Bearfax
Grizzly old fart
I don't think anyone can have a go at DCE individually. I think that's way too harsh. I think he's part of a collective (and behind a well beaten forward pack mostly).
What upsets and frustrates me is our marquee / leadership group in total. They've let us down. 10 years for 3 finals appearances (winning just 30% of those finals).
The three turbo brothers may never play in a GF, let alone win a premiership. Then there's DCE, and he's shown with good players around him, he CAN do it (2011), Origin, Australia etc.
I wonder though, who IS out marquee players, and / or leadership group? What have they achieved at club level together ? Is it good enough ?
Yes three marquee players but also a lot of very average first graders, some who try hard but don't offer the necessary platform for success. Then one of the marquee players has played less than 50% of the games in the past five years. 12, 7, 18, 7, 11 games played out of 23 games each year (just under 48%). So really its two players, with the third a cameo. That's no criticism of Turbo. Injury is just part of the game and often unavoidable. Just showing Manly has not had the team around those Marquee players to make a sufficient impact.