- Mar 21, 2014
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- AFL Club
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- #626
I was all aboard until the bolded part.This is certainly a concern. I'm sorry, but I'm not sure how a prospective senior coach these doesn't come in with a clear idea of how he would structure his coaching department.
Personally I would think having a Senior Assistant would be absolutely key, someone who can sit above the line coaches and assist the coach with the ever increasing duties and demands on the Senior Coach. Bring in a quality senior assistant, and you can afford to hire less experienced line coaches. This should be #2 on the list behind finding a quality Football Ops Manager. The culture/relationships manager or whatever they want to call it should be way down the list of priorities.
One of the key aspects/strengths supposedly of Nicks is his relationship building and this was a key area that was deemed to be lacking. In his first year as coach, I expect there's going to be an even bigger demand on him to do this, he will need someone whom he can rely on to pick up some of the strategy/game analysis stuff.
It was one of the biggest issues Sando had once Dean Baily left and instead of hiring him a senior assistant, we simply sacked Sando and brought in Walsh.
The worry I have here, is that whilst we're saying its Nicks' decision, how supportive are we actually being of him bringing someone in? Are we actually providing him with resources and funds to actually target the right person? Or have we said "sure Nicksy, who do you want? You can offer them a standard assistants salary. Oh and he'll have to look after the forwards as we'll let Ben Hart go if you do bring them in..."
The other issue is that we've left things too late. Anyone of note is already signed up. Now if we need to hold off on appointing a senior assistant for a year to ensure we get the right person, that's fine, but at least we should be honest about it.