Absolutely Pathetic

[Mark from Brisbane]

I think this is a real long term problem for the NRL. The way the game is played means no team is ever safe from a flogging on any given home game. No matter how much heart & effort a team may put in defensively, once the momentum is against you there is nothing you can do to stop it. So teams get flogged by 30 or you end up with silly games like last Saturday where 24+ lead can nearly get run down.

Often times fans & media bag teams for 'not turning up' or 'not putting in' but all it takes is one bad referee call or a dropped ball and next thing you know your down by four tries.

It is hard to put into words but i think there is something wrong with the way the game currently is. Fans won't roll up unless they think their team will be in a contest or at least be competitive.

There's no doubt like never ever before that the refs basically decide the game.

How many penalties, and more importantly where they are given often swings a game.

And those 50/50 decisions , it's funny but they always seem to go the way of the " favourite sides" , poor old Newcastle can't take a trick, us and the Tigers not much better.

You always find the losing side complaining about the refs, but watch a game where we aren't playing and watch it unfold, game after game after game.

I used to watch a lot of games each weekend, now only Manly and if the time suits Penrith, the rest......meh!!

 

[Brissie Kid]

ok i got bored so with Google I found out the ones in bold were Manly players.

O'Connell & Paskins made their debut for Manly as a captain-coach.

Pepperell was a pom. Lowe a kiwi.

GF winners: Willey, Stanton, Fulton, Hasler. Apart from these four men other Manly coaches to reach a GF were O'Connell 51, Arko 57/59, Hunter 68, Ritchie 82 & Toovey 2013.

No Manly team has ever made it to a GF under a coach who wasn't a Manly player.

JOHNSTON, Harold 1947
STEHR, Ray 1947-48
MULLINS, George - 1949
O'CONNELL, Wally 1950-52
BULL, Roy 1953
NORMAN, Ray 1954
DEVERY, Pat 1955-56
ARTHURSON, Kenneth 1957-61
WILLEY, Ron 1962
PASKINS, Tony - 1963
PEPPERELL, Russ - 1964-65
O'CONNELL, Wally 1966-67
HUNTER, George 1968-69
WILLEY, Ron 1970-74
STANTON, Frank 1975-79
THOMSON, Allan 1980
RITCHIE, Ray - 1981-82
FULTON, Robert 1983-88
THOMPSON, Alan 1989
LOWE, Graham 1990-92
FULTON, Robert 1993-99
SHARP, Peter 1999, 2003
HASLER, Des 2004-11
TOOVEY, Geoff 2012-15
BARRETT, Trent 2016-17

 

[Woodsie]

So, we have employed 14 ex-Manly players as coaches who have failed to win us Grand Finals. Or in other words 78% of ex-Manly coaches have been dismal failures.

 

[Ralphie]

So, we have employed 14 ex-Manly players as coaches who have failed to win us Grand Finals. Or in other words 78% of ex-Manly coaches have been dismal failures.

And the non Manly coaches 100% failure.

 

[Woodsie]

And the non Manly coaches 100% failure.

Considering that there have only been 4 of them, hardly a representative sample.

Remove Barrett because his time hasn't finished, leaves 3.

Lowe coached for 3 years with a win record of 57%. He made the finals in '90 and '91. In '92 he finished 7th but that was in the era of top 5 not 8. Lowe wasn't sacked, he retired due to ill health, so again not conclusive.

The only real dud was Sharp.

Not a lot of historical data to base an argument on.

 

[SeaEagleRock8]

Not a lot of historical data to base an argument on.

It's not so much an argument as a superstition.

 

[Fluffy]

We didn't lose to the top 2 teams if you're fair dinkum about it. We got our arse handed to us by St George, who are pretenders. Then we got our arse handed to us in the first half against Melbourne...we haven't played the Sharks or the Broncos yet.

The outrage and disappointment concerns the way we competed against these teams. To see that school boy defence on the left edge get exposed time and time again is embarrassing. It's also painful because the bubble was burst. We beat the Chooks and it looked like we had turned a corner only for us to dish up garbage again for the next fortnight. It's OK to lose to good sides, but you want to compete and be in the contest. Even at 30-26 it never felt like we were going to win that game and even if we did, I would have been disgusted at our defence in the first half.

We are mid table - exactly where most though our best position could be this year.

We handed the dogs their arses and the cows got spanked by us and the tigpies so must be 100% guaranteed wooden spoon favourites with the knights.

Being outraged at us performing as expected is just ludicrous and screams of gen Y now now now sooks.

We are re-building with a chance to push over the next few years if things continue to improve.

 

[Loobs]

Being outraged at us performing as expected is just ludicrous and screams of gen Y now now now sooks.

Nailed it!

 

[Snake]

We are mid table - exactly where most though our best position could be this year.

We handed the dogs their arses and the cows got spanked by us and the tigpies so must be 100% guaranteed wooden spoon favourites with the knights.

Being outraged at us performing as expected is just ludicrous and screams of gen Y now now now sooks.

We are re-building with a chance to push over the next few years if things continue to improve.

I think it screams of passionate supporters that get disappointed when the team gets smacked but if you want to conduct a social study, go ahead.

 

[Michael Clare]

I read somewhere that a psychological study was undertaken which backs up Mark From Brisbane's claim. The study (not NRL but overseas) showed that umpires, referees etc apparently have an unconscious hidden bias towards the side which they believed was going to win the match - hence the close calls so often going against the weaker side. We certainly see this tendency displayed every week in the NRL.

If this is true and not just psycho-babble, it has some interesting implications. For example, I'd like to see the kick for touch taken out of a penalty as a trial in the lower grades. This would help to slightly reduce referee's power to influence games. Way too many 50/50 penalties result in tries for my liking.

 

[Snake]

This 7 tackles from a kick that goes dead is rubbish as well. If you kick it dead, expect to be defending inside your own 20m off the next set.

It's kind of ironic the way the NRL change rules to play God with the way the game is played, only for the players to manipulate the new rule and introduce a new problem. The 7 tackle restart from a "dead in goal" kick was to prevent attacking teams from deliberately kicking the ball out to deny the great fullbacks in the game a chance to punish on the kick return; never mind that there is a sideline that has been used for the same purposes for over 100 years?!

Anyway, now what we have is teams deliberately surrendering the ball somewhere inside their own 20m zone to avoid giving the opposition a 7 tackle set from a kick that goes dead in goal. Instead of promoting the skills of astute last tackle plays that involve an assortment of kicks, we get the meek surrender.

Typical NRL always reacting to everything in an attempt to fix what is not broken when they really should be sorting out this disastrous player market.