josephs_79
Team Captain
- Jun 19, 2012
- 448
- 311
- AFL Club
- Brisbane Lions
Thanks for this post, articulates what I've been thinking and I'm sure probably a few others. I often wonder what Leigh would have done if he was coaching this group? I reckon something very similar.
James North post on the previous page with Pics is exactly what inspired my post.
I like all this and agree players shouldn't be soft - I have noted at work the younger generation are incapable of reviving feed back without going into shut down mode and long winded defenses.
But unfortunately the task as lions coach, was to unite a young group who largely have no family network around them, are getting flogged every week, have shithouse training facilities in a non footy state and are gen Y - we didn't happen to draft 'soft' players, we drafted the same sort of players at the saints and the dogs did.
That was the task, the task leppa said he was aware of in his first presser and said he wanted to make sure was never a problem again.
Plus - I don't think our players can't cop a spray, or take feed back, you don't go complaining about running a few Laps at training. Jack redden is as tough as they come, plus voss was a 'drill Sargent' type and jack loved him.
Im not willing to turn on our young players as soft and tell them to piss off in support of a guy who so far has been incapable of performing the basic role of a senior coach. I
Personally just think he doesent give them any confidence he knows what they are doing, all things considered.
Leppitsch was well regarded at Richmond and had the same demeanor and work ethic and was at a club that was on the up but was a part of bringing that club up. He learnt the craft off Matthews and then at Richmond. Richmond now have that killer instinct as a result. Hell they beat Freo and Hawthorn this year alone to show they have got it. Ours don't, we whimper when it gets tough and don't know how to respond. I could go on all day in details of what I have seen and I am so disillusioned by majority of our players that I really just can not watch them any more and it hurts. I went through the bad times of the roys growing up and I still watched them week in and week out and they still went out and bled for the jumper. This lot don't.
You now have Matthews as Coaching director who would be guiding Leppitsch no different to the last few years of Matthews coaching. So why do our players not have the killer instinct going around that other clubs have? You can not put it on Leppitsch because the same thing was happening under Voss but to a lesser extent and Voss was starting to get it out of the culture in his last year and we were seeing the benefits of it with a chance of playing finals. When they sacked Voss, this killed the culture that was just starting to become norm and it cost us another 3-4 years of it.
If the leaks are constantly happening and so far it seems to be aimed at Leppitsch and Rockliff's (if Barrett does have some truth to his rumours) hard nosed tough love approach and then Matthews war cry then you really do have too start wondering if it really is a problem with Coach\Capt or if it is the players just being soft.