Young coaches? Thats comedy gold right there.
The problem we have with the 'premiership window and the rebuild' theory is that it lets the coaches off the hook.
In my view, and I admit I'm not getting paid a million a year to come up with excuses as to why we are underperforming, a coach should be capable of getting the best out of the players he's got. A brilliant coach would get the best out of the players he has and be innovative in his methods.
What we get are coaches who say 'we don't have the cattle to do this'. That translates to "we don't have the players to do this the only way I know how and I can't figure out another way".
When we had attacking players, we had to rebuild, rejig, restump, rebulldust them to be able to play a defensive, work intensive, lock down style of play. In other words, play harder not smarter. But we started out from the default position of 'not having the cattle'
The rules changed and now 'we don't have the cattle - again'. Apparently we will never have the cattle if we are always 2 seasons behind the game. Remember that bit about innovative. At a million bucks a season I think a bit of innovation is hardly a stretch.
Another bit of innovation would be addressing deficiencies that even the mug punters can see. You know, little things like players being able to hit a target 25 meters away. Its a radical proposition but there ya go. Things like not picking guys whose kicking skills are below par and have stayed that way without being addressed (I'm looking at you Sutcliffe, Dawson etc) Things like not addressing skill deficiencies...ever. Things like not bombing blindly into the forward 50 because we have no structure that provides tall marking forwards actually in the forward. We currently have 3 marking forwards with reasonable tanks and no game plan that uses their mobility to lead into vacant space. Oh and things like not kicking backwards into our defensive 50 before we invariably turn it over.
Wow, all those radical ideas that are somehow simple common sense yet have evaded our 'young coaches' for how many seasons? If you are taking a million a year to do a job, you should be expected to produce a million bucks or value. Buggered if I can see anything even resembling an attempt at anything like that.
