Wigan Warriors • How does SL resolve its coaching problem?
I’ve been frustrated all night about yesterday, but while discussing the result with a mate last night, the question was put to me: ‘If we sacked Lam, who else in SL would you want to replace him with?’
With the exception of Watson at Salford, whose record is starting to speak for itself but who’s still not actually won a trophy, I’m not sure there is anyone.
I suppose an argument could be made for Woolf at Saints, but he’s got a lot of quality in his team and yet they don’t look as in invincible as they did under Holbrook. Warrington seem to be hit and miss under Price, while Powell has yet to take Castleford to real glory, and the rest are distinctly average.
There is certainly no comparison with what’s happening in the NRL.
Covid may have done the British game an indirect favour in that we’ve all been watching the Aussie game a lot more and our eyes have been opened as to how far our domestic game has diminished in comparison. I’ve watched two NRL play-off matches this weekend so far, Penrith v Sydney R and Melbourne v Parramatta, and both provided mind-blowing entertainment. The individual skills on show, the tactics, the ballwork, the kicking, the energy, the speed and ferocity of play was light years ahead of SL. This is rugby league the way it is meant to be played. In contrast, we are slow, ponderous, unimaginative. We're like amateurs.
And I must put this down to the coaching. Okay, the Aussies can afford all the best players, and they’ve certainly stripped us of some quality over the years, but we still field teams made up of full-time professional sportsmen, our players still earn a lot of money compared to the average man in the street. Most of them do nothing else but train and play.
We ought to be able to put on a much better show than we do. In the cash-strapped years ahead, we should be striving to put on a better show. It may be essential that we do.
For me, it must start with the coaches. Where are they? Who is going to take our game back up to the level it enjoyed previously? In one season, Michael Maguire won the Grand Final with the same team that Brian Noble, supposedly one of our best, couldn’t even get past 5th. But even Wigan, who pay good money and have a great history and great facilities, couldn’t keep Madge longer than two years.
That’s clearly indicative of the problem. The NRL is the greatest show on Earth and anyone who’s any good, particularly an Aussie, will want to be part of it. But bringing in foreign coaches is no long-term solution anyway. We have to start producing our own.
I genuinely feel that we’re in a coaching rut at present in this country. This is a serious problem which, somehow or other, we must reverse.
Any ideas, anyone?
With the exception of Watson at Salford, whose record is starting to speak for itself but who’s still not actually won a trophy, I’m not sure there is anyone.
I suppose an argument could be made for Woolf at Saints, but he’s got a lot of quality in his team and yet they don’t look as in invincible as they did under Holbrook. Warrington seem to be hit and miss under Price, while Powell has yet to take Castleford to real glory, and the rest are distinctly average.
There is certainly no comparison with what’s happening in the NRL.
Covid may have done the British game an indirect favour in that we’ve all been watching the Aussie game a lot more and our eyes have been opened as to how far our domestic game has diminished in comparison. I’ve watched two NRL play-off matches this weekend so far, Penrith v Sydney R and Melbourne v Parramatta, and both provided mind-blowing entertainment. The individual skills on show, the tactics, the ballwork, the kicking, the energy, the speed and ferocity of play was light years ahead of SL. This is rugby league the way it is meant to be played. In contrast, we are slow, ponderous, unimaginative. We're like amateurs.
And I must put this down to the coaching. Okay, the Aussies can afford all the best players, and they’ve certainly stripped us of some quality over the years, but we still field teams made up of full-time professional sportsmen, our players still earn a lot of money compared to the average man in the street. Most of them do nothing else but train and play.
We ought to be able to put on a much better show than we do. In the cash-strapped years ahead, we should be striving to put on a better show. It may be essential that we do.
For me, it must start with the coaches. Where are they? Who is going to take our game back up to the level it enjoyed previously? In one season, Michael Maguire won the Grand Final with the same team that Brian Noble, supposedly one of our best, couldn’t even get past 5th. But even Wigan, who pay good money and have a great history and great facilities, couldn’t keep Madge longer than two years.
That’s clearly indicative of the problem. The NRL is the greatest show on Earth and anyone who’s any good, particularly an Aussie, will want to be part of it. But bringing in foreign coaches is no long-term solution anyway. We have to start producing our own.
I genuinely feel that we’re in a coaching rut at present in this country. This is a serious problem which, somehow or other, we must reverse.
Any ideas, anyone?
Statistics: Posted by Cruncher — Sun Oct 04, 2020 10:14 am — Replies 13 — Views 456