No apologies required. He fooled plenty of people. I'm first to admit that on his day he is a great running half when behind a dominant team. What he isn't is an elite NRL halfback that can run a team and turn a game on his own skill. He's just an average to good NRL halfback, who I would put in the "try hard" bracket. Thinks he is great, tries to emulate the real good skillful players but just comes up short. Lacks the finesse and the natural footy brain.
He has very little subtlety in his ball playing, 8 times out of 10 its a hard face ball that could be caught by backrower, centre or winger. Not sure he knows a lot of the time either. How he hasn't managed to unlock Guaca on that edge shows me he isn't a natural ball player. He rarely takes on the line, and his junk dish off inside ball to a flat footed forward is sad. Good backer upperer though, and I'd say a fair chunk of his tries have come from that.
Sure he has kicked field goals to win us close games, but I've maintained for many a year that an elite halfback would have closed out over half those games before they got to golden point. Looks good on his resume though and makes a nice Insta post when you are the clutch hero.
His kicking game is diabolically inconsistent. Where he truly lost me was a few seasons back when we were behind in games and he started grubbering the ball into touch like that was a tactic that would score us points. His other favourite hiding place is getting into dummy half late in games when something needs to happen and he doesn't know how to make it. Clueless.
But what has always annoyed me most about DCE in this place, is the mentality of those who can't separate his paypacket from his skillset. He gets paid a lot of money therefore he must be good - what a thought process. That's not DCE's fault by the way, nor is how much we are paying him to be honest. But really ?? Actually watch the guy week in and week out and see how he isn't even in the top 10 best players in the NRL, let alone getting paid for years as THE highest money earner in the game.
Then come the excuses.... our pack is hopeless, we don't have a good 5/8, the coach is ****, Tommy is injured, we need a better dummy half, other teams target him, ........ they are endless. You could write a book on them. He tried his guts out though and never got injured in 10 years. He's really eloquent and a free thinker according to some. Like all that's worth $1.2mil a season to his fan club. I don't want a "brand" that talks in the 3rd person, I want someone who can win me some footy games.
In 10 - 20 years time when they talk great halfbacks of the NRL era, they'll mention Johns, Thurston, Cronk, Cleary and maybe some others. You can guarantee that DCE won't feature in any of those conversations.
His contract was the single worst contract that this club has ever entered into. Period. Look at the results over the last 10 years since he backflipped and we started paying him a fortune. This is the leanest run in this great club's history and it is no coincidence it has been while he has been at the helm. He suckered management as well.
But it's over now, and I'm kind of happy that more posters here are seeing the light. I will shout out
@jbb/james though, he has been willing to fight the good fight more than I. I didn't have the patience anymore after the idiots extended his contract for 2 more years. Too many chess playing pigeons.