List Mgmt. Ross Lyon - Sacked

Is Ross still the man for the job?


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Jul 18, 2010
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So we’ve won more games this year than last year?
At the comparable round of the season, yes we have :)
So you’ve reframed my question to put a positive spin on it? Disappointing.
Well now if the season was completed you would have a point. It hasnt yet, so your question was just dead-set silly as it has no relevance to what could happen this season. 7 games to go....could win 7....could win one, could win none.
 

theGav56

Brownlow Medallist
Oct 11, 2004
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All coaches play a defensive, congested forward line, the AFL can try to mess around with
the rules but until at least 2-4 forwards are zoned, the coaches are going to play ugly.
Nothing worse than than all players in one half.
All clubs give great effort so that advantage is gone, so turnovers, rebound footy is the key.
Skiiled teams that keep possession, switch, draw players out of the defence to create holes or
get easy ones out the back score easily.
The reality is you need both a congested and uncontested style, two coaching philosophies.
Fix the midfield, forward line and you fix Freo, back line will be AA with some luck.
Yes I agree. How much fixing do you think our forward line needs in terms of personnel?

At this stage I am assuming that in 2020 we can hit a preferred forward line of;
Matera Cox/Taberner Henry
Sturt/McCarthy Hogan Walters

Plus Lobb fitting in somewhere. I would be excited to recruit mid/forward with our first pick along the lines of Flanders/Serong/Taheny, and maybe grab Taylor late. That begins to shape as an electric forward line.

Our forward line needs to be fit and available and play some games together. With Walters, Henry, Sturt and Flanders/Serong/Taheny all having midfield capacity I think we make significant upgrades to both forward and midfield.
 
Aug 20, 2010
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Well now if the season was completed you would have a point. It hasnt yet, so your question was just dead-set silly as it has no relevance to what could happen this season. 7 games to go....could win 7....could win one, could win none.
We have not yet won more games this season than last season. The answer is really that simple.
 

jedi mind tricks

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Mar 13, 2011
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We have not yet won more games this season than last season. The answer is really that simple.

So if Freo won the first 7 games this season and had 15 games to go Freo wouldn't have improved uet because the 8th win hasn't happened yet?

That's not how you define improvement. I don't think it's easy to rationalise with an anti Ross poster.
 
Aug 20, 2010
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So if Freo won the first 7 games this season and had 15 games to go Freo wouldn't have improved uet because the 8th win hasn't happened yet?

That's not how you define improvement. I don't think it's easy to rationalise with an anti Ross poster.
That’s absolutely correct. I’ve already answered this. In that case, I’d feel a lot more confident about getting to 9 wins though.
 

trentjac

Club Legend
Jan 30, 2015
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So everything any player has ever done on the field was a direct instruction from the coach? Hopefully I don't have to point out how absurd that is?
My wife is definitely the coach of our household - no matter the instruction ("don't have too many beers out with the boys"), I still find a way to disobey and do my own thing
 

blue shark

Norm Smith Medallist
Aug 15, 2009
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Yes I agree. How much fixing do you think our forward line needs in terms of personnel?

At this stage I am assuming that in 2020 we can hit a preferred forward line of;
Matera Cox/Taberner Henry
Sturt/McCarthy Hogan Walters

Plus Lobb fitting in somewhere. I would be excited to recruit mid/forward with our first pick along the lines of Flanders/Serong/Taheny, and maybe grab Taylor late. That begins to shape as an electric forward line.

Our forward line needs to be fit and available and play some games together. With Walters, Henry, Sturt and Flanders/Serong/Taheny all having midfield capacity I think we make significant upgrades to both forward and midfield.
As you say Gav, if we can inject some more class forward/mid and limit injury?
ATM, we are looking adrift, things can change quickly in AFL though.
New ideas, blood next year off and on the field and this could all be a distant memory.
To fix the problem you have to acknowledge there is one in the first place.
 
Aug 16, 2009
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Irrelevant. If we win 8 games to the bye and lose all of them after it, there’s no difference from winning 4 before and 4 after.

Until we’ve won more games than last year we haven’t improved. There are 7 games to do it in, granted, but it’s starting to look increasingly unlikely.
Ok this is just getting ridiculous. There are *gasp* 17 other teams in the competition.

All of which are also trying to win more games than they did last year. It is not Fremantle existing in a vacuum.

For us to win more, they must lose more.

It is far more complex than ‘hurr durr, kick gud, win moar’ when you factor in the draw, injuries, the draft, trades etc.

There is obvious and marked improvement in our game plan and our performance as a whole this year vs the last few. You’d have to not football or be an eagles supporter to ignore that.

Rational critics of the clubs leadership will factor that in and argue that it’s not enough, which is where I sit. I want a hockey stick curve not a slow ramp.

Flags are won by outlier clubs adopting high risk/reward strategies, not this slow and steady s**t we’re doing currently. That works when you already have a system like Hawthorn, Geelong and West Coast. We don’t have what they have so we need a maverick at the helm, not a turtle. In my opinion.

But you’d have to be a blind idiot not to see improvement.
 
Last edited:

purpleman

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Nov 30, 2007
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If you had a team of under 18s playing against the AFL team at the top, what will happen? Geelong (in this instance) would beat the snot out of them. Supposing that same u18s side was a captains pick of the best under 18s from across the country, Geelong would still beat the snot out of them.

Same with an under 19s, an under 20s and probably an under 21s team of the countries best footy players.

An AFL club running at it's peak has plenty of skills (even if it isn't the pick of the land - like GWS were/are). It has maturity and experience. The players aren't their skinny weedy selves when they were young and have worked on their core strength, fitness and recovery at a professional level for many years. But importantly, the main part of the list has played together for a long time and know what to expect from each other when in a tight situation with scarcely a second to evaluate and get the ball to someone advantageously before you get gang tackled - the player you pass to might not have been in your field of vision but you turn and pass because you expect them there - and they are and you know your team mates voices over all the screaming and yelling at a game.

The coach you have is a layer on top of all of this, Clarkson would be almost unanimously agreed as the THE coach in AFL, yet his Hawks are 13th on the ladder. Even with his coaching nous, his list isn't in a position to be at the top of the ladder.

At Freo, it is not a settled and experienced band of brothers out there, it is something only fixed with time, couple that with plenty of them being kids still and years away from their personal peak footy, kids being developed at AFL level instead of in the magoos. If we dumped Ross tomorrow and picked up Clarkson, he would have the same basic issue here that he is having at Hawthorn currently - the playing list is not in a window to seriously challenge the competition. It would just be setting up petitions to sack Clarkson instead.


stop making sense, that's not what this discussion is for...
 

blue shark

Norm Smith Medallist
Aug 15, 2009
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Ok this is just getting ridiculous. There are *gasp* 17 other teams in the competition.

All of which are also trying to win more games than they did last year. It is not Fremantle existing in a vortex.

For us to win more, they must lose more.

It is far more complex than ‘hurr durr, kick gud, win moar’ when you factor in the draw, injuries, the draft, trades etc.

There is obvious and marked improvement in our game plan and our performance as a whole this year vs the last few. You’d have to not football or be an eagles supporter to ignore that.

Rational critics of the clubs leadership will factor that in and argue that it’s not enough, which is where I sit. I want a hockey stick curve not a slow ramp.

Flags are won by outlier clubs adopting high risk/reward strategies, not this slow and steady s**t we’re doing currently. That works when you already have a system like Hawthorn, Geelong and West Coast. We don’t have what they have so we need a maverick at the helm, not a turtle. In my opinion.

But you’d have to be a blind idiot not to see improvement.
How much better woud we be with Neale in the midfield, losing 25-30 possessions a game is a big loss.
We looked alright early on but Fyfe, Mundy, Walters have had to do the brunt of the work.
It's the same in the forward line losing, Hogan, Lobb, Tabs it's a bridge too far.
It has been compounded by Ross sticking to his guns, I beleive playing some players out of position, and not
dropping others.
The club closest style of team we could emulate are the Tigers, and they went from premiership contenders to also
rans from a few injuries
Should still make the 8, worked on another path, that's our fall down though, one trick ponies, rely on effort.
 
Aug 20, 2010
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You want me to apologise to you for you being irrational . :)
No. This thread was locked because of posters making baseless accusations about other posters. You were starting it up again. You need to apologise, at least, for the trolling. And you can’t say I wouldn’t do the same because I’ve already shown I’ll own my mistakes.
 
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