complete mystery what they actually do at training each week besides lifting weights.
To us fans it seems Des’ focus is more about control – about restricting the natural abilities of our players (natural abilities that got them noticed over average players in the first place) to play like robots where they are too frightened to run themselves, or too frightened to pass the ball due to the fear of making a mistake. Terry Lamb was completely spot-on when he recently referred to our players as “over-coached”. We are sick of hearing at post match press conferences from Des and James Graham that we lost the game because of what they basically blame as a lack of effort by the players for the full game.
By basically Des’ and James’ own admission at the post match conferences Des obviously can’t get the team motivated to play to their best. He’s “lost the dressing room” as they say. More and more our players are failing to lift to perform the way Des asks them to. The performance of our team this year in the second half of games (averaging 6 points a game) shows even Des’ half-time speeches are having no effect at all in getting the team to perform better than they did in the first half. There are very strong signs that all or most of our players no longer have faith in Des’ coaching methods. Has anyone actually surveyed our players “totally anonymously” to find out ?
Clubs become successful through the success of winning premierships – being the BEST team like the Dogs did in the 80s and 90s and in 2004. New fans and revenue are attracted by success. Without success we fail to attract new fans and eventually we begin to lose revenue.
There are no signs that Des is going to deliver us a premiership anytime soon or anytime at all. Making the semis is just your average pass mark but as long-time Bulldogs supporters we expect more and anything less than a premiership is considered a failure. Who wants to watch highlights of your team losing a Grand Final ? Last year we were 3 tiers down from the best team who won the competition. In the semi- finals we just scraped in in extra time over St George, then we made the Roosters look like they were going to be the premiers after they thrashed us until the following week when the Roosters were thrashed by the Broncos – who ended up being runners up to the Cowboys. This year we can’t even beat the lowly Raiders at our spiritual home ground of Belmore with 10 days to prepare. This year we couldn’t beat the Warriors in New Zealand although we could the 4 years prior. This year the newly formed Eels have proven twice they are now better than us even without their star new playmaker. We are going downhill – not the best time to renew the contract of the current coach. Is Des willing to take a considerable pay cut ? I seriously doubt it.
The only hope of our team improving performances on the field is to try something different – Jim Dymock maybe. Under his coaching he we won 7 in a row just before Des took over and Jim had the guts to drop an underperforming player unlike Des. It certainly did the trick with Josh Morris at the time.
Cheers
Brad
RaeleneCastle
Chief Executive
Bulldogs Rugby League Club
Member # 55515
Belmore Sports Ground, Edison Lane Belmore NSW 2192 | PO Box 123 Belmore NSW 2192
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