The fractures that plagued Canterbury in the best part of a decade have shattered Trent Barrett, and if Phil Gold could not bring unity to Belmore, no amount of spending on high-paying recruits would solve their ongoing problems.
Barrett decides his own future as Canterbury coach, before the club’s top officials decide whether he will stay in the role. For the second time in his five-year coaching career, he walked across the board before pushing along Gangplank.
For the third time in five years, the Bulldogs have parted ways with a coach in critical circumstances after Des Hasler and Dean Pay were shown the door to busy Belmore.
Gold, who was brought in as general manager of football last year, told the media on Monday that there was “a lot of push, a lot of grief at the club” when Barrett told him he did not think he should continue at the club. The role after the start of the club’s 2-8 season is that they are in last place again and another wooden spoon is looming on the horizon.
Phil Gold (Photo by Mark Metcalfe / Getty Images)
“I was not going to fire him. I think performance and stress, he just got this feeling that he probably has no solution for what is going wrong. It was a very difficult discussion, it was very raw and he poured out his heart, “Gold said.
“He kept his heart in this work and for any decision he wanted to put an end to speculation on the board and he made the decision.
“It’s been a tough few weeks. It’s never good when a coach loses his job like this or thinks he has to resign, we all think we have failed.
“There has been a lot of speculation in the media in recent weeks, with a lot of pressure on the club and a lot of pressure on Trent. You have to ask the reason for running this kind of agenda. In the end it takes her toll and she has a life to lead and a family and other priorities to look after her.
(Photo by Jason McCully / Getty Images)
Gold said Barrett was “not well” when he spoke to her on Sunday night and she decided on her own terms.
When Hasler was sacked in late 2017, the club’s top men said they needed someone with “Bulldogs DNA” so Pay, a former club captain who worked as an apprentice to riders under Ricky Stewart, was given a gig.
Three years later, Pay leaves mid-season in the current mess-like situation involving Barrett. He inherited a medium roster but can only collect medium results with 19 wins out of 57 matches.
Barrett, after reaching the finals once in three years in Manly and then reviving his career as an assistant as Penrith’s attacking mastermind, is expected to restructure the Dogs but he has won just five of 33 as his overall record has come down to 34 wins in 106 games. A 32% success rate.
As a fifth-eighth, Barrett was skilled and talented, you wouldn’t play 235 NRL matches and not represent the NSW in 11 origins and Australia in 15 Tests unless. But if you do not work hard, you will not reach that height.
He began his career at the Illawara Steelers in the mid-1990s and quickly learned from the Blue-Collar Club that hard work was the most valuable product.
Even when the Steelers teamed up with the Dragons to become one of the glamor clubs, Barrett retained that underdog mentality and rarely surpassed his teammates in terms of sweating time or intensity on the training paddock.
Gold, who was sure Barrett would pop up again as NRL coach, said the work ethic was still bright despite the results at Canterbury.
“Trent is a young coach as good as I’ve seen him come through the system, he’s probably in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he said. “She is very confident in her abilities and she works very hard. As the hardest working young coach I’ve ever met, I can’t blame him. “
Gold said there was no chance in the world that he would return to the coaching ranks. He will appoint an interim coach from within the club within the next 24 hours, meaning former riders mentor David Ferner is a potential candidate to take charge while battling team-mate West Tigers at Lechhart Oval on Friday.
NSW coach Brad Fitler, who had a long association with Gold since his return to the 1991 Premiership win in Penrith, has been added to the vacancy in Belmore.
North Queensland has a number of former first-grade coaches looking for new jobs, including 2015 Premiership-winner Paul Green and 2016 Grand Final winner Mentor Shane Flanagan.
(Photo by Ian Hitchcock / Getty Images)
Flanagan’s son, Kyle, was sent back to the Canterbury NRL squad in a controversial round 5 but his form was unpleasant due to poor dog scoring points, which again proved to be the magic for their 16-6 loss to Newcastle. Round opener on Friday night.
After choosing who will be the interim and full-time coach, Gold’s to-do list is still long.
His first task is to ensure that the boardroom is united for the course this time around and that the managers will not run the coach again with a three-year contract to save their own skin. If Gus can’t get that guarantee, it would be no surprise if he moved away from Canterbury as he did in Penrith when it was clear that the board was not on the same page with him.
The next is the constantly evolving roster make-up. Panthers International William Kikau and Ellis star Reed Mahoney are coming to Canterbury in 2023, along with Josh Addo-Carr, Matt Burton, Tevita Pangai jnr, Brent Naden, Paul Vaughan, Mat Dufty and Braidon Burns.
Dafty and Vaughn were offered a one-year contract, and based on their current form, the Bulldogs are unlikely to offer them an extension.
Vaughan Gold distributed a spray to reporters on his way out of Belmore, after canceling training on Monday and instructing players not to speak to the waiting media until Wednesday, as he left Belmore: “Do you have to stay here? You are the worst kind of person. “
First of all, this is the same Paul Vaughan who hosted a barbecue at his house last year which not only ruined the chances of St. George Elvara’s final but also he was fined a lot and his contract was canceled so the journalists present deserve to ignore him. Opinions about ethics.
And second, Gold told them to keep their mouths shut because what they said would add fuel to the firestorm.
The Dogs have a lot of willing forwards and some decent outside backs if they are fed the ball in the right place, Burton will only run five-eighths with the right organized halfback and Flanagan doesn’t seem to be that player. .
Mahoney is a hooker, Kikau is another second-rower to add to their pack. The pay cap for next year is already tight but Gold needs to find a playmaker who can lead the team back to halfback as Adam Reynolds did to revive Brisbane.
If not, it doesn’t matter who will be the coach next year, because they will fail just like Hasler, Pay and now Barrett.