Be good to know someone closely involved with ES, and just how much of their title success can likely be laid at the feet of Hay.
Plenty on here seem close to what's happening at TW & ACFC, but haven't really seen anyone say they are an ES 'insider'. Otherwise it's just everyone making judgements from afar, from El Grap to Niche Cache.
I've seen both Payne and McCowatt praise Hay as a coach, but you would expect that.
I didn't watch any Handy Prem, apart from the final.
How ES went against the other big sides previously I have no idea (though wasn't Payne sent off against TW in one game?) - but in the game that mattered they just looked a complete class above. Even before Clapham's brutal injury TW looked way 2nd best.
11 November 2018
Eastern Suburbs 0 Auckland City 1
25 November 2018
Western Suburbs 1 Team Wellington 2
27 January 2019
Auckland City 3 Eastern Suburbs 2
10 February 2019
Team Wellington 3 Eastern Suburbs 1
As for the grand final, yes, fair play to Eastern Suburbs, they won that very comfortably. But let's not forget that the Team Wellington side they played in the final was running on fumes by that stage, with two overseas trips mid-season, and having lost essentially half of its starting line-up, and the entire backline (after the CWC, Watson and Hilliar went to Australia, Barcia to Indonesia, Gulley to the Phoenix, Wood got broken, and Bevin was unavailable for large periods of the second half of the season).