Kelly is a quality person. maybe better suited to development than winning at all cost.

I don't think Mike Kelly is a good coach at all.

For those who want to quote last year's result, I present to you Year 1 and Year 3 of his tenure.

Year 1 he was 6-22 the next closest was 12-16, and that season he had the best guard in the league (Trimble) with DJ Newbill and still could not get off the bottom.

Year 2 he got lucky with some great imports, credit where its due he got it done after a poor start. I think he got CotY due to sympathy for coaching Cairns, it should have gone to Weaver or even Gleeson.

Year 3, its back to normal Mike Kelly. This year should have been their year to thrive. With the cutting back to 2 imports they had the best import duo locked in before the season started. The 2 import rule was a great equaliser and Cairns made use of it by finishing spooners again.

Yes I understand they have endured adversity, who hasn't? SEM lost Pineau, Ilawarra never had Bairstow or Adel show up, Adelaide have Pinder and Connor Henry. Oliver playing disinterested is on Kelly. Noi was chucking up shots as a volume scorer, Jordan Ngatai is a more efficient scorer. Nagtai, Jawai and Duffelmier have all stepped up and still the result is the Spoon.

Again it is because of Cairns 'battler' tag that he gets a free pass, anyone else who gets 2 wooden spoons in just 3 years (by a fair margin too) would get ridicule.

I forgot about New Zealand.

They suffered perhaps the harshest adversity of all, yet managed to stay off the bottom.

Cairns got GIVEN a new home court paid for by taxpayers.

That club is trash.

The Taipans play their final game of the season on Wednesday night in NZ seems a bit odd they couldn't wait less than 48 hours to make this announcement. Who will their coach be for that game Kelly? Brad Hill?

Big-money offer from Asia is the rumour.

Lovew@nker at again. You're a pest mate!

Oliver being disinterested is on Kelly? That's the best. Oliver has been rolling his eyes and carrying on like a pork chop since he arrived two years prior. They were never going to be up to it this season with their roster regardless of who coached them.

It would be a challenge to make Oliver’s attitude worse. Talented as any we’ve seen play in our game, but the 'I’m not wiping my own arse’ mentality was manifested long before Kelly got to him.

And I don’t think Kelly is a great coach either. Cairns should have hired both Pearlman & Downer in the past but chose a different path. Bevo would be a great fit for that community but he really deserves a crack at it with a decent roster/finances.

Cairns were a team with reasonable top end talent in their starting 5 and top 7, but zero depth

No surprises that their season fell apart when some of that talent (Deng, Noi, Oliver) went down.

What killed their W/L record, and probably Kelly's fate, is how they kept losing games by close margins early in the season. They must've lost 7 or 8 games by 5 points or less in the first half of the season.

Haha you are not at all a broker of love, champion. You're about as sour as they come. Please, for your sake, try to look at life's positives.

In years 1 and 3 our effort and confidence were subpar. I don't know if year 2 was a fluke, but it is pretty evident that we have been riding confidence (high or low) the entire way through. Not at all consistent

I just looked through their season, I'd forgotten how many games they also got trounced by double digits (and it's also true they lost many close ones).

Wonder who the Taipans go with next... Forde has been mentioned. What is Bevo up to? Joey Wright still in Aus? hahaha... I just hope we can fork out enough money to get a good enough coach.

I don't think using nz as an example is great, there home now and still not winning with a side twice the cost of Cairns. You can hate all you like, but Kelly did a great job with what was available to him, most of his team are one way checkers.

He could score, but he was close to the worst defensive guard in the league. Teams with the best defensive guards are generally there at the pointy end.

They were never going to be up to it this season with their roster regardless of who coached them.

What killed their W/L record, and probably Kelly's fate, is how they kept losing games by close margins early in the season. They must've lost 7 or 8 games by 5 points or less in the first half of the season.

Olgun Uluc reporting it, I believe.

Very possible Sydney sacked Forde and simply presented the "wants to be with his family" story to allow him to save face. Equally possible moving to Cairns is easier for his family than moving to Sydney.

I'm sure Oliver will be a completely different player now that he’s away from Kelly. His life long attitude will improve significantly no question.

Let's face it, who would wanna move to Sydney

Forde's not that old, unless he's already got substantial wealth behind him then Sydney rent or house prices make it a crappy proposition

Those bagging Kelly now are those who were stupid enough to buy the pre season hype and assumed they'd make playoffs

Cairns were seriously overrated and weren't likely to make it, even with a full strength roster.

Oliver is good but I'd take Landale, Mooney over him and Humphries pretty comparable too.

Machado likewise. Amongst Ware, Cotton, Sykes, Sobey he's no standout

And Cairns lack depth compared to the good teams

This isn't excuses it's just reality. A Goorj coached, reasonably deep Illawarra squad were $3.50 for playoffs pre season and Cairns- who'd lost one of their big 3- was $1.30. It was nuts. Brisbane was $4.50.

Now people are saying "everyone had injuries, Cairns sucked" yeah but When you start 7 or 8 deep injuries kill you more than United or SEM who go 10 or 11 deep.

And yeah, even despite all of the above Cairns had a terrible season

But last year they were great! So I reckon if you've coached 3 years and the middle one was awesome then you're a bit stiff to get the boot. One more year was probably deserved.

He probably did deserve another year, how often does the COTY get sacked the following year?

If Cairns are sacking Kelly despite still having a year to go on his contract (as Liam confirmed during the game) it means they've likely got a pretty good coach lined up. Budget teams aren't in the habit of making a payout to the old coach whilst paying a new coach on top of it.

I don't see improvement on Kelly.