What we need for our club to be a success

[melon....]

The longer we delay an announcement the more chance of him not signing. Personally I dont think he's coming.

[Thirteen]

Smith would have won comps too if he had the big 3 (and previously the big 4 with Inglis) in his side.
Bellamy is a good coach but he did nothing with his opportunity with NSW.
As for the suggestion of Taylor as coach...I think he's very smart but with his history I don't know if he's the right personality to lead the club.

[Guest]

Great first post, agree with a lot of what you have said.

Firstly on recruitment the club certainly seem to agree quite strongly with your philosophy on recruitment, just in the past few years we've seen a few 20's rejects join our squad and make a name for themselves; Linnett (unwanted by the Dragons), Takarangi (unwanted by Souffs) & Arona (unwanted by Penrith).

Then there's some fringe first graders who we've signed that have given us great value in; Bosden, Mitchell, Mortimer, Graham, Conn & Guerra.

There's no doubt we're getting far better value from this sort of recruitment than previous high profile signings.

On SBW, I agree whole heartedly... I'd rather play under the salary cap next year than sign him. Awesome player, I have no doubt he can return to Rugby League successfully but it's just shooting ourselves in the foot for the obvious reasons you've already stated.

As for the patience you call for, again I agree I just fear it wont come. A lot of supporters can't accept the fact that Brian Smith who was brought in to give the club the clean out it needed and get it going in the right direction should be given more time to do it again 2 years later. There's a good chance we'll be looking at going from a Grand Final... to 11th.... to an even dire result this year. It's really hard to defend that sort of record and the club will be under massive pressure to do so.

It'll be interesting to see if the club show the same sort of support Brisbane showed Bennett when the majority of Broncos fans wanted him sacked in 1991.

How is it that bosden has given "great" value as you suggest when he has only been used once in first grade by mastercoach smith.

He might provide good value down the track potentially but to suggest that he has already given us great value is laughable.

The club wont give smith the same support that the bronx gave bennett because there is a big difference between the two coaches. One of them, the players love to play under, the other is the opposite.

[Guest]

The longer we delay an announcement the more chance of him not signing. Personally I dont think he's coming.

Are you talking about sbw or someone else?

[The Rooster Oracle]

Smith would have won comps too if he had the big 3 (and previously the big 4 with Inglis) in his side.
Bellamy is a good coach but he did nothing with his opportunity with NSW.
As for the suggestion of Taylor as coach...I think he's very smart but with his history I don't know if he's the right personality to lead the club.

No disrespect mate but i really can't agree with you there. Bellamy was not handed Slater, Smith, Cronk and Inglis as established rep players, they were no bodies when first starting out at the Storm and Bellamy turned them into stars!! I strongly believe that those 4 players would not have turned out as good as what they are if they had Brian Smith coaching them the whole time. Brian Smith coached sides choke in grandfinals anyway!


Just look at what Bellamy is doing at the Storm this year and last year with a perfectly legitimate side. Minor premiership last year and one coming up again this year, and most likely a premiership this year as well!! It shits me to tears when people on here give Bellamy absolutely no credit at all for the Storm's success!!!!! Slater, Smith and Cronk can not do it all themselves, it is a 17 man game. The big 3 are surrounded by quite a few nuffies who Bellamy has the incredible ability to get the very best from them. Brian Smith does NOT have this ability, instead Brian has the ability to stall and even hinder players progression such as what we are seeing with Pearce, Friend, Masoe etc etc etc. Anasta is playing the worst football of his career under Smith!!

What we need is to not waste another year next year. Do absolutely anything/everything necessary to get Bellamy for next year. Do what the dogs did with Hasler, if we announced the signing of Bellamy for 2014 later this year, October for example, then the Storm just like Manly may feel compelled to let Bellamy go a year early.

[Guest]

No disrespect mate but i really can't agree with you there. Bellamy was not handed Slater, Smith, Cronk and Inglis as established rep players, they were no bodies when first starting out at the Storm and Bellamy turned them into stars!! I strongly believe that those 4 players would not have turned out as good as what they are if they had Brian Smith coaching them the whole time. Brian Smith coached sides choke in grandfinals anyway!


Just look at what Bellamy is doing at the Storm this year and last year with a perfectly legitimate side. Minor premiership last year and one coming up again this year, and most likely a premiership this year as well!! It shits me to tears when people on here give Bellamy absolutely no credit at all for the Storm's success!!!!! Slater, Smith and Cronk can not do it all themselves, it is a 17 man game. The big 3 are surrounded by quite a few nuffies who Bellamy has the incredible ability to get the very best from them. Brian Smith does NOT have this ability, instead Brian has the ability to stall and even hinder players progression such as what we are seeing with Pearce, Friend, Masoe etc etc etc. Anasta is playing the worst football of his career under Smith!!

What we need is to not waste another year next year. Do absolutely anything/everything necessary to get Bellamy for next year. Do what the dogs did with Hasler, if we announced the signing of Bellamy for 2014 later this year, October for example, then the Storm just like Manly may feel compelled to let Bellamy go a year early.

I agree with your comments. Get bellamy and hopefully the storm may let him go early. If they dont, then put taylor in charge for the interim period. I also highly doubt that smith, slater and cronk would have stayed their whole careers at the one club had smith been their coach - they would have been out of there after a while sick of the silly childish mind games that smith cant help himself playing on even his own players.

[Thirteen]

No disrespect mate but i really can't agree with you there. Bellamy was not handed Slater, Smith, Cronk and Inglis as established rep players, they were no bodies when first starting out at the Storm and Bellamy turned them into stars!! I strongly believe that those 4 players would not have turned out as good as what they are if they had Brian Smith coaching them the whole time. Brian Smith coached sides choke in grandfinals anyway!


Just look at what Bellamy is doing at the Storm this year and last year with a perfectly legitimate side. Minor premiership last year and one coming up again this year, and most likely a premiership this year as well!! It shits me to tears when people on here give Bellamy absolutely no credit at all for the Storm's success!!!!! Slater, Smith and Cronk can not do it all themselves, it is a 17 man game. The big 3 are surrounded by quite a few nuffies who Bellamy has the incredible ability to get the very best from them. Brian Smith does NOT have this ability, instead Brian has the ability to stall and even hinder players progression such as what we are seeing with Pearce, Friend, Masoe etc etc etc. Anasta is playing the worst football of his career under Smith!!

What we need is to not waste another year next year. Do absolutely anything/everything necessary to get Bellamy for next year. Do what the dogs did with Hasler, if we announced the signing of Bellamy for 2014 later this year, October for example, then the Storm just like Manly may feel compelled to let Bellamy go a year early.

You make a lot of sense and your point is taken.
Bellamy does develop his players well.
I'd happily have him at The Roosters.

[Guest]

Great first post, agree with a lot of what you have said.

Firstly on recruitment the club certainly seem to agree quite strongly with your philosophy on recruitment, just in the past few years we've seen a few 20's rejects join our squad and make a name for themselves; Linnett (unwanted by the Dragons), Takarangi (unwanted by Souffs) & Arona (unwanted by Penrith).

Then there's some fringe first graders who we've signed that have given us great value in; Bosden, Mitchell, Mortimer, Graham, Conn & Guerra.

There's no doubt we're getting far better value from this sort of recruitment than previous high profile signings.

On SBW, I agree whole heartedly... I'd rather play under the salary cap next year than sign him. Awesome player, I have no doubt he can return to Rugby League successfully but it's just shooting ourselves in the foot for the obvious reasons you've already stated.

As for the patience you call for, again I agree I just fear it wont come. A lot of supporters can't accept the fact that Brian Smith who was brought in to give the club the clean out it needed and get it going in the right direction should be given more time to do it again 2 years later. There's a good chance we'll be looking at going from a Grand Final... to 11th.... to an even dire result this year. It's really hard to defend that sort of record and the club will be under massive pressure to do so.

It'll be interesting to see if the club show the same sort of support Brisbane showed Bennett when the majority of Broncos fans wanted him sacked in 1991.

it is ridiculous that in his 3rd season at the club, that the excuse is that smith needs more time to clean out or re-build the club. What was he doing in the first 2 years other than getting paid a million bucks? He needs to get a different broom if he hasnt cleaned up come the start of the 3rd year. The pyramids were built quicker than how long it takes mastercoach smith to clean out or rebuild the club.

[melon....]

Are you talking about sbw or someone else?

In this case SBW. Bellamy is never coming.

[Headless Chook]

it is ridiculous that in his 3rd season at the club, that the excuse is that smith needs more time to clean out or re-build the club. What was he doing in the first 2 years other than getting paid a million bucks? He needs to get a different broom if he hasnt cleaned up come the start of the 3rd year. The pyramids were built quicker than how long it takes mastercoach smith to clean out or rebuild the club.

Not supporting Smith here, as I can take him or leave him to be honest, but when players sign 3, 4 and even 5 years deal can you not see that it might take more than 2 years to have things sorted?

[Guest]

Not supporting Smith here, as I can take him or leave him to be honest, but when players sign 3, 4 and even 5 years deal can you not see that it might take more than 2 years to have things sorted?

sorry but that makes no sense.

Are you saying that if we signed a kid to say a 10 year deal then we need 10 years to rebuild?

[Cockadoodledoo]

But to answer my question, I reckon all we need is..... patience. If you look at all the dynasties of past Melbourne,and recently Manly, one thing in common with them is that they invested in talented youngsters in the important positions and filled the rest of the positions with no name (no frills) fringe first graders. I know many of you will have differing opinions but you can't tell me that guys like Daniel Conn and Phil graham didn't do a good job for us in 2010. We have a huge list of potential stars in the U20s. I reckon the best decision made in the last 5 yrs was bringing in Taylor as the 20s coach.

The point I'm trying to allude to is that we cannot buy SBW. regardless of the impact he will make in his short space of time at our club , he will soak up all our money (like that other sponge Mr Anasta) and banish promising 20 year old to future greatness at other clubs. Honestly when Anasta announced that he was leaving our club I could see a little light at the end of the tunnel. I don't hate him, just pity him, anyway thats a convo for another day and another thread.

It is vital we develop future stars and get them playing with each other for a long period of time 3-4 yrs , and at the same time use Moneyball ratings, like the swans, to sign any potential fringe first graders who might have impact and fill the void until the future stars peak. I'm not a big fan of the AFL but the swans have made the top 8 every yr for a while now, so there must be some logic behind this idea.

I'm not sure who reads this blog and whether anyone associated with the club reads this forum, but honestly every time I see someone like shillo or even winterstein the other night killing us, it makes me sick in the stomach.

We need strategies and plans, not just patience.. Supporters of every club thinks their U'20's has a huge list of potential stars. The trouble with that thinking is one, most clubs don't and secondly this sort of thinking keeps being repeated so as these players come into first grade and dissapoint the reaction is to wait for the next batch of U20's to come through and the cycle keeps being repeated. I agree with promoting and buying youth but you cannot ignore signing experienced players.

[Cockadoodledoo]

I agree Player1, we do need to sign some players particularly in key positions like 1 and 9. However using an example from last year: Parramatta went "looking for a spark" so they signed sandow, for , I dunno 500K. 6 weeks into the comp they've just realized that they've thrown 500k away. Had they purchased the top 5 U20 halfbacks in 2011 , they wouldn't had spent more than 400K all together.

Honestly, I've seen us make some stupid buys over the last 10 years, and it would kill me if we spent the reported $800k on a player who turned out to be a lemon. It's too high risk go large on one player. If you sign 7 emerging first graders you can say statistically that at least 4 of them, will go on to better things. I reckon that's why so many clubs have such young squads these days. I don't ever remember the roosters fielding a team with only 2 players above 25. I think with a better youth system( toyota cup) players going through to NRL are a far better standard than before and this means that they can outshine older 25 years olds who end up getting $$ in superleage uk.

If they did this, 4 would be rotting in park football and the 5th probably doing worse than Sandow. He isn't the only problem there, I think he is indicative of the problems the club has a whole from top to bottom.

On your comment about thinking 4 out of 7 emerging first graders make it. I would think it would be at best 1 or 2.

[Guest]

it is ridiculous that in his 3rd season at the club, that the excuse is that smith needs more time to clean out or re-build the club. What was he doing in the first 2 years other than getting paid a million bucks? He needs to get a different broom if he hasnt cleaned up come the start of the 3rd year. The pyramids were built quicker than how long it takes mastercoach smith to clean out or rebuild the club.

Fred, the unfortunate downside of making the Grand Final in 2010 was that it delayed the re-building effort because the club started to believe that the success from 2010 was sustainable. If we had have been beaten in the Tigers game (which was a bee's dick away from being the case) then Smith may have been able to continue with the building strategy - my observation was that has put us back a little on re-building.

My other observation is that the club remains committed to the strategy of long term success through developing youth over short term success. I suspect you may be disappointed if you believe that Smith is about to be sacked.

[Guest]

Fred, the unfortunate downside of making the Grand Final in 2010 was that it delayed the re-building effort because the club started to believe that the success from 2010 was sustainable. If we had have been beaten in the Tigers game (which was a bee's dick away from being the case) then Smith may have been able to continue with the building strategy - my observation was that has put us back a little on re-building.

My other observation is that the club remains committed to the strategy of long term success through developing youth over short term success. I suspect you may be disappointed if you believe that Smith is about to be sacked.

he wont be sacked soon because they cannot afford to pay out over million dollars to him for nothing.

but behind the scenes they are looking around for a new coach and that should tell you that they have much less confidence in smith than you seem to do.