Foz isn't the only one to praise Des before. Here's a comment from Michael Ennis in 2019
"He's got this unique way of being able to turn the whole competition against your club, where he instils this belief in amongst the group that no one rates them,"
"He builds this belief in his players through this incredible defensive system that he has and the backbone of it all is his work ethic [aka playing group**].
"When you're under Des' regime, you can try and surprise him and get to the club at half-past six in the morning but he's already there, and he never ever leaves before the players do. Then that work ethic becomes infectious in the group.
Defence was always a hallmark of Des coached teams but this playing group has shown time and time again that they aren't built for that. They crumble.
The 7 players have already exposed that the playing group is still not there yet in terms of personalities and committment. To write off Des Hasler's coaching credibility despite recent success with him just seems impulsive to me.
Here's another from Ennis that did infact point out his time at the dogs had run dry, but he still lists many positive things about him that suggests he has the ingredients, just not the right audience;
“I would’ve liked to see Ivan Cleary go to the Bulldogs and Des Hasler go to the Wests Tigers when all that happened,” the veteran dummy half said.
“I think the Wests Tigers – at that stage coming off the Jason Taylor tenure – I thought the Tigers, with that young group of players, could’ve really developed under Des.
“With how good he is with putting structure and discipline and process in place"
“I thought they ran a bit dry at Canterbury and it was time to go.
So yes, Des can 'go stale', but the problem isn't that he's a bad coach. We weren't stale 8 weeks ago.
Weed out the players that are uninterested (at least Taupau out is a good start) and freshen the place up without tearing down its foundations. We need some new players who will return the loyalty Des shows them. Des, however, does need to accept that new coaching staff are needed to to keep the place fresh.
I don't want to see us become one of the 6 or so bottom 8 teams recycling our head coache for fun, losing their identity along the way.