I think a lot of people hate the recruitment decisions around Chad (and pass that hate on to him). They wish we'd signed a star half instead because they want us to be a team that has a star half that runs the show.
Unfortunately the Sharks made a conscious decision to spend on a cheaper lower ceiling half and spend the saved money elsewhere to compensate.
No amount of you hoping we/he plays better makes Chad capable of being a better half and that was virtually known when we extended him.
We did not sign Johnson for 800-900k and Chad to 520k with the assumption Chad was going to be the better or equivalent player.
We did not sign Woods, Graham, Dugan, Fifita, Moylan and Johnson all to larger deals than Chad with the expectation Chad should still be able to standout as a halfback with most of them under performing
if even on court.
I also think attacking Chad's control of our game plan as something you think you should be able to see Chad doing is laughable.
When Chad is credited regularly by coaches and commentators for controlling the team that is not something demonstrated by him doing flashing things you can see, it's just executing the game plan, working towards different areas and using his mediocre kicking game as best he can to have opponents starts sets roughly where we want.
We come out of bad games where we barely have the ball and people complain about Chad not leading the team around and they clearly have no idea what that even looks like or when it is possible (hint: you need to have possession).
Eg people attacked him earlier in season for repeatedly kicking to same two players where there was a perfectly logical explanation why we would game plan to kick to them (and one was a fullback the other game a winger so not like he just kept hitting same spot two games in a row).
The suggestion of things like he has a pea heart are stupid, he tries his mediocre arse off. Not being able to consistently stop NRL players one on one is a skill many many NRL players have, not just Chad.
Stopping NRL quality players is ****ing hard. You can definitely fail at it for lack of ability rather than for lack of heart. I also wish he was better at this, and perhaps with a winning team and more confidence he could be a bit better at this still, but so could the rest of our team.
Chad is mediocre in all facets and his best skill is something we can't readily see (and that will get him no credit when things are going good) but at the end of the day he was recruited to be a cog in the team, not the star, and that is about the best you can hope for him.
For some reason a lot of people still wish for the star and blame him for not being it.
If you understand there are very few halves around dominating behind beaten packs (with make shift backs) and still want to criticise his decision making or wish he could kick better sure, it is what it is, but sure.
Bemoan the recruitment decisions, hope we can get a star half in the future, no worries, so do I.
But it's not his heart holding him back and tbh it's not really Chad holding us back at the moment either, we know he can play well in a winning team (ie as a cog), we also know he can't in a losing team. But he will try the whole time he is sucking.
A little hypoglycaemic but other than that I'm ok, thanks.
Don't let Israel Falou hear you say that!