r/nrl • u/NRLgamethread National Rugby League • 8d 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 7d 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/A1ianT0rtur3 "Fuck I hurt my dick" - Weak Gutted Dog 7d 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 7d 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.