Sando: where is he at?

[WeeBlake]

The answer is staring us in the face. It's Dangerfield.

He said himself in an interview that he and a few others were asking the club how it planned on being successful after the Tippett sanctions.

 

[GROTTO]

The heat will be on the Club should we lose this week to the Saints.

I actually believe the Saints run will trouble us.

 

[The Karma Bus]

I guess you saw this happening?

You said the culture of the club was fine 3 weeks ago..
After the various issues in recent years, the people who are there, various reports, I'm a little confused at that statement..
You're also talking like last year went nicely..
The culture has been in question for a while, not since 3 weeks ago..

 

[TheMetricSystem]

Well, 3 weeks ago before the Geelong game - the confidence was high, we were talking out self up as a top 6 side and everything was sweet.

Now, we have lost the first 3 games and we need to look at everything from club culture to removing the boot studder.

Now, I'd suggest to you to 'turn it up' as you have made this accusation that the players are having a rift with the coach without offering anything to support that claim.

As Gazey would say....Turn it up.

Feel free to browse my post history and then tell me how confident I was 3 weeks ago. Look at the players we have lost over the last few years, the sanctions and fines we have copped and the staff turnover the club has had and tell me again how good the culture is.

 

[alex_is_on_fire]

You said the culture of the club was fine 3 weeks ago..
After the various issues in recent years, the people who are there, various reports, I'm a little confused at that statement..
You're also talking like last year went nicely..
The culture has been in question for a while, not since 3 weeks ago..

If we sack Sando - like some are calling for, the culture if the club will slowly head towards taking the easy option and sack a coach.

We need to stick fat with whom we have and either trade the players causing this or tell them to pull their heads in and the coach isn't going anywhere.

 

[The Karma Bus]

If we sack Sando - like some are calling for, the culture if the club will slowly head towards taking the easy option and sack a coach.

We need to stick fat with whom we have and either trade the players causing this or tell them to pull their heads in and the coach isn't going anywhere.

I'll just add first - I'm not calling to sack him.. Yet..
The first crosshairs should be on the management anyway..

So the coach is right and fine to do what he's doing, even if he's doing wrong?
The players just have to take it?
That is absurd..

 

[alex_is_on_fire]

So the coach is right and fine to do what he's doing, even if he's doing wrong?
The players just have to take it?
That is absurd..

I've had my say. What do you suggest they do?

If it's sticking with the coach as you said, what do they do? Just let the player run free and do as they wish.

 

[Rear Admiral]

Lots of very valid issues raised recently -

1) Sando & Co. - possibly poor coaching, tactics, strategies, etc.?
2) The tactics and strategies....good, bad, or otherwise.....possibly not suited to our squad?
3) The players themselves need a rocket up their backsides?
4) The unquestionable idiocy by our CEO/Hierarchy that has now crippled our Coach's ability to recruit quality personnel?
5) Some combination of all the above?

I think it's definitely 5, but with most emphasis on 4, then 3. As I've said, our onfield tactics and strategies definitely need to change, however I am extremely reluctant to put Sando first in the firing line. Why? Well, when he took over the helm from Craig, he's been the first coach at the Crows that I can remember that has come out and openly identified specific problems and issues. Namely, a severe lack of emphasis on strength/explosive power/contested exercises, while simultaneously reducing a massive excess of aerobic-based exercices - namely, long distance cycling and running. This was something an external sports physician outside the club pointed his finger at -

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/sport/afl/crows-stretched-to-their-limits/story-e6frecoc-1226186219233

".....He purports that the Crows, in that time, had a 30 per cent greater volume of aerobic exercise than other AFL clubs.

The conclusion is that there was not enough match-specific training.

Too much aerobic and not enough "crash and bash", he told me...."

Under Craigy, they could run all day in open field-play (although oddly enough, very few of our players were truly "quick"....just very "fit" - just look at Van Berlo.) But as soon as it came to stoppages, contested marks, or crumbing....we were about the worst team in the AFL. Super fit, but couldn't win anything that remotely resembled a body-on-body contest. I think what's happened now is that we've swung too far in the other direction, where we've seriously toughened up in the clinches, but now cannot chase blokes down in the open. But Sando has recognised that, and tried to address it in the 2013-2014 Preseason. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have worked, along with his handball-happy butter-fingers gameplan....which they should only bring out as an "Emergency Plan B". This lack of fitness? I'd give this Nick Poulos bloke the boot, yesterday. This may seem a bit odd, but what I reckon we need now is some sort of balance between Craigy's endless cardio work (although with more sprints than distance work), and Sando's weights/wrestling/power-exercises/contested drills.

Fitness/speed/run -

Get in a professional Triathlon Coach, but do more running than swimming and cycling. One day, long distance endurance work. The next day, ultra-short, repetitive, explosive, sprint work. Distance, sprints, distance, sprints, etc. I can tell you right now, without any shadow of a doubt, Triathletes are THE #1 fittest athletes on Earth, where skills are not a factor. This won't help the Crows butter-fingers, but it'll sure-as-sh1t help them get about the paddock a helluva lot better than they are now. And half the reason their tackling is so bad isn't purely a lack of tackling skills - they just cannot catch opponents.

Contested/inside ball -

This is all about two things only - razor sharp, explosive hand-eye coordination, and agility/power. And this is exactly why the Crows are now getting dispossessed in the congestion inside Forward 50 - their hand-eye speed and skills are like a wet paper bag.
Put in place 30 floor-to-ceiling boxing bags, then get the players to spend hours working with them....mixed in with sprints and burpees to exhaust them. That's it. You get one of those things flinging and jiggling all over the place, and see if you can hit or grab it. Harder than juggling a whole pile of ten pins. I've tried at a gym many times, and it's so difficult it drives you half up the wall with frustration. If the Crows could spend some serious time working with those things, their ability to win the inside ball would improve out of site. No, this won't do f*ck all to help us chase blokes, but we'll sure-as-sh1t win a lot more congested scrimmages and sort out our butter-fingers. If Sando hasn't at least heard of these things, then he needs a serious wake up call.

None of this is the be-all, end-all answer to fix everything, but I can guarantee it would make some major inroads to our onfield problems.

 

[The Karma Bus]

I've had my say. What do you suggest they do?

If it's sticking with the coach as you said, what do they do? Just let the player run free and do as they wish.

If something exists, obviously they need to get down to what the problems are and why..
Communicate, be open and honest or it's all just going on in the background as noise anyway..
If it's still a problem and we had management we could have faith in, you'd have faith in them knowing which way is right or wrong..

But it's not just simply the players fault and problem and they need to be traded..
Neil Craig was never awarded such an easy out either..

 

[Elite Crow]

What really worried me is the SANFL side had exactly the same issues as the AFL team, that's not a coincidence

 

[Tex200]

For me 3 things

1. Reilly in the media asking the players to stop playing for themselves

2. No one giving a rats that Danger is belted all game for 3 weeks

3. Sando on the boundary on Sat just before 3/4 time having to wave wildly to get players to defend and we end up giving away an easy clearance goal on the siren

Random unrelated things - but just seems to point to disharmony IMO

 

[VSTone]

So you are calling for his head?

nup... forge on...
but get back to kicking goals pretty soon...

 

[VSTone]

i do however think that the next potential coach should be vetted and a clear short list developed
so when the time is right the club can strike to get their man... but as the current management
have their man... the brass knobs need to go first...

 

[feenix67]

Hearing Dunstall talk about Carlton on the couch tonight, he could have easily been talking about us. Almost word for word.

Sent from my luxury yacht in the Bahamas

 

[Rear Admiral]

I really don't mind Sando and his personality, I really think he's likeable, but if there was a clock for coaches (and midnight is the equivalent of when they should be sacked) then he'd be at around 8/9pm for mine.

Pretty fair assessment. I'm of a similar thought.

 

[Jack is Back]

Feel free to browse my post history and then tell me how confident I was 3 weeks ago. Look at the players we have lost over the last few years, the sanctions and fines we have copped and the staff turnover the club has had and tell me again how good the culture is.

I can't recall anything of substance that you have ever posted. Didn't you join the board last September

No wonder Rucci can write in the shitvertiser that the Crows fans in the "social media" are calling for Sando's head. I smell Port trolls left, right and centre. Why is it that so many of the "Crows fans" on BigFooty that are asking for Sando's head recently joined and have a handful of posts?

Dropping the hint that Danger etc are disillusioned is plain bullshit. It's funny how so many clubs with long injury lists suddenly discover that the coach has lost the players.

 

[crowded house]

I think calls to sack the coach are way too premature.

I dont' disagree with a high posession, 'skills' based game plan. When it works it works well. The things that are missing are player thinking and reaction speed and confidence at the moment.

I think in general the skills are there but we're taking to long to make decisions and take the game on.

We have to see how it develops before we go into 'sacking' mode.

If the season is 'gone' then we are not benefited by sacking Sando until the end of the year anyway.

 

[feenix67]

Step 1: assess the strengths and weaknesses of your list

Step 2: analyse the strengths and weaknesses of your opponents

Step 3 develop a plan that takes advantage of your strengths, mitigates your weaknesses and counters the opposition.

It's not rocket science. Also, imho, coaches are outsmarting themselves these days. There are too many players on the field to be structured like basketball, and too many variables to be drilled like NFL or soccer.

Develop a style of play, based on the points above, but focus more on non negotiables rather than complex structures.

I saw a clip on one of the shows last night, can't remember which, but I noticed that when the ball is contested in our forward line, we are more worried about zoning off defensively than hunting the ball. I saw a forward, two steps behind his opponent, peel off him when he thought he couldn't win the contest and move into defensive zone position. As a result, his opponent got the ball uncontested and they rebounded uncontested through the corridor, while this player was sitting at half forward, obviously in his designated zone position.

What the hell?

Sent from my luxury yacht in the Bahamas

 

[Rear Admiral]

I think calls to sack the coach are way too premature.

I dont' disagree with a high posession, 'skills' based game plan. When it works it works well. The things that are missing are player thinking and reaction speed and confidence at the moment.

I think in general the skills are there but we're taking to long to make decisions and take the game on.

We have to see how it develops before we go into 'sacking' mode.

If the season is 'gone' then we are not benefited by sacking Sando until the end of the year anyway.

Well said. There've been a lot of really well measured, well thought out comments on this forum, but this is (one of) the best I've read. Thanks crowded house .
I too agree with a high possession game. But just like you said - "when it works". At the moment, it clearly isn't working.
Sando may or may not be the right man for the job, but sacking him this year only proves that Trigg & Co. are purely looking for scapegoats for (mostly) their own mess. If Trigg, Craig, and Co. had rebuilt years earlier....as we should have....we wouldn't be in this current mess. We've been flogging a dead horse, previously, for years.
We need to give Sando (or any coach) a chance to take steer the ship when he isn't hamstrung by Draft Sanctions, being dictated to from above, etc. One thing I will give Sando huge wraps for is specifically identifying issues - really nailing them right on the head. Under Craig, it was always -

"We've just got to work harder....we've just got to work harder" .

If Craig was to stay on and repeat this pre-recording, I was going to bury a beer bottle through my TV screen . At least Sando is spelling out a number of specific issues. And in my book....that's half the battle.

If we sack Sando this year, considering the utter bullsh1t are own Hierarchy has dropped us in.....no (decent) coach worth his salt would come within a million miles of this club's basket case Hierarchy. If coaches want to take up a new gig, they sure as sh1t take a long hard look at what they're stepping into before they commit. We need to back Sando in 100%, at least until the end of 2016; then we can reconsider. But to sack him now, as good or bad as he may be?.....nuts .

 

[Rear Admiral]

Step 1: assess the strengths and weaknesses of your list

Step 2: analyse the strengths and weaknesses of your opponents

Step 3 develop a plan that takes advantage of your strengths, mitigates your weaknesses and counters the opposition.

It's not rocket science. Also, imho, coaches are outsmarting themselves these days. There are too many players on the field to be structured like basketball, and too many variables to be drilled like NFL or soccer.

Develop a style of play, based on the points above, but focus more on non negotiables rather than complex structures.

I saw a clip on one of the shows last night, can't remember which, but I noticed that when the ball is contested in our forward line, we are more worried about zoning off defensively than hunting the ball. I saw a forward, two steps behind his opponent, peel off him when he thought he couldn't win the contest and move into defensive zone position. As a result, his opponent got the ball uncontested and they rebounded uncontested through the corridor, while this player was sitting at half forward, obviously in his designated zone position.

What the hell?

Sent from my luxury yacht in the Bahamas

Very good comments. Well put. But take a good look at what crowded house has said here -

http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/sando-where-is-he-at.1055249/page-26#post-32450711

In particular:

I think in general the skills are there but we're taking to long to make decisions and take the game on.

When I watched our recent loss to Sydney, there were two things that absolutely astounded me....apart from our horrendous skill errors -

1) When we had the ball in our Forward 50, 99% of the time every single bl00dy player from both teams was inside our Forward 50.

2) In these forrays inside our Forward 50, it seemed that every Crows Player within 10-20 metres of the ball was focussed either on winning the ball, or on the contest itself. All had their blinkers on.

I may not be totally spot on with these comments, but I reckon I'm damn close. It was like watching a game of school yard footy - one big pack, where every kid is trying to jump on the ball. Nuts. In regard to your comments, and the comments made by crowded house, there are two things a player needs to look at when out on the paddock - one is the footy, and the other is his opponents. Well, what "seems" to be happening (at least to me) when the Crows move the ball Forward, every last bl00dy Crows player is focussing on the footy, and completely forgetting about their opponents. Tunnel vision in it's purest, simplest form. So when the Crows lose possession of the ball in the congestion, every Crows player within coo-eee of the Pill has been trying to jump on top of it, rather than most of them manning their opponents upfield. And as soon as this happens, the opposition run off with the ball on a platter, and we're left standing there stunned with disbelief, thinking "Umm.....sh1t....what do we do now? Sh1t, they're a long way away for us to chase them now!" You don't need every bloke trying to get the ball all at once. That's a bit overly simplistic, but that's what it seems like in our Forward Line. Have one or two blokes trying to get the ball, and the rest wait well on the outside - keeping one eye on their opponents.

When Sando coached us in his first year, most of the goals we scored were directly from winning stoppages. But a lot of goals we kicked were when we lost the ball in our Forward 50, the opposition tried to run the ball up the field, and we fiercely pressured opposition players into turnovers around our Half Forward Flanks/Wing areas. At the moment, we still score just about all our goals from stoppages, but it's the latter source of goals that has completely dried up - we cannot pressure the opposition into coughing the ball up once they try to run it out. Now, opponents just run it out with ease, and we don't get near them.

If Sando wants to win the inside, contested ball, which is important.....fine.....spend countless hours with a boxing-floor-to-ceiling-ball, where players try to grab the thing. For f*ck sake, I wish Sando would at least give it a crack. But the rest of the time, he needs to damn well p1ss off these endless "set play"/stoppage drills, and just practice chasing guernseys for hours on end, to force turnovers. Don't even bother bringing out the footy, just have the Crows in different guernseys at training, with special chasing drills, over and over, until they can bl00dy well catch opponents. At the moment, I couldn't get a rat's arse how good Sauce is at palming the ball in Ruck drills, being able to hit Sloane on the chest, where he's running off at "x" degrees from the stoppage, looking to handpass to Dangermouse, etc. Learn to chase and tackle out in the open. If and when we can force turnovers, this is what catches opponents out of position, and often results in goals.

 

[TheMetricSystem]

I can't recall anything of substance that you have ever posted. Didn't you join the board last September

No wonder Rucci can write in the shitvertiser that the Crows fans in the "social media" are calling for Sando's head. I smell Port trolls left, right and centre. Why is it that so many of the "Crows fans" on BigFooty that are asking for Sando's head recently joined and have a handful of posts?

Dropping the hint that Danger etc are disillusioned is plain bullshit. It's funny how so many clubs with long injury lists suddenly discover that the coach has lost the players.

And you joined in April apparently. Port troll, yes that's it. What a detective you are.

 

[skoobydoo]

One of my pet hates is how often some players will simply place themselves out of reckoning to receive a kick, when we have possession? Players jogging back to general position will turn their back to the kicker and take no interest in the play until they are 'ready'. This happens a lot with kick-ins and defensive end frees but also into half-forward. There are ways to show the kicker that you maybe need a breath or are covered, but to turn your back on the play while just idling along is infuriating to me. The message is 'don't kick it to me or in my area'. Being smart with conserving energy between contests is a must, but maybe I'm fixating on this back turning jog because of our general lack of effort in spreading and covering. Anyway I don't like it.

 

[The Karma Bus]

I can't recall anything of substance that you have ever posted. Didn't you join the board last September

No wonder Rucci can write in the shitvertiser that the Crows fans in the "social media" are calling for Sando's head. I smell Port trolls left, right and centre. Why is it that so many of the "Crows fans" on BigFooty that are asking for Sando's head recently joined and have a handful of posts?

Dropping the hint that Danger etc are disillusioned is plain bullshit. It's funny how so many clubs with long injury lists suddenly discover that the coach has lost the players.

I don't believe it would be Port trolls
The only thing Port trolls would be doing is backing in the coach and the admin, they are praying that they all stay..
They want us to finish mid table with a decent finish to the year so it keeps the wolves at bay..
They want the media to stfu about us having problems or needing change..

Maybe some of them are people who know a bit about what is going on or has gone on and are sick of it..
The various problems have been coming from multiple places or sources now..

 

[alex_is_on_fire]

I can't recall anything of substance that you have ever posted. Didn't you join the board last September

No wonder Rucci can write in the shitvertiser that the Crows fans in the "social media" are calling for Sando's head. I smell Port trolls left, right and centre. Why is it that so many of the "Crows fans" on BigFooty that are asking for Sando's head recently joined and have a handful of posts?

Dropping the hint that Danger etc are disillusioned is plain bullshit. It's funny how so many clubs with long injury lists suddenly discover that the coach has lost the players.

It's also very funny how many old accounts have been activated over the past few months. It's almost like they now have this reason to post quite a number of posts but over the past 5 years - they didn't really have this need.

 

[Ramify]

I think this obsession with fitness by so many is laughable. If there is one thing we have always been known for it is our fitness. In saying that, if there are 2 things weve been known for over the past 10-15 years, it is our horrendous skill level, especially by foot.
I watched 2 games on the weekend which prove my point. The first being the Hawthorn game, in which the Hawks looked like they ran at three quarter pace for the most part, and could surely afford to. Why? Because they have supreme confidence in their ability to find a moving target and/or to put the ball into advantageous space. How does a team get this way? Well first they recruit guys based on skill level and not combine harvest results. Next they DRILL,DRILL,DRILL with ball in hand until it becomes so second nature that they hit targets even when they shank the bloody thing. A result of this being the ability to beef up the size of their men and then apply a gameplan accordingly.

Think of the last coach we had that followed this ideal???

Second was the "super-fit" Power game, in which their skill level let them down in a big way all game, exemplified by Hartletts turnover in the dying minutes. Bad ball use spreads like a nasty rash, and when you see teammates like Hartlett, Polec, Monfries, Boak make multiple clangers over the coarse, that s**t spreads like subliminal herpies.

Fitness will never account for shocking skill level. This is a flaw in coaching/recruiting philosiphy. To base a gameplan on high possesion when you have a low skill levelled team is utter stupidity and the height of arrogance.

Ask yourselves why we did o.k in 2012? Cos we got the pig skin, we kicked the pig skin as long down the line as we could then we went rabid in our follow up chase of the pig skin. This game plan worked for near 100 years before we all tried to turn Aussie rules into a friggen science.

Meh.