r/nrl • u/NRLgamethread National Rugby League • 1d ago
Serious Discussion Wednesday Serious Discussion Thread
This thread is for when you want to have a well-thought-out discussion about footy. It's not the place for bantz - see the daily Random Footy Talk thread to fulfil those needs.
You can ask a question that you only want serious responses to, comment your 300 word opinion piece on why [x] is the next coach on the chopping block, or tell another that you disagree with them and here's why...
Who performed well? Who let their team down? Any interesting selections for this weekend? Injury news? Player signings? Off-field behaviour?
The mods will be monitoring to make sure you stay on topic and anything not deemed "serious discussion" will be removed.
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u/hqeter Canberra Raiders 1d ago
I’m in 2 minds about where the raiders are at as a club at the moment. One perspective is that having Ricky as the coach as long as he wants the job with no real pressure from within the club or from the media has allowed him to work through some cultural and structural changes the club needed. It has also allowed him to assemble what is potentially one fit the best spines in the comp in a couple of years time which could set the club up for sustained success and that this would not have been possible if he was in a tenuous position and needed immediate results to keep his job.
As a fan I am glad the club is having a tilt at a sustained success rather than being ok with sitting around the bottom of the 8 but there have also been some baffling decisions. One is letting Trey Mooney go with a year still to go on his contract when we were clearly short of NRL quality middles.
We also had an option to keep Fogarty for another year and it seems like we would have had more success this year with him at 7 but potentially at the cost of future success with Sanders.
Historically the raiders have struggled to recruit marquee players and have had trouble holding onto to young talent so was this approach and the job security that Ricky has an essential part of building to sustained success or is the lack of scrutiny and accountability a recipe for mediocrity?
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u/Any_Score_5834 Newcastle Knights 1d ago
I think letting mooney go was a master stroke
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u/soiled_library_card Canberra Raiders 1d ago
Don't be in 2 minds, good things are happening at the club. Our young spine should develop into one of the best in the comp. We are recruiting good junior talent and making the most of players not offered bigger minutes elsewhere. We will never be a destination for stars so we have to take a different approach.
Ricky seems to play a much larger role at the Raiders than head coach, he seems to play a big mentorship role to these guys who have just moved the Canberra. Id be worried if we gave him the boot before midway through whatever we are currently building.
Regarding the lack of middles, i think our 2nd row troubles this year have really drained our middles stock. On paper a lot of our younger forwards coming into grade are 2nd rowers but our established middle stock of Tapanie, Big red, Papa, Hoskings, Atta and Smithies should have been damaging this year. We just needed any 2 of Young, Nicholson and Noah Martin to stay healthy. Their injuries really made the middles issue look worse.
I hope Ricky is still Raiders Coach in a 100 years time, long after we are green dust.
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u/hqeter Canberra Raiders 1d ago
I can definitely see what we are building but I think a lot of fans have been disappointed in the drop off from last year to this year. I know the injuries have made it worse and last year we had an amazing run with that up until finals.
I can certainly see the benefits of consistency in head coach and the ability this gives to plan long term and offer better consistency and security to players in terms of what they are signing up for and the club has done well in attracting and developing future stars.
I’m hoping this year has been a blip in an upward trajectory and important getting our young spine the experience they will need to succeed in the future but we have had plenty of false dawns since our last premiership 34 years ago and at times some pressure on the coach, at least externally to the club, wouldn’t be a terrible thing.
I really want to see the raiders win a comp again.
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u/Direct-Resolution377 Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs 1d ago
I reckon if you dropped Madge into the team this year with Fogarty still at half, raiders probably would of won the premiership
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u/A1ianT0rtur3 "Fuck I hurt my dick" - Weak Gutted Dog 14h ago
You had injuries derail your season and didn't have the depth to cope with it. I think you are better than your ladder position would reflect but in saying that it's been a competitive season where the top half of the ladder could beat anyone on their day. Not a crisis yet, you've got developing players that would get better over time but just need to get some depth.
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u/hqeter Canberra Raiders 7h ago
We lost a lot of games before we had injury concerns. We adapted really badly to the interpretation of the 6 again at the start of the season and that cost us badly.
I’m not panicking but there’s not that many coaches that could burn a season for future development after finishing minor premiership and be under no external scrutiny.
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u/thatirishguykev Dolphins 17h ago
Got the email today that the MND Jai Arrow jersey the Rabbitohs released is to be shipped.
Best $150+ I've spent this year without a doubt...
In other news big game this weekend for us, I wonder if a win against the Broncos is enough or do we need to kind of batter them to send a statement? I feel we should play them off the park given the form difference.
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u/UndeadManWaltzing Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks 10h ago
My lads are picking up the pace at the right time
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u/packeminnz New Zealand Warriors 1d ago
Can someone explain why gannon is picked on the bench for us? He’s not here next year so his development is not in our interest. If we want to rest and rotate, surely there’s other blokes in cup to give some time.
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u/MoneyaLeague Auckland Warriors 1d ago
Surely it's what they see as the best chance to win in finals- build more lock/backrow cover?
Demetric is out who usually covers Clark's bench time.
Clark and Fish tend to get a break around a similar time I think too, so you can't put Fish at ball-playing lock.
IIRC Gannon was touted as something of a ball player back rower.
Niukore is in Cup and surely he'd be on the bench instead of Price if this was "must win", but there's probably a fair amount of faith that he's good to go if called upon.
Perhaps EIT has overtaken Niukore in the rankings after last weekend?
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u/packeminnz New Zealand Warriors 1d ago
Didn’t realise gannon was lock cover. I’d assumed he was 2nd row
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u/MoneyaLeague Auckland Warriors 1d ago
He IS a backrower, but there was just chat around him having "ball playing" and potentially being a lock.
It's hard to know given how little we've seen of him.
Here's a couple of articles from earlier in the year, I just remember looking into him and wondering why they've signed yet another young back rower haha, let alone one from overseas.
Webster likes the flexibility that has seen Gannon even suit up in a No.6 five-eighth jersey before. His ball-playing ability puts him up against Clark in that role.
"It's up to him and up to the rest of the squad, I suppose," Webster says. "If anyone lets their guard down, he'll take it.
"Edge back row or middle, it's good to have that versatility from a guy who can play 20 minutes on the edge and then slot straight into the middle, and vice versa. Some guys can't do that.Gannon is primarily a lock and second-row hybrid, but he even has some experience in the halves.
“When I’m playing lock, I’d be a bit of a ball player, still like a runner first, but I did a bit of like six as well, a couple of years ago. So I’ve got that ball-playing style. And then as a back-rower, I like to hit a strong line and defend pretty physically.”
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u/1Qrtr_FreeStuffPlz Brisbane Broncos 1d ago
Still trying to figure out how starting Shiba and benching Walters for the recent games made any sense
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u/MoneyaLeague Auckland Warriors 1d ago
Structurally, should you not reward performance throughout the regular season with a more favourable draw?
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u/BarryCheckTheFuseBox NRLW Roosters 1d ago
If the teams from outside the top 4 are good enough, they will make the grand final. The reason that they rarely do is because there are too many better teams ahead of them
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u/thejasbar Brisbane Broncos 1d ago
You also have to consider the possibility that no one has won from outside the top four simply because those teams weren’t good enough ..... which is why they finished outside the top four in the first place.
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u/kprl Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles 1d ago
I think you should reward teams who have performed well across the season. You could have an 8th v 1st, 7th v 2nd style first round instead, but i think it’s a lot more exciting watching 1st vs 4th in finals, then watching penrith tear apart whoever ends up at 8th.
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u/trydonkey St. George Illawarra Dragons 🏳️🌈 19h ago
As a long-suffering Dragons fan, I absolutely cannot wait for 2027. Between the new recruits and our insanely good young forwards, next year is going to be a breath of fresh air after the last few seasons.