I have heard that Mestrov won't ever consider any staff member to be completely "safe". Whether our CEO actually has any power or is just a puppet on the end of Penn's string, I don't know.
I don't know what the answer is with a replacement coach either. I disagree with the short-sighted suggestions of throwing in an untried coach Cronk or even Ciraldo. The reality is that for every Fitzgibbon, you are going to have a Justin Holbrook, Anthony O'Brien, Trent Barrett etc etc.
Let’s hope the first sentence of your post stands strong and Tony starts repairing our once proud club. I guess only time will tell, because looking from the outside in at the moment, it isn’t pretty and I have the feeling it’s worse on the inside.
Re the replacement coach statement, I guess we will get to see how Ciraldo goes at the dogs next year, at least they are moving on from the mess Des left behind and from that other useless twat that did his best to destroy our club. The Dogs have invested heavily in their recruitment, head of footy and now a new coach, if I was a fan, at least I could sense the club was moving mountains to make a difference.
I feel like we are now well and truly heading down the same pathway Des lead the Dogs down, things feel very stale, our lack of recruitment, overall professionalism and direction in terms of adapting to the modern up tempo footy both with the ball and without it are poor. I’m not sure Des is or will be the answer, either as our coach or as head of football, I feel his lost touch with the pace of the game, perhaps also from a generational perspective, the youth of today are more self entitled than ever before and for mine Des is very old school, I feel he plays favourites and let’s personality clashes interfere with his decisions. I respect that Des has achieved everything in the game and acknowledge his place in the both the game and our clubs history, even though I still find it hard to leave out what happened at the end of 2011.
I guess the club has 2 choices, either stick with Des and hope he leads us back to our glory days and not down the same path he took the Dogs or we take a pro active approach to freshening up and rebuilding our once proud club. Living in fear of signing another dud coach shouldn’t mean we stick with the under performing one we have, sure there’s risks, but Cronulla, the Cowboys, the Panthers, even the Donkeys and the vermin should tell you a different story. I just hope we don’t stick with the current set up and end up like Newcastle, the Titans and to a lesser extent but still on a similar pathway St merge and the The Raiders. I see Sticky, Des, and Hook as past it and heading into Holbrook and O’Brien territory, I think it’s well and truly time to seriously reassess and if that means being honest and putting the broom through the place then so be it, because its sure as sh!t not looking good at the moment and before anyone goes hanging their hat on 21, don’t bother.
I guess Des has next year to prove he can make a difference, he has to do it with pretty much the same roster, if we under achieve next year, I personally hope we clean the joint out and take the pro active approach, beginning with a new coach, new assistant coach, new head of football and something positive in the way of recruitment. As a life long supporter, it just doesn’t feel all that great at present and like all of us, I just want us back in contention to win not just a premiership but premierships, play finals footy and be a consistently serious footy side.
