EOL now nesting on the GC
Official NRL commentator of the UK Royal Family
Premium Member
Tipping Member
Wow. OK let's dance.Barrett's inability to coach isn't a fact, it's an opinion. Who is to say Barrett's coaching and DCE's on field performances are mutually exclusive events ? Likewise the effect of Fainu drama on our season, subjective opinion. Turbo's game frequency is fact, and if anything proves who the key player in this team is as our win rate drops through the floor without him in side. Irrefutable FACT is we have won 3 finals games since we put all our eggs in DCE basket. 3 finals games in 10 years.
You are clearly a massive DCE fan, which is fine by me. Personally I think he has been decidedly underwhelming since 2015 backflip. No amount of quoting his 2011 premiership and his 2013 Clive Churchill medal is going to change my opinion that since we signed him on an 8 year deal he hasn't delivered enough to justify the amount of money we spent on him. He's not elite, he's just a better than average NRL half that only looks good behind a dominant team. That's my opinion and I'm not trying to pass it off as fact. The only fact I can give you is that we haven't won a premiership for 13 years.
I would expect most to agree TB isn't a coached arsehole. That's a fact. When TB arrived he did an article in the DT that stickers in my mind to this day. In it he talks about how he wants to change DCE's game into that of a Thurston type. Apparently because he was a attacking master back in his day TB was 100% assured it would make DCE a much better player. Surprisingly DCEs form throughout the TB years was Luke warm at best. So yes I'd say there is a pretty strong link between TB's lack of coaching ability and DCE's dip in form.
The manese situation had a huge effect on our side. Firstly the situation itself was bad enough but we also let go appi to accommodate the little toerag. That in itself is a pretty huge issue. All of a sudden we went from 2 quality no.9s to zero.
You talk about the last 10 years and putting all our eggs in the DCE basket. Ever heard of a rebuilding phase that never quite succeeded thanks to basketcase owners and a propensity to self emplode? When Des returned we made a semi and a prelim final in 4 years. the other 2 years were marred by the manese failure and covid rule changes.
sure i like DCE but if he wants to go that's fine too. What's not fine is to try and pin 10 years of club level failure on one guy who has hardly missed a game. Look at Reynolds at souths. A stacked team for many years and only 1 premiership. Out injured more times than I can remember. Was it all on Reynolds that souths was a failure?