Tony  I believe that atm there are very few clubs that have the room in their caps to buy, maybe with the exception of the rorters because the cap has never applied to them anyway because the players are bouyed by a brown paper bag company called TPA.

My biggest problem with Dean Pay is not his coaching style but more the fact is he is not using the roster to its' full potential. Not that it is a really strong roster compared to some but even us mug punters can see that we are better than where we sit on the table.

Keep in mind a lot of what is reported in the media is crap

However, if the club is extending Pay they don't have a problem with his pulling power.

Maybe they are giving him the benefit of the doubt, maybe some of the team sections this year are more about working out the squad for 2021, and the right formula.

I think he is still searching for it, but the plus is he may learn from his mistakes, and isn't afraid to change things..
 
My hunch for this week is Averillo and Foran will revert to the right side, with Smith on the right wing.. Smith seems down of form..
Wakeham, Holland and DWZ on the left... perhaps....

In any case the edge defence is the symptom, not the disease, the disease is lack of ruck dominance up the middle  resulting in 6 again calls, the opposition rolling forward and backrowers being sucked into the middle, sometimes even half makes tackles up the middle...

That was very evident against the Roosters, Lewis made a 1-on-1 tackle in front of the posts with 2 defenders outside him, the Roosters scored on the next play.
The obvious question is, where were our forwards?

In spite of his critics, Tols is one forward who is always in the frame, I want him in the frame in defence, and running a decoy in attack,, don't pass him the ball... OK with 1 minute to go in the game as a surprise tactic, pass him the ball.... Actually for yardage he does a reasonable job, may get dominated by when I look at the stats, Napa has the slowest play the ball. so don't pass him the ball in the opposition 20 for the first 79 minutes... penalty: 100 sit ups each pass.

paul kent mr 360 has a way with words pulling power in his own words that means that he believes dean pay wont be able 2 get big name recruits but lets see what happens 
tommorrow night after the chair & ceo will decide on ,but foran in talks with the westigers after the bulldogs paided him 1.2 mill & all the game time his missed is hard 2 swollow 
& how the f can the westigers say benji s money will go towards foran dosnt make sence benji is on all bar little contract money i dont get this crap story

Tony you missed the first line of my post:-

"Keep in mind a lot of what is reported in the media is crap"

Seem to me Hill knows what he is doing... rounds 1-10 in 2021 will tell the story... no excuses... we are playing with the full cap..

For Foran we pay him what we think he is worth... if he goes, we then need to consider how best to replace him... 

Tigers have got Josh Reynolds and a few others on silly money... I'll take a straight swap of Foran for Luke Brooks...  if they offer it..

The reason the media story doesn't make sense as you say Benji is not on big money, the Tigers are not the Roosters, they need to abide by the cap. 

If there is ever a greater recommendation to extend Pay this is it...he has been dealt shit from the moment he has arrived here. Some with a bit of nous realise that. At the same time we should be better placed. Despite your continual bagging of Tolman he is a must inclusion...yes 5th tackle is not an option but he provides the rock in defence and the inspiration for other players to similarly put in. Losing CHN was a huge loss that probably would have seen us win against both the Eels and the Sharks.But the blinkered brigade are not going to look at the bigger picture....never in your case....despite being the game's biggest and best authority.Lord Byron "Self praise is no praise at all"

all that is true and I'm not convinced Pay can't coach - he certainly has players playing for him, that's been evident for a long time now, and given a top 4 roster maybe he can coach them to top 4 and better.

But I still don't think that's what matters at the moment. We need this roster turned over, we can't rely on development in the short or medium term, that's a real long game. And even with development running smoothly any team with Premiership ambitions needs at least 1 preferably 2 superstars and another 2-3 AAA players so you got to dip into the market regularly.

And that's all that matters with Pay atm - can he attract talent, the talent we want as opposed to just who we can get. And the cruel fact is he needs to do that n-o-w or we all need to move on.

Well you have guys like Trent Barrett, Hook, Toovey etc that all have 50% or around that win/loss results and cant seem to get a gig so why would any club take a punt on Pay with a win/loss ratio of less than 30%?

Once again, it would have to a club in disarray and not able to sign a big name coach that they would consider settling to give a Pay a go.

My thoughts are people will only look at Pay with how our club performed on the field and give less credence as to what restrictions he had

The reality is that we need to pay overs for the first major recruit and then use his name and leverage off him to attract others at market value.
Knights did it with Ponga. They also got lucky with a bunch of Roosters being let go and managed to pick them up (Pearce, Guerra, SKD) all very good footballers and rep players. Once they picked up these players the rest followed (Klemmer, Mann, Ramien etc)

We have to go after a high profile and very influential player and pay big money (ridiculous money) for a 2-3 year contract.
Once we have him, we can chase other elite players at competitive prices. In 2 -3 years, that expensive elite player can be punted or renegotiated down. By then, he's done his job.

Don't want to harp on about the past, but if we were able to pick up Tom and Jake Turbos, we could have used their status and names to attract other players.

That's the sort of play you have to make to get your name on the negotiation table.

You cant throw money at a forward or a second rower. Its not enough. It will have to be a superstar fullback, halfback or spine player. Or otherwise it has to be a package deal of a couple of players.

Only a f------ idiot would think we or anybody for that matter had a chance at the Turbos. They have a sense of something called loyalty...hard to come by nowadays but worth giving some praise to none the less. And I don't just think it was paper bag loyalty a la your beloved Rorters

Point is, you need those kind of players to get the ball rolling.

Big Mal is currently trying to do it to lure David  Fifita to GC.  If he jags him, and another big name on big $$, the rest will come on the basis they see a good team brewing. 

Perhaps good judges don't just look at the win/loss ratio...

I'm not sure Pay would get another gig, but I've seen coaches come back from worse to get another gig.. 

I find when evaluating players seeing how they personally perform in a team that is getting beaten is a great guideline.,, If his team is getting flogged a player is still busting a gut competing on every play, covering up for others mistakes, doing his job and not making mistakes that is a big tick, if he provides some attacking spark under difficult circumstances, that is a bigger tick..

 At this stage for Pay I see some positives, and some negatives, but nothing to say he couldn't coach with the right squad and the right players in key positions.

I'm not sure how we will be playing recruitment an retention.. IMO any big name singings should be a hooker or fullback.

A prop who makes good yards and can offload, a fast finishing proven winger and 1-2 back-rowers with high mobility and work rate.

The key position for me is hooker, get the best we can get in that position,,, and ideally they need to be a proven experience player.

1-2 of the forwards need to be proven experienced players.. at least 2-3 years of playing NRL.... most of the rest can be talented young kids..

The next step IMO is try to retain Elliott and Foran, or at least get a definite answer, that will help define who we need.

I'm not personally sold on the coach being a draw card or a big name player attracting pother players, we need to convince players we have a plan to play semifinal football.
Part of that is showing them we are managing recruitment well and targeting the right positions, part of it is Pay and Hill laying out the plan, and a big part of it is money...
If we are paying a bit more for a key position initially that is no problem, that is part of the plan ... we signed X to play hooker.  and/or we signed Y to play fullback

So it is more important to make the key signings first..again I hope the club knows what they are doing, they have worked hard to get in this position

The GC have made multiple attempts at throwing a big pile  of money at a key player, Fifita is quality.. and will command a high prices, by definition that means less to spend on everyone else.

Given a choice between a team that will play Semifinals and one that will not some players might take a bit less to play for the more successful team, that is always more than one player.

So it makes sense to spend the most money in the area where you have the biggest problem... Fifita provides attacking impact and some leadership... he doesn't organise a team, do a lot of defence, play dummy half, etc....

Not saying it will not work, just that if it was this simple, every club would do it..

The Warriors signed RTS who was at the time the best fullback in the game ...  he is still a great player ... the Warriors have a lot of talented juniors...

Someone like Johnahtan Thurston is a different matter, a player like that provides leadership, steers the team around and can change momentum, Fifita can do it but I haven't seen where the Broncos have an 100% win ratio with him playing, and they have a lot of other good players.

In a school boy championship game a team containing Wakeham, beat a team containing Hass and Fifita.

While that sounds impressive, I bet Wakeham had a good pack of forwards.. it is a team game..

Not unnecessarily.
You have to judge the game based on the way it was played. It may have been 3 intercept tries or length of field tries or tries from kicks.

Look at the Sharks game last Sunday.
The tries from the Sharks and even from Foran and even Chrichtons length of field try were all from backs.

Forwards just battled it out in the middle but they had had not 1 iota of difference to the points scored or the end result.

Not all games are decided by the forwards 

Hence my reasoning that Tolman would have added nothing in the Sharks game, but may have cost us points attackingwise.

That should read:
Not necessarily

My reasoning Tolman may have helped fix the defence up the middle meaning we were short on the edge are lot less often, and we conceded fewer 6 again calls, saving 2-3 Shark tries...

We will never know, but Tolman is a defensive asset not an offensive asset.. 

All 4 Sharks tries were fairly soft and relatively low skill, it was way too easy for them to get around us on the edges.. mainly because we were well and truly out numbered on the edges... I sure hope Tolman helps.... 

To have a hope against the Tigers we need to fix this... Grant is a good middle defender, unlikely to be many soft tries for us up the middle our best hope is Foran and Wakeham putting runners into gaps or Hoppa with  a good run/pass... a kick for Smith is another option.

Outside of Grant I don't think the Tigers are a great defensive side, they have players on the edges and in the centres who will make poor decisions.. but to win it we need to keep them to no more than 2-3 tries... Brooks is probably worth 1-2 tries... Soft tries on the edges will mean we get lapped.

However the Tigers coach is good at coaching defence... this will not be an easy win for us.. we will need to earn it...

This is why winning the forwards battle up the middle is important, with it comes good field position, ruck dominance, fast play the balls and numbers over on the edge, all the attacking dummy half then needs to do is pass in the right direction... (don't get me started on that subject Lichaa/JMK)

We scored an intercept try against the Sharks which is one of the few things backs can do to change that equation, without possession and field position even tries from kicks are rare...

Sharks had a good pack and they played well in that game.. we were not that bad, but they clearly won the battle up the middle for most of the game..  

Corrected the only part of that post that was right.. ;)

https://www.smh.com.au/sport/nrl/decision-time-looms-for-bulldogs-over-pay-future-20200623-p555cj.html

4 more weeks for Deano to prove something seems fair to me, winning 2-3 out of 4 has to be the target...

Beat the Tigers, then have Tommo join the team we are a chance for the other 1-2 wins...

Equally if we don't win any of those 4 games, even with Tommo, it is hard to make a case for Deano.... 

Even 1 win out of 4 doesn't do it for me, unless we are desperately unlucky in a couple of games..

You are wrong again on the Sharks game.
They won it by kicking behind our centres and wingers. They were in fact very skillful tries from exceptional kicks from Townsend (very underrated player). 

The only way to defend those tries is to
A) have Josh Addo Carrs on your wing who can turn and out sprint the opposite winger who has a running headstart
B) have a smart and fast fullback who can cover them (hoppa was particularly poor and exposed badly)
C) have inside defenders anticipate, slide across and sprint to the kick to cut off the wingers free play at the ball 
D) rush Townsend to prevent him from putting in such accurate kicks

Tolman would have done diddly squat on all 3 defensive measures as the kicks were perfect and into the breadbasket of the wingers.

The lesson to be learnt here is that we dont need Tolman, but we it is imperative we have a fullback that can cover these sorts of plays. Maybe not all of them, but enough to put the doubt in the kicker to even bother trying. It proved that Hoppa should NOT be named at fullback and only used there as emergency during a game.

I reckon if the game went on for another 20mins, Townsend would have tried another 3 of these kicks. Why wouldnt you?

I can't see where those plays taught us we don't need Tolman.
You make it seem simple but maybe Aiden would have held the middle much better and maybe our edge forwards would have been available.
Just saying.

Marki,
You might not like Tolman on the 4th but the work he does defensively and cleaning up dropped ball etc is invaluable.
Every team needs a Tolman.

Tigers with Alex Twal, Zane Musgrove and Robert Jennings all out this week. Best chance for a win we've had in a while.

I cannot understand how the next 4 weeks is a valid indicator of Dean's coaching ability.  He has been coach for over 2 years.  In each of the last 2 years you can pick a 4 week sample period that would indicate success.  Equally you can pick a period that indicates failure.  There should be ample evidence to make a decision right now.  Whatever it is we need the decision to be made quickly.

The reason kicks are easy is the line is short, defenders are rushing in and the kicker has time.

With the current squad no one expects to top of the table, winning around 50% of games against the bottom 8 is reasonable.

Only games we lost this year that we should have won are Cows and Sharks, if Tols play we maybe beat the Sharks.
You will find many non-Dogs fans, and even some Sharks fans agree.

It was also one if the Sharks better games.

Roosters we could play them 10 times with 10 different coaches and still get flogged.

Also we have only had Foran on deck for 3 games.

I notice the C19 ads produced NSW Health has red V in the word... is this a subtle hint lizard people walk amongst us???... 

Villa 1
Newc 1

Villa STILL 2nd last