- Oct 3, 2009
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- Richmond
Define prematurely.... TW didn't see out his contract, it was announced Frawley wasn't continuing about halfway through his last year. Giesch got sacked after not that many games when ironically it was the fans who almost demanded he be appointed after 5 games at the end of 97.... when he was caretaker coach after ummm Walls got sacked.
Northey was the only one who left of his own accord, due to the fact we wouldn't give him an increase after he got us to the finals for the first time in 13 years.... KB, etc etc etc
Sorry at RFC we've seen the answer to the question 'should we sack the coach' over and over again. What happens after we sack the coach? The players get 3 years of 'free time' as we rebuild (again) before slight improvement, a finals appearance (maybe) and then we have a poor season, sack the coach and start all over gain. The evidence at RFC is there for all to see. No-one has seen what happens if you stick to the plan, make players accountable (and coaches can keep coaching for the future, playing the right kids and not coaching for the careers). I want to see DH play Lennon, Helbig, Batch, Arnot, maybe even Elton and McBean to see what they have.... not coach for meaningless wins in 2014 to try and save his job. That will achieve nothing for nobody.
Now, if we were to have another season like this next season, I would move to reconsider but lets see what the footy dept, coaches and players and also the board have learned from the first season since 2009 where we have gone backwards.... Name the last coach to get us improvement over 4 consecutive seasons before DH?
By prematurely I mean before time, before they were given adequate time to show if they could succeed. Walls was probably the last, that was about 17 years ago.
I can understand your point about sticking out for at least 1 more year but what then, what's an acceptable outcome, improvement from this year, or improvement from where we should have been this year. Odds are we are probably stuck in no mans land next year with a mid table finish, better than this year but not where any of us, or the club, thought we would be when we started this year.
IMO, and from my perspective, I have seen enough to be very confident we will never reach the heights we should be striving for under DH, given that no point treading water. The clubs stated aim was 3 flags I believe by 2020. To do this sometimes you have to grow a set and make ruthless decisions.