Worst Coaching Decision Ever?

[Les Tricolores]

Whilst it was a poor decision I don't think it's even been Trent's worse this season, let alone ever. (let's not forget the genius idea of Toops being on the bench in a final) He compounded the problem this season by moving players out of their optimal positions to fill the hole he created by dropping Walker.

The worst coaching decision in the history of the club? I have no idea what it is - I thought the treatment of Wingy by Ricky signing Finchy was real bad and likely ended up costing us 2 premierships and a three-peat but it's not like we still shouldn't have won at least the 2004 Grand Final, we were a 20 point better team in that first half and should have buried the Dirty Dogs.

Freddy's final season was obviously a disaster but he got stitched up by a whole bunch of players that didn't deserve to wear our colours so I don't blame him for his whacky selections such as Anasta at full-back etc.

Opes one marker ploy?

I dunno, not the dropping of Sammy but it's been a bad one.

Freddy that night in Townsville was indeed a worthy mention for all-time mistakes

[Les Tricolores]

Bob Fulton owns this.
Waiting to a semi final to decide to experiment by moving Marty Gurr to 5/8 and Schubert to fullback.

There aren’t that many great historians here or men (or women if so) who understand the history and context of the club better than most… you are certainly one of them

I have followed the club firsthand for around 40 years… so I just caught the end of Bob-as-a-Rooster years

It’s all a little hazy now but Marty was my favourite Rooster as a boy (hence the profile pic)… a very good fullback… but not someone I would ever envision as a 6

Thanks for the anecdote… much appreciated

[SamKerrSimp]

Being forced to play Maubs and Matto in the centres is what cost us that game. I recall the Cows having a field day running fast backs at our slow centres.

Aubusson and Matterson had been the centre pairing for at least 1 month maybe 6 weeks before that game.

[Lydon]

Whilst it was a poor decision I don't think it's even been Trent's worse this season, let alone ever. (let's not forget the genius idea of Toops being on the bench in a final) He compounded the problem this season by moving players out of their optimal positions to fill the hole he created by dropping Walker.

The worst coaching decision in the history of the club? I have no idea what it is - I thought the treatment of Wingy by Ricky signing Finchy was real bad and likely ended up costing us 2 premierships and a three-peat but it's not like we still shouldn't have won at least the 2004 Grand Final, we were a 20 point better team in that first half and should have buried the Dirty Dogs.

Freddy's final season was obviously a disaster but he got stitched up by a whole bunch of players that didn't deserve to wear our colours so I don't blame him for his whacky selections such as Anasta at full-back etc.

Opes one marker ploy?

I dunno, not the dropping of Sammy but it's been a bad one.

Finch at no.7 over Wingy in 2003 was a criminal decision by Stuart..

I will never get over that!

[SamKerrSimp]

Dropping a 20 year old who was out of form with directions to go and work on a specific aspect of his game was not a bad decision overall and much has been exaggerated about it we are just unlucky he was unfortunately injured which could happen in any game at any training. It’s not even the worst decision made by Trent Robinson ever or even in the last 12 months.

roosterproud mentioned it earlier but the one marker defense by Chris Anderson was atrociously bad. Teams will occasionally use one marker for a tackle or two here and there but to do it as a main strategy was awful and showed Anderson was past his use by date and Politis made a terrible knee jerk reaction signing after missing his man.

Brad Fittler playing Braith Anasta at fullback was obviously a terrible decision but Freddy did explain he wanted to see Anasta run the ball more as he wasn’t doing it at the time and I still believe he strategically chose that game against the best kicking half in the comp at that time to put the pressure on Braith to start running the ball and I believe he half heartedly played fullback to show Freddy to be a fool.

Trent Robinson hasn’t made too many bad decisions but training Blake Ferguson all off season at fullback with the aim of easing a young Latrell Mitchell in the first grade on the wing for a year only to go back on the decision after Ferguson had a shocker in the first half of round 1 is certainly one of them.

Choosing Jackson Hastings over James Maloney was another one and arguably the worst decision Trent Robinson has made he was just very lucky that Luke Keary suddenly became available but maybe the Hastings decision came from above the coach.

Brian Smith dropping Mose Masoe for the 2010 grand final for Lopini Paea who had barely played that season was a poor decision.

Anthony Minichiello playing 5/8 was a move that made no sense at all.

Letting Rod Silva go mid season and lighting up for the Bulldogs on their march to a premiership hurt but I can’t recall if he had already signed for super league by then.

I don’t think that Craig Wing was “done dirty” by Ricky Stuart signing a halfback and playing him at hooker, Wing was dynamite at 9 and the teams attack was unreal as was the NSW attack he was only the halfback in 2002 once Paul Green suffered a season long injury the problem was that he choose a halfback who had done nothing in the league for 5-6 years if he signs someone that isn’t his mate the move works out well. Stuart played Finch at 9 and Wing at 7 a lot which was the really dumb part.

I also don’t think the Daniel Tupou on the bench in the preliminary final was that bad considering the injuries the team had he clearly was trying to give him some minutes in the hopes of winning the game and playing the grand final

[NorfolkStreetKid]

Buying brett Finch and letting Craig wing go have to be right up there.
Buying Brett Firman and Letting jamie Soward go.

[roosterchook]

If Walker deserved a wake call after the Sharks game, then our so called senior leaders in Radley and Keary are 2-3 years overdue a wake up call.

This is where it reeks of something else. Radley was the worst offender = not dropped. Next the $5 million wonder boy. Couldn’t tackle, let in tries = not dropped. It took the MRC to suspend both these players. Why didn’t leadership apply the same rules to Rads and Suualii that it did to Walker and they played far worse? It’s a bogus excuse that no one in Rugby League bought. And I suspect that decision caused team disharmony by forcing players to play out of position. Walker and not doing anything about Rads & Suualii are the worst decisions definitely this year. We probably will never know the real reason.

[Eggspert]

Dropping Sam Walker before the Anzac Day game was a horrible decision by Robinson!

On top of that,likening Drew Hutchison to Mitch Aubusson in the press conference was utter embarrassment and made me start questioning what Robinson is actually seeing..

So looking at the results after that,I can’t say I’m surprised..

Spot on.

Apart from injures the rest is all on Robbo for the season we are having.

His inability to have the team playing decent from Rd 1 with a whole off-season to prepare is telling. This play yourself slowly into a season is a poor excuse for the coaching staff.

Then him isolating Walker as the sole problem for our form has really backfired along with his persistence with the positional changes.

Robbo has said this is on him & he has to do better as a coach. Talk is cheap, time to walk the walk.

Anymore of this stuff next year then I'm convinced we will never be a premiership threat under Robbo anymore.

[HunchoRooster]

Some not so excellent trips down memory lane from some posts on here, which is great. Exactly why I started the thread, I wanted to get some perspective and it shows that maybe Robbo's ploys aren't truly up there as the worst.

With that said... to those still saying the Sam Walker dropping had merit... at face value, YES it has merit. Dropping a young halfback for playing low percentage footy in a couple of key games is worthy of a spell. Whilst I wouldn't have dropped Sam, I get it. What annoys me is that Robbo said he needed to spend time running a side to get his game in order, YET after the Manu at 6 experiment completely failed within a week, he tried to bring Walker back into the side. Seems like a lot of people are missing this... yes the injury is not Robbo's fault but he literally said a week prior, that Sam needs time to develop his game management by running the ressies side for a while. Then he recalls him (only to be ruled out injured) after only 40mins of reserve grade footy... That proves Robbo had no idea what he actually wanted from Walker and that something deeper was the reason behind the dropping.

If we are dropping players on form, attitude, role they've played in our season sliding off a cliff, then there are a line of people ahead of Sam. Luke Keary is close to the front of the line, Suaalii at Centre, FARRRK me. He needed to knee someone in the head to get taken out of our side. Radley being a complete liability. Angus checking out and looking a shell of himself. All valid reasons to drop ahead of Walker.

Anyways, regardless of the Sammy situation, I enjoy these discussions. Plenty of dud decisions over the years. Investing in and persevering with Finch is a big one for me.

[Thirteen]

Anyone who thinks Walker was dropped for poor form has rocks in their head.

[Chook2]

Certainly robbo has stuffed up a lot of this season
what we can’t control in injuries
and Angus critchon which was issues out of his control this season

what he can is everything else
the form of most player is down bar a few
playing players out of position, especially worsening their position and then not performing for weeks is a down right catastrophe

players are not performing individually and some have gone backwards, while the team looks like they don’t know each other and have not improved, have actually gone backward since wins v eels and south’s early on

we are heading into round 18 and robbo finally admitted he still can’t answer questions from months ago about our attack and defence
rugby league is a pretty simple game, hold onto the ball and win territory and possession is a big start

why is teddy overplaying his hand, why is Manu not roaming and why was he at 6 for so long, he has ruined suaali and putting walker under the pump in front of everyone while teddy can’t do wrong is down right disgraceful
the bloke has been good but the last couple of seasons he has messed out chances failing to start the season well

it’s round 18 and he still has no idea
a team of champions and not a champion team, so many rep players and such an underperformance

out club rugby side coach would hate if we as a non professional side wasn’t clicking by round 4 or so, these guys are professional and paid very well to do so, what the hell are they doing all week? Apart from living in the past glory

[bondi paul]

Professor Robinsons appointment and choice of his ex water boy as his assistant and attacking coach totally insane.

[Les Tricolores]

Some not so excellent trips down memory lane from some posts on here, which is great. Exactly why I started the thread, I wanted to get some perspective and it shows that maybe Robbo's ploys aren't truly up there as the worst.

With that said... to those still saying the Sam Walker dropping had merit... at face value, YES it has merit. Dropping a young halfback for playing low percentage footy in a couple of key games is worthy of a spell. Whilst I wouldn't have dropped Sam, I get it. What annoys me is that Robbo said he needed to spend time running a side to get his game in order, YET after the Manu at 6 experiment completely failed within a week, he tried to bring Walker back into the side. Seems like a lot of people are missing this... yes the injury is not Robbo's fault but he literally said a week prior, that Sam needs time to develop his game management by running the ressies side for a while. Then he recalls him (only to be ruled out injured) after only 40mins of reserve grade footy... That proves Robbo had no idea what he actually wanted from Walker and that something deeper was the reason behind the dropping.

If we are dropping players on form, attitude, role they've played in our season sliding off a cliff, then there are a line of people ahead of Sam. Luke Keary is close to the front of the line, Suaalii at Centre, FARRRK me. He needed to knee someone in the head to get taken out of our side. Radley being a complete liability. Angus checking out and looking a shell of himself. All valid reasons to drop ahead of Walker.

Anyways, regardless of the Sammy situation, I enjoy these discussions. Plenty of dud decisions over the years. Investing in and persevering with Finch is a big one for me.

Yeah you’re 100% right Huncho

Robbo just throwing sh*t at a wall and seeing what sticks… a very uninspiring coach these days

[Random Rooster]

Some not so excellent trips down memory lane from some posts on here, which is great. Exactly why I started the thread, I wanted to get some perspective and it shows that maybe Robbo's ploys aren't truly up there as the worst.

With that said... to those still saying the Sam Walker dropping had merit... at face value, YES it has merit. Dropping a young halfback for playing low percentage footy in a couple of key games is worthy of a spell. Whilst I wouldn't have dropped Sam, I get it. What annoys me is that Robbo said he needed to spend time running a side to get his game in order, YET after the Manu at 6 experiment completely failed within a week, he tried to bring Walker back into the side. Seems like a lot of people are missing this... yes the injury is not Robbo's fault but he literally said a week prior, that Sam needs time to develop his game management by running the ressies side for a while. Then he recalls him (only to be ruled out injured) after only 40mins of reserve grade footy... That proves Robbo had no idea what he actually wanted from Walker and that something deeper was the reason behind the dropping.

If we are dropping players on form, attitude, role they've played in our season sliding off a cliff, then there are a line of people ahead of Sam. Luke Keary is close to the front of the line, Suaalii at Centre, FARRRK me. He needed to knee someone in the head to get taken out of our side. Radley being a complete liability. Angus checking out and looking a shell of himself. All valid reasons to drop ahead of Walker.

Anyways, regardless of the Sammy situation, I enjoy these discussions. Plenty of dud decisions over the years. Investing in and persevering with Finch is a big one for me.

Walker was dropped for the ANZAC day game RD 8 against St George which was won by 1 point. Walker played in the NSW Cup Rd 8

A week after in Rd 9 we beat the Warriors away by 14-0. Walker played in the NSW Cup Rd 9. That was the game he got injured

The "experiment" as you call it, had not "completely failed" at that point and there was no suggestion that Walker was going to be brought back into the side after winning the first 2 games without him

[Random Rooster]

Yeah you’re 100% right Huncho

Robbo just throwing sh*t at a wall and seeing what sticks… a very uninspiring coach these days

Huncho was 100% wrong-and so are you.