Come talk to me about Holland when he’s played over 250 first grade games and represented his country ..
How can he?
He retired due to the way we treated him. Scarred his soul and made him ditch the game all together. He loved the club deeply and didn’t want to play against us. It’s also not hard to play 250 NRL games once you reach a certain level and you are injury free as depth has been bad.
If he wasn’t treated badly he could have played for his country.
BUT, let’s not be disingenuous and pretend it’s just as hard to represent NZ as it is to represent Australia.
Holland may have been a victim of bad coaching..
Exactly.
He had a breakout year in 2018, had more like breaks than anyone else in the competition despite us being dead last in attack, and then he got switched around. Was thrown to his non preferred side, then into FB, then into the wing, then into hooker and did ok in all. Picked up sally m points in his hooker debut.
Generally if a players good enough but receiving bad coaching, it’ll be spotted by a more astute coach and they’ll be picked up by one of the other 16 clubs, Holland had zero offers which says a lot.
You honestly think he didn’t get offers?
He retired and announced it mid season.
He said he had offers but didn’t take them up so he could return to Newcastle. He said he will consider Newcastle if they were desperate. But that’s it.
As for astute coaching.
Remember he came form nowhere. No junior comps. He started playing for a Newcastle team as a late teenager and then came into our first grade and won us the game in his debut.
What happened to Holland was a tragedy no question and it cost Pay his job, and we can argue whether Perrett was a dud, mediocre or competent or in between but there is no need to play him off againat what we did to Holland.