Coaching Staff Senior Coach: John Worsfold - Thank you John

Was all of this woosh’s doing though? I mean it may be, I don’t know.

But what about the players? They’ve just played a season where they were unable to keep up until 3 rounds in and then limped to finals.
Yeah but you can't exactly sack a bunch of players who have been mediocre.
 
Dec 2, 2014
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Yeah but you can't exactly sack a bunch of players who have been mediocre.

We could've seen Myers wasn't the answer in 2018 and played Clarke an extra 10 games and he'd be better now, We could've debuted Mynott this year and he'd be more advanced for 2020, he played plenty of HF in the VFL this year we could've given him the games Baggers got.

Clarke was given games early before Draper was ever considered, Ridley banished early and never seen again.

People say you can't gift games to young players but other clubs do it all the time, especially Richmond and the kids generally perform, we instead rather play Hooker injured over giving BZT 8 games, Fantasia injured instead of giving Mynott a chance.

A lot of our players have been mediocre in parts this season because Worsfold and the other coaches allow them to be.
 
Mar 17, 2018
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How much of our issues were due to a substandard fitness department? Shiel apparently noted that fitness training standards weren’t up to GWS when he started. We turned up not ready for the start of the season and looked cooked at various points throughout the season. Had to affect our tacking pressure and intensity. Maybe Crow was a scapegoat or maybe he was a big part of the issue. Guess we won’t know til round 1 next year.
 
I think Xavier Campbell is tied to the fate of Woosha and that’s the main reason he’s being given another year.

I think it’s more that he did a reasonable job gives the circumstances and they’ve brought in Caracella to assist. Plus the fact he has a year left and should be given the chance.
 
Jul 15, 2008
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I think this is the right decision. Sometimes it takes more guts to hold firm than to react to external pressure.

Based on several things that has happened last and this year I get the feeling we’ve had a constant internal review:
- Neeld, Paul Corrigan and Harding moved on from the assistant coaching panel.
- Turk and Crow moved on from the fitness department.
- Rutten and Caracalla high profile assistants recruited.

Who knows if there’s more change to come. Retirements of Myers, Baguley, Dea and talk of Laverde being on the table.

The win-loss has been the same the past three years but I see a major improvement in team defence and our injury list has been shocking compared with 2017.

Right call IMO.
 

the PILL

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Richmond did when the got rid of everyone but Dimma. Besides we are always going to be forced to play sling shot football as we dont have the players to win effective clearances.

They didn't really change it, they mastered it

That swarm game style was working well and gaining momentum with big scalps (They started to beat up on the invisible 3 peaters and hang with other top sides regularly) to which the commentary from the so called experts deemed the style unsustainable. They stumbled missing finals in the middle of it but if you followed their path closley enough Dimma staired straight down the barrel and said with the coaching personnel tweaks coming we'll make finals and everyone laughed. Not so funny now is it?

We are nothing like this, we are trying to be but our ingrained entitled ego isn't allowing us to be stripped back properly.
 
Jul 23, 2018
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I hope Caracella, Rutten and Wossha spend the pre-season only doing tackling lessons.
Basic skill execution is number 1 priority. Then ball movement with Blake Caracella, which includes decision making/taking the right option. Tackling third. Fixing those 3 things then makes Ruttens plan for team defence actually possible.
 

the PILL

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If you zoom out we are failing at the most obvious point, the midfield. We have no bull extractor and we don't have defensive two way running within that midfield. Its almost like the pressure of it is secondary because of the allure of this halfback running is supposed to counter it. That in its self is an oxymoron because it surrenders field position...

We arnt "learning" at all, we're setting ourselves up.
 
Jun 11, 2007
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I think this is the right decision. Sometimes it takes more guts to hold firm than to react to external pressure.

Based on several things that has happened last and this year I get the feeling we’ve had a constant internal review:
- Neeld, Paul Corrigan and Harding moved on from the assistant coaching panel.
- Turk and Crow moved on from the fitness department.
- Rutten and Caracalla high profile assistants recruited.

Who knows if there’s more change to come. Retirements of Myers, Baguley, Dea and talk of Laverde being on the table.

The win-loss has been the same the past three years but I see a major improvement in team defence and our injury list has been shocking compared with 2017.

Right call IMO.
Completely agree

New fitness team hopefully gives him a healthy list to work with
Some fresh blood in the assistant space to evolve the game plan

Hopefully someone gets involved in the list mgmt strategy (ideally the coaches with what they need rather the best available)
 
Jul 23, 2018
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i fear caracella is being raised into prophet status by ess fans - and into possible boots that no man can fill. Theres only one place for the poor bloke to fall to when we dont win a flag...
I haven't read anything over the top to be honest. There is definitely excitement and rightly so. He was a smart footballer and is highly regarded as an assistant at richmond in charge of their ball movement. Dont think anyone has said he is a prophet that guarantees us a flag.
 
The win-loss is a big misleading considering we were robbed by Jumpin Rampe and should probably have beaten Collingwood on ANZAC day.
We were ahead of Collingwood for 0% of the time on ANZAC Day. I'm sick of people blaming the umps for losing a game we never lead in.
 
Sep 22, 2011
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Richmond did when the got rid of everyone but Dimma. Besides we are always going to be forced to play sling shot football as we dont have the players to win effective clearances.

Interesting, we are equal 13th this year for clearances with 36.3 per game

Equal with... Collingwood.

Richmond are 18th with 34.
 
Interesting, we are equal 13th this year for clearances with 36.3 per game

Equal with... Collingwood.

Richmond are 18th with 34.

Richmond doesnt suprise me that much because they rely of pressure to turn the ball over and take it from there alot.

The pies being so low does a little but i would say when the pies do win the clearance they would be more effective then we are.

Thinking back to Anzac day I thought our mids clearly beat theres after qtr time it was just that we butchered the ball alot more at it just waant shiel that day too.
 
Jul 25, 2005
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Woosha should have been let go for the following reasons:

- Making the finals and being battered is not a successful season and the finals are an arbitrary benchmark in any case. It's really a 17 team competition and finishing 8th is no achievement.
- Furthermore, trading away so many draft picks for established players makes finishing 8th a disaster. We don't have many kids coming through so the window for a flag is small.
- What does Woosha do to make the team better? How many wins were because he outcoached his opponent?
- How many games was he outcoached? Plenty.
- The team plays without any aggression. No way the Dons could pull off what GWS did on the weekend.
- Yes, we have had injuries but so have other clubs. If we were losing by 1-2 goals then fair enough but we were nowhere near the top teams in 2019.
- Lastly, 12 wins three years in a row. I saw someone comment that there is no guarantee the next coach will be any better but it is absolutely worth trying.

The one ray of hope from Thursday was it might force the CEO to move but it's not going to happen and it's a mess. They will be ordinary again next year and sack Woosha 6 or 7 games in when it should have happened in 2018.

This club has become mediocre and it starts at board level. I know the saga was the cause of that for a while but compare it now to the Sheedy era and we are now a less gritty North Melbourne.
 

the PILL

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The win-loss is a big misleading considering we were robbed by Jumpin Rampe and should probably have beaten Collingwood on ANZAC day.

We don't have access to parallel universes though unfortunately so saying that is pretty much irrelivant.

Also why does it even matter with what happens to us in finals?

Finals are an elevation in pressure and we pretty much do our utmost to ignore it keeping this strange mantra of playing our way, a once effective strategy used by the GFC under Bomber to kill floods which was eventually killed off by loads of contested pressure.

Port have been trying the same thing for years now too and getting nowhere except proving an old cliche to be right. "The definition of insanity" Something Something same thing expecting different outcome.

Johns game plan is flawed because he doesn't have the cattle at the contest and the players attitude when the pressure gets amped fails with some odd entitled "ohh well at least I'll still get my ridiculous paycheck" theme.

How many more times are we going to attempt the same thing???

The halfback run is a beautiful luxury but it should be just that, secondary to winning the ball at the cold face.

Not an entire based strategy.

Did you see the way WC rag-dolled us at the contests, it was embarrassing, Sydney did it to us last final...

Pretty footy in H&A n memberships is what we are and more fool us thinking it's going to change when things don't change.
 
Sep 22, 2011
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Highlights how important it is as to how you set up around the ground rather than just piling in after the footy. If you have your 2m 5m and 10m structures right you can negate the sides who do win a clearance.

An effective plan

A method of to make players clearly understand it

Disciplined players to implement it
 
Dec 18, 2007
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We were ahead of Collingwood for 0% of the time on ANZAC Day. I'm sick of people blaming the umps for losing a game we never lead in.

I wasn't blaming the umps for that loss but to be within a kick shows we could have won but it highlights why they finished top four and we didn't because good sides win those close ones.
 

westking

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its kind of funny that the first teams eliminated from the finals get the blow torch on them much more than the teams that missed the finals. I understand there is more focus on them because they are the only 2 out, rather than one of ten the week before but in the end, they still made the finals overr the other stragglers. Why smash the 8th placed team in the media more than ones that finished 10th or 9th?

I didnt see no, 'do they need nuclear change' crap spoken about port or norf or hawthorn...

8th and out is the poisoned chalace

I think most people look at 7th and 8th as the so called ‘fortunate teams it could be any number of six’ teams. So when the inevitable elimination occurs (bar one yr) they get lumped into the rest of the non-contenders. It would be interesting if they had a top 6 only finals year not that it would ever happen so I’m just talking s**t....again.
 

westking

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I personally think it’s a good move keeping Worsfold around. Let Rutten and Caracella and the rest of the assistants steer the ship. John is now a mentor senior coach and I think it will work just fine. It’s the media who will struggle with this concept.
I think it was important Xavier Campbell came out publicly (along with SMaddern) and confirmed the club wants him to stay and fulfill his contract.
So if John decides to move back to Perth now it’s John walking out......but going off what Worsfold has said publicly, he will be hanging around for another year.
 
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