Official 2026 NRL General Discussion

CrazyMatt said:
Agree to disagree on that. All three are basket cases, but the two merge clubs have their noses in front.
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At least Merge have made the finals and won a GF, they've had something to cheer about. Gold Coast on the other hand....
 
There’s a lot of talk around about the St George Illawarra merger atm.

A lot of people are angling towards the merger itself is the problem. That going it alone is the silver bullet.

They could easily still be stinking it up individually, or worse, they could be like North Sydney fans.

I know it’s easy as a Sharks fans to say it, but they honestly need to move on from their separate identities. They are St George Illawarra whether they like it or not.

It’s been 27 years of the merger. I heard a fun fact the other day. If you’re someone who is 30-32 years old, grown adults, you don’t remember the Illawarra Steelers.

As the great Stuart Macgill said - Move on.
 
Mr Ryan said:
There’s a lot of talk around about the St George Illawarra merger atm.

A lot of people are angling towards the merger itself is the problem. That going it alone is the silver bullet.

They could easily still be stinking it up individually, or worse, they could be like North Sydney fans.

I know it’s easy as a Sharks fans to say it, but they honestly need to move on from their separate identities. They are St George Illawarra whether they like it or not.

It’s been 27 years of the merger. I heard a fun fact the other day. If you’re someone who is 30-32 years old, grown adults, you don’t remember the Illawarra Steelers.

As the great Stuart Macgill said - Move on.
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Doesn't help that both the club and fanbase want to claim st George's history but ignore Illawarra's

Atleast after this year they'll have to stop claiming they've never won a spoon
 
Mr Ryan said:
As the great Stuart Macgill said - Move on.
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And how did that turn out...

If you think about all the mergers in the last 30 years:

1. North's/ Manly - didn't work. They at least ripped the band aid off after a year or so.

2. Wests / Balmain - whilst they won a competition 2005, they have really been a basket case at an administration level. Even just last off season they sacked Ritcho.

3. St George / Illawarra - they were lucky enough to start with a super strong team and made GF in 99. Out of the three mergers, they seemed to be the one club which seemed to work ok (on the surface).

However, the more they have declined over the past 10 years the more dirty laundry has come out.

For example, Mary come out recently and said when he was head coach, he was one of three (him, A St George rep and an Illawarra Rep) who selected the team each week. How ridiculous that a head coach didn't have full autonomy over the run out side!

Bennett was a bit of a saviour for them (short term) has he basically told everyone to leave him alone. Unfortunately, he left the club in a shambles salary cap wise.

So my take on all this is that mergers don't work.
 
apezza said:
And how did that turn out...

If you think about all the mergers in the last 30 years:

1. North's/ Manly - didn't work. They at least ripped the band aid off after a year or so.

2. Wests / Balmain - whilst they won a competition 2005, they have really been a basket case at an administration level. Even just last off season they sacked Ritcho.

3. St George / Illawarra - they were lucky enough to start with a super strong team and made GF in 99. Out of the three mergers, they seemed to be the one club which seemed to work ok (on the surface).

However, the more they have declined over the past 10 years the more dirty laundry has come out.

For example, Mary come out recently and said when he was head coach, he was one of three (him, A St George rep and an Illawarra Rep) who selected the team each week. How ridiculous that a head coach didn't have full autonomy over the run out side!

Bennett was a bit of a saviour for them (short term) has he basically told everyone to leave him alone. Unfortunately, he left the club in a shambles salary cap wise.

So my take on all this is that mergers don't work.
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siebold apparantly wasnt involved in recruitment and retention. how a head coach ever signs off on that i never will understand
 
bort said:
I don't even think he is doing it fulltime, and his name being bandied around is probably more because he is mates with all the media
But if he wants to fill some part time work I'd love to get him in to do some extra work with Blayke
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Yeah, even if it was a few months until Freddie gets here. Can't hurt to have some new ideas around the joint.
 
bort said:
I don't even think he is doing it fulltime, and his name being bandied around is probably more because he is mates with all the media
But if he wants to fill some part time work I'd love to get him in to do some extra work with Blayke
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I’d like to get him in to do some extra work around making this mob fire up.
 
bort said:
Current state of the game I'd take disciplined and focused over fired up
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I don’t mean running out like lunatics seeing red. Just get them to take it personally and try and erase those lethargic starts to games. I’ve heard many players talk about how Ennis just knew how to get the best out of them on game day.
 
Capital_Shark said:
I don’t mean running out like lunatics seeing red. Just get them to take it personally and try and erase those lethargic starts to games. I’ve heard many players talk about how Ennis just knew how to get the best out of them on game day.
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Matt Prior's story about Mick from the 2016 final in Canberra was damn inspirational.
 
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