I bleed Maroon
International Rep
- Apr 17, 2013
- 15,153
- 19,061
2015 notwithstanding (and even that isn't saying much), 2020 feels like the culmination of over a decade of rot. A decade of ever growing indifference and decay within a once proud, disciplined and strong club that, once upon a time never would have imagined EVER earning the kitchenware. We've gone from being notable for missing finals to being notable for being wooden spooners in a one team town in the very same year the AFL get to host a Grand Final at the Gabba that might very well include the Lions. Swell.
It goes without saying at this point, but Seibold will go down in history as the worst coach this club has ever been saddled with. Henjak can finally get a good nights sleep. The damage his brief but expensive tenure has done to this squad and this club can scarcely be measured. South Sydney must have been rolling in laughter when they realized they would be trading out that snake oil salesman for Bennett. They must have thought we were sniffing glue, and I'm not entirely sure they would be that far off. Now we ARE glue. Seibold was throwing random shit at the wall in the vein hope that something might stick throughout his entire time here and it was so, so obvious from the get go. Not only was he out of his depth, he dived into the shallow end of the pool thinking it was the deep end, hit his head on the bottom and slowly floated back to the top like a limp turd. An absolute disaster from beginning to end, and thank god the end came quicker than we thought. Enjoy the money while it lasts I guess, and better make a few sound investments too, because you will never coach first grade again anywhere.
The thing that reallly gets under my skin most though is the response to this catastrophic period from the people ultimately responsible for it. Paul White in particular has frankly shown utter contempt for the club and its fans, and a pathetic disregard for the mess that he helped create from the moment he knew he was outta here anyway 12 months ago. He is the "Game of Thrones final season" of CEOs and I hope his new employers are quaking in their boots at the attitude he has displayed when the going really got tough; from the moment he made a dogs breakfast out of Bennett's departure, failed to sign Bellyache, grabbed Pies on a ludicrous and desperate contract to save face when it was clear Bennett was too far gone to backpeddle on, and rather than stand up and show some accountability for his and the boards **** ups, disappeared into the bunker to kick his feet up and ride the storm out the moment he realized what he had done. Don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out, you miserable ****.
It's stating the obvious at this point for many people on this forum, but the stranglehold Newscorp has on this club has well and truly turned gangrenous. Whether we are flying high on top of the ladder and drawing huge revenue and television ratings, or floundering right at the bottom while they sell our misery to the mouth breathers down south, they win either way. I really don't have much to say about Karl Morris. He is clearly just a powerless puppet to a far bigger, cynical machine and not even worth discussing. We need our own Nick Politis to come along and just lance this boil right out of the club for good, but such a thing would be nothing short of a miracle from the footy gods. That contemptible organization and its evil dried up toad of a leader won't give up their stake without a fight, because they know they can have their cake and eat it too when it comes to the Broncos. Sadly it seems our only hope is that they voluntarily jump ship to Brisbane 2 after sucking whatever blood this club still has left in its veins right out and leaving the shrivelled corpse behind for either the carrion or whoever is brave enough to attempt to resurrect it.
The players are not without blame either. Shit coach or not, most of the efforts we have seen from them this year have been nothing short of insipid, and a perfect demonstration of what happens when the lunatics get the run of the asylum under a dickless, rudderless footy department. I remember the utter misery I felt way back in 2010 when Canberra smashed us 56 - blot and we all knew then that Henjak was a dead man walking, and this year has felt exactly like that week in, week out for 18 weeks. Defence is attitude, and our F/A speaks for itself in that regard. Alex Glenn as captain has been an utter failure, and the fact that a journeyman quality player like him who the club didn't even want anymore to begin with can get the captaincy at all says a hell of a lot about our roster management. Israel Folau remains the last true "big name" signing that we actually got some bang for our buck out of, and that is nothing short of an indictment.
I've never been happier to see the back of a player more than Boyd, whose attitude this season has felt like a mirror of the club as a whole: indifferent, arrogant and without accountability or remorse. I hope he chokes on a burrito bought with the money he cynically wrung out of us when he knew he was finished 2 years ago, and he will never, ever feel like a club great to me. Good riddance to him. Milford is easily THE most overpaid player in the comp at the moment and has failed to live up to the lofty expectations he set for himself early in his career, and unless we see a dramatic shift in form from him in 2021, he may as well clean his locker out come next August because he will be hitting the bricks, and it would be a bold club that would risk taking him and his baggage on board for anything more than bottom of the barrel wage. What a disappointment. Joe O and Corey Oates can hit the bricks even sooner. Another pair of well overpaid plodders who have thumbed their noses at the fans for far too long. I've never thought much of Joe as a player, but the nosedive in form and commitment we have seen from Oates over the past few years has been frankly heartbreaking. I expected him to be a one club player, now I can't wait to see the back of him.
Are we seeing a theme here? Our roster/cap management has been a laughing embarrassment for far too long. Peter Nolan and whoever else is responsible for it needed to be shown the door mid season when it was first clear we were going nowhere and had millions of dollars worth of cap warming the benches injured or suspended. The Kahu saga was so astonishing in its incompetence that they all really should have been cleaned out then. Any other self respecting club would have turned the footy department upside down and shook vigorously the moment they discovered that collossal **** up, and the worst part is it may yet happen again with McCullough.
I'm sorry to be so negative guys, I really am, but it is literally 95% dogshit and 5% positivity at the moment, the 5% being Dearden, Staggs, Carrigan and Haas, who despite such a disheartening environment around them have given us the only glimpses of joy to be found in this historical dumpster fire of a season. It is going to take a huuuuge effort from the incoming coach and his team to pick up the pieces and root out the toxins, and it sure as hell won't happen in one off season, which leaves said coach in a position of vulnerability from the outset. We are in grave danger of slipping into a position of perpetual underperformance and mediocrity that the likes of the Dragons, Bulldogs, Warriors and Souths have seen for many years, and lets face it, we've already been there for almost 15 years. 2006 feels like a lifetime ago, and the contrast between the quality of the squad then compared to now couldn't be more stark.
0/10 season, and I'm not being facetious. A big fat donut. Everyone at the club from top to bottom should hang their heads for embarrassing this city.
It goes without saying at this point, but Seibold will go down in history as the worst coach this club has ever been saddled with. Henjak can finally get a good nights sleep. The damage his brief but expensive tenure has done to this squad and this club can scarcely be measured. South Sydney must have been rolling in laughter when they realized they would be trading out that snake oil salesman for Bennett. They must have thought we were sniffing glue, and I'm not entirely sure they would be that far off. Now we ARE glue. Seibold was throwing random shit at the wall in the vein hope that something might stick throughout his entire time here and it was so, so obvious from the get go. Not only was he out of his depth, he dived into the shallow end of the pool thinking it was the deep end, hit his head on the bottom and slowly floated back to the top like a limp turd. An absolute disaster from beginning to end, and thank god the end came quicker than we thought. Enjoy the money while it lasts I guess, and better make a few sound investments too, because you will never coach first grade again anywhere.
The thing that reallly gets under my skin most though is the response to this catastrophic period from the people ultimately responsible for it. Paul White in particular has frankly shown utter contempt for the club and its fans, and a pathetic disregard for the mess that he helped create from the moment he knew he was outta here anyway 12 months ago. He is the "Game of Thrones final season" of CEOs and I hope his new employers are quaking in their boots at the attitude he has displayed when the going really got tough; from the moment he made a dogs breakfast out of Bennett's departure, failed to sign Bellyache, grabbed Pies on a ludicrous and desperate contract to save face when it was clear Bennett was too far gone to backpeddle on, and rather than stand up and show some accountability for his and the boards **** ups, disappeared into the bunker to kick his feet up and ride the storm out the moment he realized what he had done. Don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out, you miserable ****.
It's stating the obvious at this point for many people on this forum, but the stranglehold Newscorp has on this club has well and truly turned gangrenous. Whether we are flying high on top of the ladder and drawing huge revenue and television ratings, or floundering right at the bottom while they sell our misery to the mouth breathers down south, they win either way. I really don't have much to say about Karl Morris. He is clearly just a powerless puppet to a far bigger, cynical machine and not even worth discussing. We need our own Nick Politis to come along and just lance this boil right out of the club for good, but such a thing would be nothing short of a miracle from the footy gods. That contemptible organization and its evil dried up toad of a leader won't give up their stake without a fight, because they know they can have their cake and eat it too when it comes to the Broncos. Sadly it seems our only hope is that they voluntarily jump ship to Brisbane 2 after sucking whatever blood this club still has left in its veins right out and leaving the shrivelled corpse behind for either the carrion or whoever is brave enough to attempt to resurrect it.
The players are not without blame either. Shit coach or not, most of the efforts we have seen from them this year have been nothing short of insipid, and a perfect demonstration of what happens when the lunatics get the run of the asylum under a dickless, rudderless footy department. I remember the utter misery I felt way back in 2010 when Canberra smashed us 56 - blot and we all knew then that Henjak was a dead man walking, and this year has felt exactly like that week in, week out for 18 weeks. Defence is attitude, and our F/A speaks for itself in that regard. Alex Glenn as captain has been an utter failure, and the fact that a journeyman quality player like him who the club didn't even want anymore to begin with can get the captaincy at all says a hell of a lot about our roster management. Israel Folau remains the last true "big name" signing that we actually got some bang for our buck out of, and that is nothing short of an indictment.
I've never been happier to see the back of a player more than Boyd, whose attitude this season has felt like a mirror of the club as a whole: indifferent, arrogant and without accountability or remorse. I hope he chokes on a burrito bought with the money he cynically wrung out of us when he knew he was finished 2 years ago, and he will never, ever feel like a club great to me. Good riddance to him. Milford is easily THE most overpaid player in the comp at the moment and has failed to live up to the lofty expectations he set for himself early in his career, and unless we see a dramatic shift in form from him in 2021, he may as well clean his locker out come next August because he will be hitting the bricks, and it would be a bold club that would risk taking him and his baggage on board for anything more than bottom of the barrel wage. What a disappointment. Joe O and Corey Oates can hit the bricks even sooner. Another pair of well overpaid plodders who have thumbed their noses at the fans for far too long. I've never thought much of Joe as a player, but the nosedive in form and commitment we have seen from Oates over the past few years has been frankly heartbreaking. I expected him to be a one club player, now I can't wait to see the back of him.
Are we seeing a theme here? Our roster/cap management has been a laughing embarrassment for far too long. Peter Nolan and whoever else is responsible for it needed to be shown the door mid season when it was first clear we were going nowhere and had millions of dollars worth of cap warming the benches injured or suspended. The Kahu saga was so astonishing in its incompetence that they all really should have been cleaned out then. Any other self respecting club would have turned the footy department upside down and shook vigorously the moment they discovered that collossal **** up, and the worst part is it may yet happen again with McCullough.
I'm sorry to be so negative guys, I really am, but it is literally 95% dogshit and 5% positivity at the moment, the 5% being Dearden, Staggs, Carrigan and Haas, who despite such a disheartening environment around them have given us the only glimpses of joy to be found in this historical dumpster fire of a season. It is going to take a huuuuge effort from the incoming coach and his team to pick up the pieces and root out the toxins, and it sure as hell won't happen in one off season, which leaves said coach in a position of vulnerability from the outset. We are in grave danger of slipping into a position of perpetual underperformance and mediocrity that the likes of the Dragons, Bulldogs, Warriors and Souths have seen for many years, and lets face it, we've already been there for almost 15 years. 2006 feels like a lifetime ago, and the contrast between the quality of the squad then compared to now couldn't be more stark.
0/10 season, and I'm not being facetious. A big fat donut. Everyone at the club from top to bottom should hang their heads for embarrassing this city.
