I BELIEVE Garth Brennan should be the coach of the Newcastle Knights. Let him introduce a pathways concept like he was doing successfully at Penrith. Get rid of the players who won't be here next year and bring some of the local juniors through now, not next year. Give them some experience.
Here is a team of ex-Knights juniors or local products the retention committee seems to have missed or failed to hold onto: Latrell Mitchell, Grant Anderson, Nick Meaney, Jacob Kiraz, Starford To'a, Scott Drinkwater, Nicho Hynes, Josh King, Tevita Pangai Junior, Hudson Young, pictured; Payne Haas, Tom Starling, Joe Tapine; Fletcher Baker, Beau Fermor, Josh Jackson, Jock Madden, Zac Hosking. There probably are others.
Tony Phillip, Kurri Kurri
Ponga should play if he can
IT'S all right for Joey Johns to say Kalyn Ponga should sit out the rest of the season, he's not paying the freight. The club must be guided by the medical experts and if he is right to play, I believe he should do so.
Season ticket holders have still paid their money to see the best team on the park and that includes Ponga.
By the way if Ponga sits out the rest of the season maybe there are a few others that can be included and they haven't had head knocks.
Allen Small, East Maitland
Gaps to fill in city music scene
TONY Morley, ("Stage may be set for a clash of sound, noise", Letters, 23/7) I too applaud the suggestion that the Victoria Theatre could fill the void left by The Cambridge Hotel, and the cynic in me would also suggest that the NIMBYs would stand in the way. They do definitely seem to wield an incredible amount of power in this city, despite their distinct lack of numbers.
I also doubt that the Victoria Theatre would book many gigs similar to those currently hosted at The Cambridge.
After all, NEX could quite easily host gigs like those at The Cambo, but for some reason, don't.
This is despite the fact that such bookings would be not only very valuable to Newcastle's live music scene, but very valuable to the venue itself. Especially as the scene is starting to bounce back after being brought to its knees by COVID, and now Newcastle's large population of live music lovers have an appetite that needs to be satisfied.
Adz Carter, Newcastle
Happy days around the harbour
AFTER reading Scott Bevan's Harbour Lives series so far, I have been reflecting on my early young days growing up at Carrington. The harbour was my playground; fishing, catching blue swimmer and big mud crabs with our homemade nets, shooting at the big water rats under the wharves (not allowed now) and swimming in Throsby Creek at high tide. I had a Sunday paper run around the wharf areas, and in those days, I was allowed to board many of the ships selling papers, sometimes being offered breakfast. Collecting foreign coins, stamps and match boxes. What a Huckleberry Finn life it was.
James Gain, Caves Beach
Wipe out panic, take precautions
IN visits to shopping centres last week I saw that the Newcastle community is clearly responding to warnings that there's a new wave of more serious and more transmissible COVID going around.
Do I mean we're racing to get vaccinations and boosters, or wearing masks indoors? Or maybe social distancing, or testing ourselves early and staying home from work or school until we get results? No, I mean we're panic buying toilet paper and tissues again. Supermarket shelves for these have been as bare as Mother Hubbard's cupboard.
COVID doesn't make you go to the toilet 10 times a day with explosive diarrhoea. But it does make you infect other people if you aren't careful. And it can kill people of any age and health, although obviously the aged and infirm are the most vulnerable, and unfortunately this year the numbers of infections and deaths in Australia have beaten the previous marks by a long stretch.
Please do what the health authorities and governments are recommending: wear masks (especially shopping centres), get boosted, keep a little distance, and if you think you could have COVID please stay home as soon as you suspect it. You're protecting yourself, your loved ones, and the rest of your wider community.
Michael Jameson, New Lambton
Businesses are battling as well
SO Bill Slicer (Short Takes, 21/7) thinks all employers should provide for their employees' health by paying them if they have COVID. Well, I have news for you, Mr Slicer: permanent employees get sick leave entitlements designed to pay them if they are sick, including COVID, and casual workers are paid a loading instead of sick leave. Does Mr Slicer think all employers have a money tree growing in their backyard? Let me say there are many businesses battling to keep the doors open after COVID and could not afford to pay unproductive workers any more sick leave than they are entitled to.
Ian King, Warners Bay
Vax passports were no panacea
IN reply to John Pritchard, ("Back to the future in COVID fight", Letters, 23/7), if you recall we had what you are suggesting, keeping unvaxxed out of places. It didn't work as the vaxxed were still getting COVID when only they were allowed in. Maybe it's the vax efficacy that's the problem; it doesn't always stop you getting or passing it on, like some health experts indicated it would. Check the NSW Health data; it states that if you have had COVID in the four weeks before you go to hospital for any reason you are counted as a statistic and numbers are not always from the preceding 24 hours.
Ros Street, Singleton
Recycling cycle is speeding up
UNFORTUNATELY your correspondent, ("Problems beyond power switch", Letters, 23/7), has been misinformed. The photograph does show a collection of electric cars in a paddock in France, however they were put there after Autolib, a car-sharing enterprise established in 2011, closed down in 2018, heavily in debt, because of lack of take-up. Cars that were in better condition were sold off but a large number, damaged and unsaleable, were stored - and the batteries have been removed.
Wind turbines are now almost 100 per cent recyclable and some countries (eg, France) requires a bond to be lodged by wind-farm proponents to cover the end-of-life cost of removal, recycling and site remediation. Although, in the past, out-of-service blades were consigned to landfill that is now generally not the case.
Electric battery recycling is still a challenge but seems to be restricted only by the current low uptake of electric vehicles (ie, economy of scale). There are trial sites all over the world and no doubt battery recycling will be the norm in the not-too-distant future.
John Ure, Mount Hutton
SHORT TAKES
IF you didn't catch Anthony Albanese's speech at the Welcome to Country ceremony prior to the opening of Parliament, please seek it out. You will be in no doubt that we have elected a very decent and inclusive man who I am proud to call our Prime Minister. For those not of his political persuasion, listen with an open mind and ask yourself if everything he says is not correct.
Ros Johns, New Lambton Heights
TRUMP, Morrison and Johnson and before them; Howard, Blair and Bush. ("Boris departure marked end of era", Letters, 25/7). Funny how they come in threes. Their legacies - the turmoil of Brexit, the invasion of Iraq and its repercussions, the breaking down of democracy in the US, the appalling suspicion and treatment of asylum seekers and turning a blind eye to abuse of women in parliamentary circles are just a few. Egocentric, pompous and self indulgent I would say and dangerous.
Julie Robinson, Cardiff
IT is about time the Wests Tigers stopped sooking about Sunday's result in the NRL. Welcome to how Raiders supporters feel about the bunker and decisions. We should be at least four points higher up the ladder this year definitely due to inexplicable decisions, and it may be six to eight points if the season is really examined and past decisions carefully looked at.
Ian Reynolds, Forster
I AM always amazed how one-eyed Labor voters have memory lapses when it suits them. Mac Maguire (Short Takes, 23/7) thinks the last government "will go down in Australian history as the worst flop in living memory". Can't you remember when Kevin Rudd was our PM, the pink batts fiasco? People died. He was undoubtedly our worst ever PM, closely followed by Julia Gillard.
Don Fraser, Belmont North
WITH regards to the Manly Sea Eagles pride jersey saga, what has a person's sexuality got to do with anyone else but themselves, let alone the NRL, and what's more, who cares?
Steven Busch, Rathmines
PAUL Duggan (Letters 25/07), you're spot on about modern headlights. Some oncoming car and bus headlights appear to be borrowed from Nobbys lighthouse.
Alan Geyer, New Lambton
I COMPLETELY agree with Paul Duggan about blinding headlights on modern vehicles. It has got to the stage where I am most reluctant to drive at night, which is most unfair.
Eric Roach, Croudace Bay
CELEBRITY butcher Steve Barnett calls for the death penalty for those breaking biosecurity laws amid the danger of foot and mouth disease. That's cancel culture on steroids right there. A few columns later I read that he has been praised in the past as presenting the views of a "realist". I wonder, have his followers ever heard of the term "separate realities"?
