Cowboys coach Paul Green has built a team stretching its limits in race for the NRL premiership
HAVING built a team from spare body parts lying around, Paul Green has performed a miracle. Live blog with PAUL KENT from 1pm.
Opinion
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WHEN Paul Green emerged from Frankenstein’s lab after Saturday’s win, having just built a team from the spare body parts lying around, he gave a small insight into the value of trusting the game plan.
“It doesn’t matter what everyone else believes, it matters what we believe,” he said.
What, exactly, do the Cowboys believe?
“There’s plenty of proof through the year that, regardless of who we have played, at different stages in those game we have shown that we have had the game to worry the opposition.
“And you can throw anyone into that category, any team.”
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The Cowboys have emerged as the great story of these finals.
After getting smashed by injury throughout the season they fell into the finals only because Canterbury upset St George Illawarra in the final round but, now, with an unlikely shot, they are being coached to their limits.
You have to be impressed by what the Cowboys are doing.
Green is doing the kind of job the Titans are hoping to land as they continue the interview process to find next year’s coach.
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Titans chief executive Graham Annesley dismissed suggestions the job is anywhere near being decided despite whispers the job is already down to a race between two.
“We’re not going through the process to make it look like we are going through a process,” Annesley said.
“We didn’t go into the process with a preferred candidate, so we’re genuinely open to the interviews unfold.”
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Annesley wants to appoint the coach before the players return in November. It is critical the list is whittled down for the board to consider before their next meeting in October.
The Titans have no better opportunity to determine what they need in a coach than by looking through the four coaches left standing in the NRL.
All four remaining have valid claims to be named Dally M Coach of the Year when it is announced next week.
Craig Bellamy set the benchmark this season. The Storm were clear minor premiers and are short-priced favourites to win it all.
Bellamy has built at Melbourne what every other team strives to achieve. No team is more consistent or persistent. The Storm, as has become popular, do not beat themselves.
Trent Robinson took the team that ran 15th last season and added Luke Keary to it and improved them 13 places on the ladder to finish second.
Few truly appreciate the job Robinson has done at the Roosters.
The remarkable part is that, after winning the minor premiership the first three years of his career, Robinson realised the Roosters had come to the end of their run and needed to regenerate the roster.
This takes tremendous self-discipline.
The obvious comparison is Canterbury, who stretched the 2012 grand final team into the 2014 grand final and then tried to prolong it for one more shot, only for it to collapse this season.
The Roosters took their medicine last year and rolled over their roster and Robinson has them a game away from the grand final just a year later.
Wayne Bennett lost the dressing room at season beginning and, apparently, found it again right where he’d left it.
Few tipped the Broncos to make the top four and some even had them out of the eight, but Bennett steered them to third, their great strength this season being the Melbourne-like quality of not beating themselves.
And then there’s Green, Dr Frankenstein.
Who wins Coach of the Year is usually determined by what is happening at the time voting closes.
With each week of survival Green makes the case for the best coaching performance. but voting closed the week the Cowboys fell into the finals, before the wins over Cronulla and Parramatta.
At various times throughout the season other coaches have made valid claims.
Brad Arthur rebuilt the Eels from the disaster of last year to have them finish top four but the Eels since went out in straight sets.
Trent Barrett had Manly in the top four at one point during the season when few gave them a shot at the finals. They ultimately finished sixth.
Against this Michael Maguire and Neil Henry got sacked, leaving the Titans in search of Henry’s replacement. There are a dozen different rumours already about who will get the job and why.
The tastiest is that is will be a one-year coach, a stalling process until another coach becomes available.
Bellamy.
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