What I hate and laugh at at the same time is that some of us, and yes I will toot my own horn here (settle down and stop laughing people), some of us have been saying for close on 3 years that Barrett's actual coaching at Manly has left a lot to be desired for the most part. Yet only now in the past week or so has it become obvious to [some of] those in the media and they're like "Wow, maybe he's not such a great coach". Yet they still only seem to see it because he's coming across as a whinger.
A lot of us saw the deficiencies from Round 1, 2016, but we could forgive back then as he literally was a rookie coach and the belief was that he would learn and quickly. But he seemingly hasn't learned much other than to play the blame game in the past 3 seasons (well, he did play a year or two under Ricky Stuart at Cronulla). And he's still making the same 'rookie' mistakes in 2018 that he made in 2016 and expected them to work.
The guy played his top grade career, including rep football, under some of the best coaches not only of their time, but ever. Coaches like Tim Sheens, Wayne Bennett and even Brian Smith, plus he's had constant access to other supercoaches like Bob Fulton and Phil Gould. He's had 22 years worth of experience in top flight football (he made his debut for the Illawarra Steelers in 1996) both in Australia and the UK. Yet for the most part, in the past 3 years Manly has looked like a team being coached by a rank amateur.
With some of the players he has had available at Manly both in experience and quality....Daly Cherry-Evans, Tom and Jake Trbojevic, Martin Taupau, Dylan Walker, Blake Green, Akuila Uate, Api Koroisau, Joel Thompson, Trent Hodkinson, Jorge Taufua, Curtis Sironen, Darcy Lussick, and up and comers like Brian Kelly, Moses Suli, Addin Fonua-Blake and Shaun Lane, plus the likes of Steve Matai, Brett Stewart and Jamie Lyon.....our results should have been much better than just scraping into the Finals (only to be bundled out in week 1) in 2017.
The fact is that despite the player talent available to him, despite the fact that he has over 20 years worth of playing and coaching experience to draw upon.....he has failed as Manly coach. Failed to the point where if things go really bad for us this weekend the club could possibly end up with the first ever wooden spoon in our very very proud history.
To coin a catch phrase from the not so distant past......Trent Barrett, you are the weakest link. Goodbye.