Douglas Black wrote:
I don't want to be a top 4 team, I want to win Grand Finals. Something radical had to happen. It is awful at present, but I think we have to hold our nerve a little longer.
I've been a pretty consistent supporter of Powell. I think the club has been in a mess long before he rocked up and was desperately in need of radical overhaul. My expectation for him this season was to steadily root out the slackers and to at some point (certainly by now) to be showing signs of an improvement for future success. The only time when I believed pressure should be put on his role was if we were showing genuine signs of being relegated.
Sadly, I now think we have reached that point. For whatever reason, it just isn't happening. I don't believe he has become a bad coach overnight, I'm just beginning to suspect that he is the right man in the right place, but unfortunately at the wrong time.
I honestly think any coach would have struggled with our squad this season - there is a demise there that has been set in for quite a while (probably September 2019 onwards) and it has been allowed to fester to the point where we have been this season - Powell rightly saw that demise, but his solution has been perhaps just too radical. Right idea, wrong method of carrying it out.
So, what do we do now? Part of me wants us to hold our nerve and let him ride it out, but at some point I think we need at least one more win and just how late do we want to leave it if that win isn't forthcoming?
There is then the question of who to bring in?.. the obvious is to go back to Tony Smith, but is that a short term measure to keep us up, or do we bring him back for the long term?
I'm just rambling now, but it really is a situation where its difficult to be certain what the right thing is to do. It's just so frustrating that a club with so many resources at his disposal, which gives them such an advantage over many of its rivals, can make such a mess of how it is managed.
