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Message: [QUOTE="Big Pete, post: 2642732, member: 1899"] Decided to split this off into it's own thread since I wanted to comment on it without disturbing the rest of the Bennett thread. I'll be as clear as I have to be: Bennett's stint at the Knights was a failure. Fans can make all the excuses in the world but at the end of the day, figures don't lie and Bennett ended up with one of the worst win percentages in Newcastle history. I don't even buy into the excuses. Bad roster - He inherited a roster that basically finished the season in similar circumstances as the Brisbane Broncos did this year. They barely scraped into 8th and were about to get stronger with the acquisition of Darius Boyd when he was still considered one of the better players in the game, Kade Snowden who was a Test prop around that time among others. Fans can make the excuse that he had to deal with players like Waddell, Quinn, Newton, Fa'alogo, Cuthbertson, Dobson....but guess what? He brought those players in! It was his decision to bring back a host of old Knights players in the twilight of their career to help get the community behind the team but he went too far with it and it ended up backfiring on him as they failed to qualify for the finals twice and barely scraped in the other time. In fairness, they did do well in that 2013 finals campaign but they were sitting ducks for the Sydney Roosters and were always just making up the numbers. Bad management - I don't think there is a club in the sport that hasn't had to deal with that and some have even gone onto win a premiership. Manly always seem to be at odds with one another yet somehow they seemingly pull through. Alex McKinnon - A tough loss and I'm sure it was a bitter blow for all involved but clubs have had to deal with similar career ending injuries in the past too. Look at the Broncos & Jharal Yow Yeh and with all due respect, Yow Yeh was a more valuable player than McKinnon. Injuries - Again, every club has to deal with them. Penrith had a horrific toll yet somehow managed to make it as far as the prelim and weren't far off from qualifying for the finals. They certainly weren't just making up the numbers like the Knights did the year before. I think Bennett bit off more than he could chew. He put together a short term plan and a long term plan. When things didn't go his way and it got too hard for him down there, he realised he wasn't capable of getting the job done and chose to leave the organisation and head elsewhere. Things are different at the Broncos and I don't think he'll be as ambitious as he was at the Knights because he doesn't have to be but I think he has to accept that his stint at Newcastle was a black mark on his career. In saying that, Bennett doesn't get enough credit for his work with the 20s. Since their inception, the Knights bread and butter was their juniors yet in recent times they had struggled to really develop anybody of any note. It seemed like one of the first things Bennett did was make a concerted effort to bring these juniors up to speed and we're starting to see the fruits of that labor as they won the 2014 minor premiership and they've been developing a lot more junior reps as of late. [/QUOTE]

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