The Adam O’Brien era as Newcastle Knights coach needs to come to an end. He’s taken them as far as he can. While they’ve had a decent run under his reign, making the finals in four out of five seasons, they’ve never looked likely to push for a title and have simply been making up the numbers in September.
The brilliance of Kalyn Ponga in years gone by has masked how poor this team really is. But that’s been laid bare this year, with Ponga playing like a shadow of his former self in recent weeks. This Newcastle side would struggle to score points against Sydney Shield teams running around local footy grounds.
The Knights are averaging just 13 points per game, and let’s not forget they scored 30 of those against a severely depleted South Sydney side in Magic Round, and 25 against Penrith last week (or should I say the Windsor Wolves). I’d argue that average of 13 points per game is actually inflated. Those are diabolical numbers, and simply not good enough.
While it’s not solely the coach’s fault, the players are on good coin to go out there and do a job, a lot of the blame has to fall on O’Brien’s shoulders. He hasn’t been able to settle on a reliable halves pairing for two to three years. That constant chopping and changing has clearly impacted the team’s attacking fluency and combinations. Their attack is as pedestrian as I’ve seen from an NRL side in a long time. Do they even train? Doesn’t look like it.
To his credit, he seems to have recognised this, and along with the board, has signed Dylan Brown, which will help. But that doesn’t excuse the fact that he’s not getting the best out of a side that boasts attacking weapons across the park. And if you’ve been watching Parramatta this year, you’ll know Dylan Brown isn’t fixing their issues on his own either.
With Mal Meninga looking like the favourite to land the Perth Bears job, I’d be taking a hard look at Sam Burgess or Brad Arthur to take over and rebuild this squad.
