NRL great PAUL GALLEN will appear on Nine’s 100% FOOTY every Monday night of the NRL season, debating rugby league’s hottest topics alongside Phil Gould and James Bracey. Tune in tonight on 9Gem at 7.30pm (AEST) following a bumper round 22!
It was poor form from the Newcastle powerbrokers to let news leak of an approach to Justin Holbrook recently.
I’m not saying I have an issue with the approach itself – the club is well within its rights to explore options if the bosses wish to.
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But that information should never have been leaked to media, as it was on Sunday when Michael Chammas broke the story on Nine.
And don’t blame the media or the journalist for reporting on it – it is their job to find out information and write stories.
The people at the top of the tree have to be smarter than that, and realise the impact it could have on the team’s season.
For an example of how it should be handled, look at Gold Coast recently, where the Titans suddenly sacked Holbrook and announced Des Hasler as the new coach. No one knew anything about that until the club announced it.
It honestly could destabilise Newcastle’s run to finals, which is suddenly heating up after four straight wins, including beating the Storm and Raiders in consecutive weeks.
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It’s no secret the Knights weren’t going too well before this hot streak, and if the club wanted to see what other coaching options were available, then there’s nothing wrong with that.
Adam O’Brien has done an OK job at the club in his four seasons in charge. I wouldn’t say he’s achieved a hell of a lot, but they haven’t been terrible, so I’d say he’s been par for the course.
Whether that is good enough to keep him on is a decision for the club to make. If the Knights want to be playing semi-finals and be in contention for titles, maybe they need to look elsewhere, as they apparently have been.
But the timing of this story is certainly not ideal for the team, or for O’Brien.
They have just started playing good footy, and with the bottom half of the top eight up for grabs and a relatively soft run home, the Knights are looking like genuine finals contenders.
Watching how they’ve beaten the Storm and Raiders in the past fortnight, they look like a proper footy team. The halves are going well, Phoenix Crossland has come into his own at hooker, and they’ve got a good forward pack.
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Kalyn Ponga is obviously a superstar, and I think they really missed his X-factor last year when he was injured, and they finished 14th as a result.
Now he’s firing on all cylinders and you can see the players around him lift as a result.
The NRL competition is so tight this year that mathematically all teams down to 14th on the ladder are still in with a chance of playing finals.
Ponga gets Knights on the board
The Knights, Rabbitohs, and Sea Eagles are travelling well, while the Sharks are struggling a bit, and North Queensland got dusted up by the Titans at the weekend.
Newcastle has the Dolphins and Bulldogs in the next fortnight, as well as the Sharks and Dragons on the run home.
At the moment you would be backing the Knights to win at least three of those games, and that might be enough to get them into the eight.
Whether they have enough class to trouble the likes of Penrith and Brisbane in September, though, I’m not too sure.
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