Opinion
Adam O’Brien is in his third season as the Newcastle Knights’ coach and he hasn’t been crash hot.
He went from winning the Knights’ opening two games to seven losses in a row. There were horror losses at home, so many online coaches think Newcastle have a bad coach.
I do have a few questions that I will ask and answer myself.
Are the Knights still rebuilding? While I’m at it, I have another question to add here: is Die Hard a Christmas movie?
Both those questions may be about two different topics and the answer to both are the same: absolutely not!
The Knights were rebuilt by Nathan Brown. He brought the team back to the community, helped them signed marquee players and got them out of the trench.
Are the Knights going backwards?
This question has been asked a lot and realistically, they are not.
(Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
Losing Mitchell Pearce was a massive blow but he wasn’t going to stay forever. Let’s be real here, he’s not immortal.
When Jayden Brailey returns, the Knights’ first-choice captain will show the required leadership the team needs.
Kalyn Ponga may have improved in that category but needs more time.
Can Newcastle still make the finals?
They do have a chance to do so but Newcastle still have got a mountain to climb and they need to show much more than we’ve displayed in the first half of the season to get there.
What’s the long-term goal for Adam O’Brien?
He didn’t come to Newcastle to sell girl scout cookies, he came here to coach the Knights.
He came into town off the back of Nathan Brown, who successfully completed his rebuilding mission.
The Knights’ coach has a mission to help the club become a powerhouse team, bring a winning attitude into the team, help raise as many juniors as possible into thaat winning attitude, have the team and coaching staff he wants and give the fans a team to be proud of.
That won’t happen overnight and it will take more than just three years to get there.
He’s bringing up the juniors from the mindset of rebuilding into the mindset of winning, hiring some young Englishmen, signing some young recruits and as time goes on they’ll become better as a team.
What should the fans do?
Simple. The fans need to back their team, stop talking about sacking the coach and cut the crap out with the online bashing.
The Knights’ team need to show they can keep on going and I was very impressed with how well they played on Saturday.
Being down by ten in less than ten minutes, they came back from being 12 down to tie it up at the break and two brilliant tries to Enari Tuala helped them take the win 24-16.
When Newcastle actually capitalise on their chances and not blow it, they can get the job done, which is exactly what they did.
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