.

Seen and not believed. Same back 5.
4 wingers and a fullback with the fullback on the wing.
He must think we can grind out a 8-6 win.
If the Broncs react to the criticism we could get lapped.
Averillo not there (presumed injured), no other young guys.

I think we are trying to keep Siebold in a  job.

This game is like an EPL relegation battle...

Lose, and your coach is gone

Marki, our coach is already gone, not physically but......... You know what they say about people who continually make the same repetative choice and hope for a different outcome.

Soon words like insane, mental, disabled and quadriplegic will be considered offensive and will be frowned upon if not banned.

You can still call someone a f-wit or a c-nt though...

Marki you are a f-wit and a c-nt if you can't work out the offensive nature of what Fonua-Blake said and has thus far not been punished for.

Our only win this year was in similar circumstances... 

Averillo I think they are just giving him a break from NRL to refresh and fully recover from his knock, not uncommon with young players.

Play him each week injury or a loss of energy and confidence can result, he can now get ready for his next run, knowing what is required. 

The coach and players are still trying to win games, we are working on improving the players that are there, the result this game  is all down the the Broncos..
If the Broncs turn up and play to 75% of their potential, we have little chance, their squad is much stronger.

Regardless the aim for us is to play to 90-100% of our potential, first have against Souths was 90-97%, second half  we dropped back to something more like 55-70%.

I'm be happy of we put  two 90%+ halves together, and if the Broncos are < 75%, we might even win.

A worse, but unlikely, scenario.  Dean's right and this is the best we have.

We could use some of the players a bit better for example DWZ should be playing on the wing, perhaps Cogger should be 14.
The Wakeham / Foran combination was tried about 3 weeks too late.

However, I don't subscribe to the view that Pay is an idiot, and I do think he is a reasonable coach.
He has got things slightly wrong and maybe a top shelf coach is more pro-active and ruthless. maybe a top coach sets higher standards and gives players fewer chances..

But for the type of rebuild we have been going through and impatient coach might try to wring blood out of a stone and quickly lose the players.
In spite of his faults, Pay has somehow kept the players motivated, that is a minor miracle..

We should be entering a new phase in 2021, and perhaps it is time for a  new coach, even a ruthless coach with high standards, because it is time for the players to step up or ship out, now that we have the money field a competitive squad.

This season maybe 1 or 2 young players need a run at some stage, I don't subscribe to the view that we have a lot of talented players waiting in the wings, we have 1-2 young players who might benefit from a run in the NRL. This is the best we have, or close to it, fans just have to accept reality.

It is a hard call to make when there aren't any lower grades to judge by.I really don't know how it could happen. I also don't think Dean is mug and has shown ability on some levels ie NSW Under 18s...it is only youths but it is a start so should perhaps give a grounding to who could most likely make the jump to NRL. I do feel sorry for the guy. He has inherited a mess and will it be cleaned up in 2021? Who knows what to expect against Broncos...hopefully Luke Thompson might provide a breath of fresh air or we may even have a bit of old fashioned luck.

Lower grades not playing is another problem, I agree players might have more chance to get fit and impress if they were playing regular footy.

All we can go on is last year's reserve grade form... or trial form... not ideal.

Luke Thompson is hopefully a leader, with high standards, we can never have too many of them..

But he is replacing Elliott who ticked most of those boxes, it is around break-even.. unless Thompson is way better than we expect.

I'll say again the question to be asked of Pay is can he attract the players we WANT (as opposed to can get) for '21.

I know you're big on development and I agree with you long term. BUT we have $3m to spend for '21 and roster space for about a dozen players... and I got a feeling both the money and roster space is higher than that, and can go MUCH higher than that with some hard decisions and the right bloke to make them.... So the question is that given you MUST spend the SC money - do we want to spend it on the muppets we currently have, various muppets we can get OR some quality that the right coach can attract?

We MUST spend the money on somebody - muppets or quality?

This the crucial question of Pay. An unfair one, sure. But stiff sh.t, that's life.

Like I said.....30, 50 or 100 years ago these words were used and it wasnt considered offensive. Nowdays they are.

And in years to come, the other commonly used words these days will also be deemed offensive.

Soon they will run out of words!
I guess it's called progression....

They were ALWAYS offensive to the disabled.

Why do you try so hard to be edgy cool? The trying just makes you a dag you know.

I dont think we should judging Pay on what cattle he has at the Dogs, but rather what he could possibly do with a strong roster such as Raiders or Storm where he was assistant. 

What I'd like to know from first hand (retired or ex players from the 2012 Storm team or 2016-17 Raiders teams) is whether it was Pay who made them better players or Bellamy / Stuart? 

That to me will confirm if Pay is actually a better coach than our current roster suggests. 

In any case, I think he's had his chance. Whoever stepped into the club was always going to be a stop gap unless they pulled a rabbit from a hat. He hasn't done so I think he's time is now up. Our club is too proud to need for than 5 years to return from the doldrums. We cant wait on the off chance he is better than we think.

Your last paragraph is spot on.
He is merely replacing Elliott not adding to the team. We might even go backwards if he is not ready or as good as Elliott. 

Its unfair to place too much expectation on him. The whole team needs to lift. It shouldn't need him to come in and fix our mess. I dont think anyone can unless they are the coach and unless they have 5 or 6 weeks with these guys

I take offence to the word dag!

I honestly don't know the answer on recruitment.... 

There are 2 parts to it:-
1)  Working out the key positions where we need to sign players and working out who we can sign who can make a difference - no as hard as it seems.
2) Whether or not our ideal targets have any feelings one way or the other about Pay or some other coach...

If I'm running the process I ask all coaching candidates 2 questions:-
1) What positions do you want to strengthen?..
2) Who do you want to sign . for those positions, rank in order of preference?

If a player comes up as highly ranked by 2-3 potential coaches, that is a good sign...
We then ask some of the players to list coaches then think they would like to play for, or if they want to play for our club..

What we are looking for is a group of players rated highly by 2-3 coaches who are happy to play for us, and we have at least one potential coach most of them are happy to work with.

It is a long winded process, but it is doing our homework, when we sign the coach, we know the players we are targeting, we know if we can get them, we know the players would be happy with the coach. 

I don't think players will list Pay just because he is our current coach, they know we are considering the coaching option, it can even be an anonymous survey, but fair chance behind closed doors mostly people don't mind give an opinion as long as that opinion is confidential...

Finding out for sure as best we can, is much better than guessing. 

if a coach or player will not talk straight, that is a potential red flag, if a player prefers not to express an opinion that is OK, we can take that as 'no preference'.   

Gotta be at least 2nd or 3rd generation f’n’c...

You vile standing tuck... 

Is it just me that thinks Manly didn't deserve a penalty in that last play?

I mean, the Manly kicker held the ball to the death before kicking it. Even on replay it looks like a late kick with little the defence could do than commit to taking him out.

He himself was never going to get to the ball and neither were the 2 guys who took him out. It was McCullogh on the inside that was nowhere near the tackle that could get to it - and did. 

Yep probably a 50/50 ... brainless players blowing up at the ref deserve time on the sidelines...

Well you would be in agreement with the bunker...the Manly bloke went sprawling so to many that would look like a penalty call and you could make the call but damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Yeahh...Zef...what do you have against a sheep's arse?

Whether or not he was going to get to the ball is irrelevant to the offence.  Would only matter if we are talking penalty try, which we're not.  Penalty warranted I feel.  Player did not commit to a tackle, just a push.  Easily avoided.

The big picture is Manly deserve nothing ... they deserve to lose everything .. 

#NoSympathy

The team list shows Thompson in for Elliott, but is Dean sure Thompson can handle a full 80 minutes. If not why not swap Holland for Lewis and give Lewis a crack at lock. Couldn't hurt what have we got to lose.

You’re damn right I would have flogged you....