Cameron
Make Manly Great Again #Hasler2019
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/nrl/nrls-new-brigade-young-rich-selfish/story-e6frexnr-1226347150040
New Brigade young, Rich, selfish
Andrew Webster
IN isolation, it wasn't the crime of the century. It never is.
Michael Jennings went out on Anzac Day with his brothers, had two alcoholic drinks while playing two-up at the Penrith RSL, then went home.
No harm done.
But Panthers coach Ivan Cleary had heard about Jennings' movements, and when he fronted him, the NSW centre could not understand what was wrong.
Two drinks, on a day when many young Sydney men would be getting home the following morning, was really nothing.
As Jennings might have pointed out, in the past he'd have stayed out all night. As he'd done before.
But the problem for Jennings was that he'd forgotten the club edict of not drinking alcohol while carrying an injury.
He'd forgotten that only last August he'd been forced to buy $44,000 worth of tickets and hand them to fans before their match against the Wests Tigers because he'd turned up to a training session the day before under the influence.
He'd forgotten that he'd been reprimanded as such because earlier in the year he'd been slugged $10,000 for drinking while rehabilitating from an injury.
He'd forgotten that Panthers general manager Phil Gould had sprayed him so much that Jennings' teammates are still talking about it.
Jennings had forgotten he was on his "last chance" and last week he'd painted Gould and Cleary into a corner. Do they sack their highest-paid player or give him another last-last-last chance?
Gould and Cleary managed to dodge the situation by reminding Jennings that he had to meet "certain obligations". Cleary says Jennings has his support. No dramas.
But why would Michael Jennings, humming along on $600,000 a year, do that? Maybe it's because he couldn't care less.
He's not alone.
There's an unspoken and unwritten problem in the game that coaches and officials and senior players will tell you about privately but dare not speak publicly.
As one NRL coach said to me recently: "I've never known a group of players to be so selfish. It's not about the team, it's about themselves. What's in it for me? What can I get out of the game? When I played, the team and my teammates were everything."
It goes beyond the tattoos and Twitter. You can finger it as a "Gen Y" issue, but you can't pigeonhole an entire generation. Young blokes have always been young blokes.
But coaches and players certainly talk about this present generation - not all, of course - of players as one different to the past.
The problem is, coaches are beholden to them. Because as Whitney Houston might have said, they are the future.
"Players are different, because we're allowing them to be different," says former hardman Gorden Tallis. "They can be different for 18 hours of the day. For the six hours they are with you, they have to fit in with you. I don't care how different they are: I don't care what he owns, what tattoos he wears.
"If you've got a great culture, it doesn't matter.
"If they don't fit in, you find someone else that fits in. You can't cheapen your culture."
It is not isolated to rugby league.
Wallabies superstar James O'Connor typified a growing mindset when he described himself as a "brand". Quade Cooper only signs one-year deals because it "motivates" him. To play for his country.
Meanwhile his Twitter feed resembles a blue-light disco.
Last year, Wallabies coach Robbie Deans brushed aside senior players to usher in a new generation, and boasted as much. The result was a World Cup car crash.
There's a yarn doing the rounds in rugby circles about a Melbourne Rebels star leaving jaws agape over his attitude at a team meeting a month ago.
During a team talk about strategy, a senior Rebel was talking about team strategy when the young fella told him to "shut up" and took over.
"I don't remember ever questioning a coach," says Brad Fittler, who had seen the emerging trend of Gen Y while coaching the Roosters.
"They do now. If you don't listen, the player might leave."
To that end, the player manager has become all-powerful. Footballers are "assets", and they snap them up in their early teens and farm them out to the clubs and coaches with whom them are aligned.
If their player becomes unhappy, the manager threatens to take the him elsewhere.
When Gavin Orr, the manager of Manly halfback Daly Cherry-Evans, asked for a release for the Dally M Rookie of the Year earlier this year, the issue reverberated with the Sea Eagles' senior playing group.
They took it upon themselves to make it very clear to Cherry-Evans they had worked for years to earn decent money. Says one senior player: "And here he was asking for the world - after one!"
Mastercoach Wayne Bennett has regularly dismissed the Generation Y theory, saying it is not an issue for him. He treats them all the same.
(Indeed, the spray the 62-year-old is said to have given the Knights players before their match against the Panthers shocked seasoned veterans in the dressing room).
Roosters coach Brian Smith has been coaching for almost as long as Bennett, and he offers this: "It's a challenge to deal with but in some ways the old greybeards have an advantage. The people who notice it the most are the ones who haven't been through it before. Some of us have been through it a couple of times. In our place, the younger blokes are as sensitive to and aware of the team's responsibilities as any of the older players."
Yet the young coach can't afford to be unpopular.
He often doesn't have the luxury of sacking their Next Big Thing.
Says Fittler, who had lost the playing group after losing support from above: "You can lose your job very quickly."
Smith - like many coaches - does believe the brashness and confidence of the present generation shows on the field.
The trend of high scores and a disregard for defence in the under-20s competition is starting to manifest itself in the NRL as the generational change begins.
Maybe Jarryd Hayne - the pin-up boy for Gen Y footballers - led the charge.
The Eels fullback makes about $1 million a year and looks like the best player in the world one minute, uninterested the next.
He tells others he is injured, but then says he is not. He does very little against the Wests Tigers, then effortlessly gets past four defenders to score. He turns up to a recovery session an hour late, says the team is playing in "fear", and then has his teammates deny it.
You sense Stephen Kearney is staring at the ceiling at night, wondering how to unlock the Hayne Plane, just as his predecessor Daniel Anderson did.
"He's a bloke under enormous pressure," says Anderson of Hayne.
 "He's not aloof. He's got that many strains and pressure and expectations on him. He's very high-profile.
"He's said to me that kids around the neighbourhood are knocking on his door. He's got to be wary of his people on the affect outside. In Parramatta, I didn't find many who were Gen Y."
Maybe we've got it all wrong. As one prominent NRL coach, who declines to be named, says: "The older they get, the more self-centred and less club-orientated. They expect everything for nothing, and they won't do anything for nothing. Younger blokes are grateful for their opportunity. They don't expect people to fall at their feet to do everything for them."
And maybe coaches need to start dealing with the young player like they once did.
A decade ago, when Gould was coaching the Roosters, a frustrated youngster approached him about not getting enough game-time.
"I'm sick of coming off the bench," the player said.
 "I want to start."
"Do you, mate?" said Gould. "When do you want to do this?"
"This weekend," the player said.
"No worries," said Gould.
When the teams were released, the player was shocked to see he was indeed starting. For Newtown. The Roosters' feeder club.
Â
New Brigade young, Rich, selfish
Andrew Webster
IN isolation, it wasn't the crime of the century. It never is.
Michael Jennings went out on Anzac Day with his brothers, had two alcoholic drinks while playing two-up at the Penrith RSL, then went home.
No harm done.
But Panthers coach Ivan Cleary had heard about Jennings' movements, and when he fronted him, the NSW centre could not understand what was wrong.
Two drinks, on a day when many young Sydney men would be getting home the following morning, was really nothing.
As Jennings might have pointed out, in the past he'd have stayed out all night. As he'd done before.
But the problem for Jennings was that he'd forgotten the club edict of not drinking alcohol while carrying an injury.
He'd forgotten that only last August he'd been forced to buy $44,000 worth of tickets and hand them to fans before their match against the Wests Tigers because he'd turned up to a training session the day before under the influence.
He'd forgotten that he'd been reprimanded as such because earlier in the year he'd been slugged $10,000 for drinking while rehabilitating from an injury.
He'd forgotten that Panthers general manager Phil Gould had sprayed him so much that Jennings' teammates are still talking about it.
Jennings had forgotten he was on his "last chance" and last week he'd painted Gould and Cleary into a corner. Do they sack their highest-paid player or give him another last-last-last chance?
Gould and Cleary managed to dodge the situation by reminding Jennings that he had to meet "certain obligations". Cleary says Jennings has his support. No dramas.
But why would Michael Jennings, humming along on $600,000 a year, do that? Maybe it's because he couldn't care less.
He's not alone.
There's an unspoken and unwritten problem in the game that coaches and officials and senior players will tell you about privately but dare not speak publicly.
As one NRL coach said to me recently: "I've never known a group of players to be so selfish. It's not about the team, it's about themselves. What's in it for me? What can I get out of the game? When I played, the team and my teammates were everything."
It goes beyond the tattoos and Twitter. You can finger it as a "Gen Y" issue, but you can't pigeonhole an entire generation. Young blokes have always been young blokes.
But coaches and players certainly talk about this present generation - not all, of course - of players as one different to the past.
The problem is, coaches are beholden to them. Because as Whitney Houston might have said, they are the future.
"Players are different, because we're allowing them to be different," says former hardman Gorden Tallis. "They can be different for 18 hours of the day. For the six hours they are with you, they have to fit in with you. I don't care how different they are: I don't care what he owns, what tattoos he wears.
"If you've got a great culture, it doesn't matter.
"If they don't fit in, you find someone else that fits in. You can't cheapen your culture."
It is not isolated to rugby league.
Wallabies superstar James O'Connor typified a growing mindset when he described himself as a "brand". Quade Cooper only signs one-year deals because it "motivates" him. To play for his country.
Meanwhile his Twitter feed resembles a blue-light disco.
Last year, Wallabies coach Robbie Deans brushed aside senior players to usher in a new generation, and boasted as much. The result was a World Cup car crash.
There's a yarn doing the rounds in rugby circles about a Melbourne Rebels star leaving jaws agape over his attitude at a team meeting a month ago.
During a team talk about strategy, a senior Rebel was talking about team strategy when the young fella told him to "shut up" and took over.
"I don't remember ever questioning a coach," says Brad Fittler, who had seen the emerging trend of Gen Y while coaching the Roosters.
"They do now. If you don't listen, the player might leave."
To that end, the player manager has become all-powerful. Footballers are "assets", and they snap them up in their early teens and farm them out to the clubs and coaches with whom them are aligned.
If their player becomes unhappy, the manager threatens to take the him elsewhere.
When Gavin Orr, the manager of Manly halfback Daly Cherry-Evans, asked for a release for the Dally M Rookie of the Year earlier this year, the issue reverberated with the Sea Eagles' senior playing group.
They took it upon themselves to make it very clear to Cherry-Evans they had worked for years to earn decent money. Says one senior player: "And here he was asking for the world - after one!"
Mastercoach Wayne Bennett has regularly dismissed the Generation Y theory, saying it is not an issue for him. He treats them all the same.
(Indeed, the spray the 62-year-old is said to have given the Knights players before their match against the Panthers shocked seasoned veterans in the dressing room).
Roosters coach Brian Smith has been coaching for almost as long as Bennett, and he offers this: "It's a challenge to deal with but in some ways the old greybeards have an advantage. The people who notice it the most are the ones who haven't been through it before. Some of us have been through it a couple of times. In our place, the younger blokes are as sensitive to and aware of the team's responsibilities as any of the older players."
Yet the young coach can't afford to be unpopular.
He often doesn't have the luxury of sacking their Next Big Thing.
Says Fittler, who had lost the playing group after losing support from above: "You can lose your job very quickly."
Smith - like many coaches - does believe the brashness and confidence of the present generation shows on the field.
The trend of high scores and a disregard for defence in the under-20s competition is starting to manifest itself in the NRL as the generational change begins.
Maybe Jarryd Hayne - the pin-up boy for Gen Y footballers - led the charge.
The Eels fullback makes about $1 million a year and looks like the best player in the world one minute, uninterested the next.
He tells others he is injured, but then says he is not. He does very little against the Wests Tigers, then effortlessly gets past four defenders to score. He turns up to a recovery session an hour late, says the team is playing in "fear", and then has his teammates deny it.
You sense Stephen Kearney is staring at the ceiling at night, wondering how to unlock the Hayne Plane, just as his predecessor Daniel Anderson did.
"He's a bloke under enormous pressure," says Anderson of Hayne.
 "He's not aloof. He's got that many strains and pressure and expectations on him. He's very high-profile.
"He's said to me that kids around the neighbourhood are knocking on his door. He's got to be wary of his people on the affect outside. In Parramatta, I didn't find many who were Gen Y."
Maybe we've got it all wrong. As one prominent NRL coach, who declines to be named, says: "The older they get, the more self-centred and less club-orientated. They expect everything for nothing, and they won't do anything for nothing. Younger blokes are grateful for their opportunity. They don't expect people to fall at their feet to do everything for them."
And maybe coaches need to start dealing with the young player like they once did.
A decade ago, when Gould was coaching the Roosters, a frustrated youngster approached him about not getting enough game-time.
"I'm sick of coming off the bench," the player said.
 "I want to start."
"Do you, mate?" said Gould. "When do you want to do this?"
"This weekend," the player said.
"No worries," said Gould.
When the teams were released, the player was shocked to see he was indeed starting. For Newtown. The Roosters' feeder club.
Â
