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.
Beastie
Roar Rookie
"Now I have a machine gun. Ho Ho Ho" If that's not from a Christmas movie, I'm not here. :stoked: :laughing:
mushi
Roar Guru
Die hard is a Christmas movie. Christmas is central to the story line of reuniting the broken family. There are Die Hard Christmas sweaters. The fact you ask demonstrates that it is inexorably linked.
Prince
Guest
We have had plenty of opportunities but just lacked the polish to shine in finishing those opportunities. Sometimes it comes down to the players on the field, coaches coach and players play and if players are not turning those opportunities into points it can hurt a player or for that matter a team. Confidence builds morale, morale creates trust, when trust builds up in strength amogst your team mates it becomes very infectious and if we can start to build up towards that then anything is possible for th knights. As for O'Brien when you have played the game rugby leauge like i have you can tell cetain things and whats for cetain in my opinion the players he has on his roster all respect him and speak highly of him and from what i see as a fan and a footy player i would and could play for a coach such as him. Again its my personal opinion but do you think certain players would sign or stick around if he was the coach.
Prince leutogi
Guest
The fact is we started very strong and it all went south in the 28th 30th minute against penrith when enforcer barney Mitchell Barnett was sin binned for foul play. I love the way this guy plays and i sincerely believe he is not a dirty player. A hard man yes but a grub he is not. Also to add injury to insult we loose a player as well in the same game to injury and in those incidents it led to our first of seven losses in a row. We were right up for this fight against penrith and unfortunately it didn't go our way. Not to mention the injury toll we suffered throughout those seven games. It well and truly could of been a different senario if those incidents didn't occur during our first loss of the season. I'm a firm believer of the fowards laying a platform for your backs and halves to score and create opportunity but it all starts in the middle and key injuries and suspension to our forward pack didn't help our cause. We also had injuries with backs too but i felt the depth we had in our backline was pretty strong. Having a bye this week came at a perfect time for the novacastrians and getting kurt mann back will really stiffin up the middle and believe you me if we have our full strength team all available and firing towards the end of the season and in the top 8 Newcastle will be the team to watch. You heard it hear first.
Choppy Zezers
Roar Rookie
Mitch Pearce was okay but the team was clunky even when he played. The knights can't build pressure in attack and their defence at times is absolute Duffish. Buying the likes of Clune, Elliott, Hetherington etc. doesn't solve the spine problem. Phoenix doesn't solve the problem. Nor does Tex. Maybe Cliffmilf will be able to build something but if they don't I'm not sure how much time AOB will have.
Phil
Roar Rookie
I agree with Forty Twenty that O'Brien will be trying to save his job. Coaches, like players have levels of talent, some good, some not so good and unfortunately for Newcastle O'Brien is in the latter.. His ego may be a problem after two reports of him in public questioning people as to who he is. On field results are evidence of something amiss in his team. Looking at them play, there are times when the players don't know what to do and that comes back to coaching. They should be doing much better having four SOO reps in their pack and two in the backs. There hasn't, to date, been any comment saying O'Brien has the full backing of the board but Phil Gardner did say he hopes Adam will be there for years to come. Time will tell.
Forty Twenty
Roar Rookie
Hanging on to his job would be the goal now. That's about it.
jimmmy
Roar Rookie
The jury is still out on OBrian imo. My preliminary thoughts are that the Knights have backed the wrong horse. Its really hard but I reckon year two is the crunch year for a coach. He may not have the total roster he wants but he should be putting HIS team together and the results should begin to show that. Have the Knights improved under A OB? . That's the question.
Dutski
Roar Guru
Elf The Santa Clause Stacks of terrible Christmas movies
Dutski
Roar Guru
Agree ZBS. It is a Christmas movie and there are worse ones out there
Choppy Zezers
Roar Rookie
Hi King You raise an interesting point. Die Hard is probably a Christmas movie as much as Bad Santa. It's not one you put on Christmas Night to watch with the whole family, but there's plenty of worse Christmas movies you could watch (Kirk Cameron Saves Christmas, for example).