IT might "only" be a sport, but rugby league is a pretty big slice of life for many people in our region, with the Newcastle Knights the epitome - when things are going well - of all that football can offer to participants and fans alike.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
News that Nathan Brown - the man chosen in 2015 to succeed Rick Stone after the difficulties of the Wayne Bennett/Nathan Tinkler years - was parting ways with the Knights comes as little surprise to most, given the way the 2019 season was heading.
Brown has done a good job at stabilising the team, and at bringing in a culture that is by all accounts more responsible than the one that was here when he arrived.
Still, as the antics of any number of rugby league larrikins attest, clubs can survive a fair degree of internal shenanigans - even in this age of ever-greater scrutiny - as long the team is winning.
But when the number of losses exceeds the number of wins, club management almost invariably starts looking at the person holding the clip-board, and not always because it's the most convenient thing to do.
On paper, the Knights have a strong roster. And at times, especially through their mid-season winning streak, they have played well enough to beat the top-four sides.
All too often, however, the reality of results have not matched the potential of the players. Having taken on the role, we were told, on an open-ended contract, Brown has handed back his job with the same goodwill with which it was offered.
True Knights supporters will wish him the very best, wherever his undoubted coaching skills and football brain will take him.
Inevitably, attention is already turning to Brown's successor, with several names already in the frame.
In departing, Brown argued that he had done the hard work of rebuilding the club, leaving it ready for the next coach to reap the rewards.
Hopefully, this is the case, but the job for Wests Group chief executive Phil Gardner and his advisers will be to balance the prospects of the existing team against the wishes of a new coach, who may have very different ideas about the quality of the roster, and how he wants the team to play.
The last thing the Knights need is to be is in a perpetual cycle of rebuilding.
The fans, justifiably want success. If not a premiership, a team that turns up every week, proud of the region it represents.
ISSUE: 39,388.
READ MORE: Rebuilder confident of new project
READ MORE:Wise call may prove best for all