Coach Clarkson has left the building

[HODGEYROAD]

I will say I was in the minority in wanting a coaching change so that side of it doesn't worry me a great deal.

The way it was handled by Jeff, Justin Reeves and the board is an absolute disgrace though, deeply concerning these people are making the calls going forward for this great club.

Sam has my full support going forward, if he is the right man for the job remains to be seen though.

Clarko thanks for your service, you deserved a better send off than the way it has panned out with the club looking like clowns.

 

[HODGEYROAD]

Jeff - President
Reeves - 5 year contract

They now have more power to control the direction of the club than anyone.


Sam... who has lost all political capital and can't risk burning his coaching career... has little power in the club until Jeff is gone and he has some success.

Our cultural hangover from this is really unresolved.

It is not like a Dunstall-Clarkson pact in 2004

Serious question, what has he done to deserve such a lengthy deal ?

 

[Billyc]

Serious question, what has he done to deserve such a lengthy deal ?

Jeff’s dirty work

 

[vaughnie]

It seems to me that Clarko was a dead man walking.

If the reports are correct, Reeves and Clarko haven't been on speaking terms for a while. Meantime, the board took the decision 2 or 3 months ago to extend Reeves' contract for a further 5 years.

An organisation cannot afford to have two crucial, senior people not speaking to each other. So, I would assume when discussing Reeves' extension at board level, the board would also have had to discuss the relationship between their CEO and senior coach. One of the two, or both, would have to go. It would be untenable to continue with both of them given the breakdown in their relationship. It seems as though they decided to keep Reeves over Clarko and he was effectively boned with 1 & 1/2 years of his contract remaining.

I guess the board was hoping to get through until the latter part of next year before announcing the change but surely they also must have known that there would be a change of coach somewhere before then and they would have to move earlier. They have been inept on this and there should be a price to pay at board level for that ineptness.

 

[Gaborone]

The notion of replacing Clarkson as coach is a perfectly valid one.

The idea that they had seen enough of Sam Mitchell to know he is the one they wanted as a replacement is also perfectly valid.

Everything else about this sorry tale, and how it has been handled by those in charge, has been an unparalleled disaster, at least during my time as a Hawk fan.

For whatever reason, it seems the 'one year payout' thing has caused a lot of unprofessional, even dishononourable behaviour, from both sides of the fence.

Something that would necessarily have been painful has become painful, embarrassing, confusing, filled with contradictory messaging, drawn-out, and publicly humiliating for our club and its supporters.

At best, it could have been painful, but quick and decisive.

The board and Kennett need to answer not for the changeover, but the disastrous way it was done.

What's been dishonourable from Clarko's side of the fence. He had an iron clad contract and was perfectly entitled to reap the rewards. And just as well because given how this has been handled the muppets in charge would have tried to fleece him.

 

[Mercy Seat]

To me, the thing I still can’t get my head around is the fact that this succession plan was supposedly always in the works, from the moment we bought Sam back to the club, but seemingly no one, between Clarko, Sam, Jeff, etc, bothered to have a single meaningful conversation clarifying exactly what this means or would look like? To the point where Sam is still entertaining perhaps going to the Pies?

This to me was the first failing of governance in this whole sorry saga. If everyone has a different implied expectations, nothing that has happened surprises me, and it’s no wonder we’ve been a mess both on and off the field.

At the very least, we should have had the decency to be able to bring everyone, including our greatest modern coach, into these conversations from the very beginning and have these conversations and clearly create a plan for the future, 2 years, 5 years etc.

Whats done is done, and we need to draw a line under this whole thing, but it’ll never sit well with me, like a lot of supporters, and I hope it doesn’t leave a Norm Smith style stain on our club for years to come.

 

[Dave Id]

Serious question, what has he done to deserve such a lengthy deal ?

Perhaps a better question is,why did he and Jeff cross the road together?

 

[eldorado]

What's been dishonourable from Clarko's side of the fence. He had an iron clad contract and was perfectly entitled to reap the rewards. And just as well because given how this has been handled the muppets in charge would have tried to fleece him.

To me, leaking to the media is dishonourable.

It seems this has come from both sides.

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

What's been dishonourable from Clarko's side of the fence. He had an iron clad contract and was perfectly entitled to reap the rewards. And just as well because given how this has been handled the muppets in charge would have tried to fleece him.

The idea that he’s not spoken to key staff for 6 months is pretty off from a senior leader of any business.

 

[Opens positions]

What a loser, should have ****ed off when HFC found out he signed up with rival and admitted it when confronted about it.

Don't care what anyone says, I'm right.

And no ******* statue

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

Serious question, what has he done to deserve such a lengthy deal ?

I would assume that the five-year deal was to assure stability over the period which we new Clarkson’s time was going to end and that Jeff will be going.

Based on that, I can understand the length.

 

[vaughnie]

Serious question, what has he done to deserve such a lengthy deal ?

I would also think it has something to do with Dingley. He would be a key plank in carrying out the development and they want to lock him in.

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

Close sources to a rival player and they don't mind people knowing say Rival player approached by clarko to change clubs and quite in depth discussion.
When manager contacted HFC no one knew anything about it and told have no interest.
Manager was not happy to say the least.
Loser Clarkson tried to recruit a 29 year old.

Ok, now you’ve edited it to make sense, thank you.

Are you now also suggesting in your other most recent post that Clarkson was already pursuing players for his next(rival) club?

 

[Scooter_1968]

Kennedy by a million miles.
Yabby by a 100.
Clarko a very good third, which at a Club as rich in recent history is still excellent. 2008 I give all alone to Clarko. Rabbit out of a hat, pure energy and belief and a game plan that worked such a treat on the day.
The next 3 are the players. Clarko still fantastic, but the players made a fairly simple game plan work by being otherworldly when it counted. Just big game players, Burgers, Sam, Hodgey, Roughey, Gibbo, the unicorn in Buddy, the ring in in Lakey, and everyone else pulling in the same direction.
Doesn't take away from Clarko.

But comeon.
Kennedy BUILT the club from a pile of absolute pathetic forever losing doo doo. He changed the very course of our Club.
He's the greatest.

Yabby took us to SEVEN, I repeat SEVEN, Grand Finals in a row. In a freakin row.
Great players we had no doubt, but we won a ridiculously high percentage of our games, and by extraordinary margins, because Mr Jeans was a man for the ages.

Now to bully......
Nope. I just read your outraged yelling and finger pointing and get tired of it.

The Club is absolutely it's members and culture. If you aren't willing to pull in the same direction because of your infatuation with Clarko, you're not part of that culture.

Kennett IS crap.

I wrote he was crap 4 years ago.
3 years ago.
2 years ago.
I left the board because of the nitwits and deniers of Covid, to deal with the public health crisis that has gone on here in the USA.
I return, and fully agree Kennett is not the man for the job.

Your vitriol and screaming 'He's a Witch, burn him, burn him!', is tiresome.

On SM-G973F using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[daniel23]

What a loser, should have f’ed off when HFC found out he signed up with rival and admitted it when confronted about it.

Don't care what anyone says, I'm right.

And no ******* statue

Is this clarkson? Your views about him are very strong.

 

[Scooter_1968]

I don't know how some of you guys are getting a negativite read from that presser.
Clarko seemed in good spirits and you can tell him and Sammy aren't bitter towards each other.
I don't get it.

I think a lot on here only look for the negative

On SM-G973F using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[TassieGrown]

I'm confused by this post too.

On SM-G950F using BigFooty.com mobile app

Is your mystery person bald ?

does he wear glasses?

 

[savagelunchbox]

Ok, now you’ve edited it to make sense, thank you.

Are you now also suggesting in your other most recent post that Clarkson was already pursuing players for his next(rival) club?

 

[TassieGrown]

Let’s face it the clubs culture hasn’t been the same since we got rid of Lewis and Mitchell for peanuts. Throw in the handling of Hodge and Roughheads departures

Agree this was when the club started treating players like cattle and us as members should have been more out spoken, legends of the club were treated poorly.

 

[Mercy Seat]

What a loser, should have f’ed off when HFC found out he signed up with rival and admitted it when confronted about it.

Don't care what anyone says, I'm right.

And no ******* statue

What drivel. You’ve openly admitted to making this up / speculating in PMs and yet still go stirring this crap up. If anything close to what you’re saying was true, we’d be in the courts.

 

[Opens positions]

Say what U want, know I'm right.

 

[eldorado]

Say what U want, know I'm right.

Are you saying Clarkson signed with a rival some time ago?

 

[Opens positions]

Are you saying Clarkson signed with a rival some time ago?

You got it

 

[Bruno Oresar]

Sad end to Clarko. Ridiculous attempt at succession plans which rarely work. But the road to this farce partially started with Clarko. Sadly he has delivered us into a race for the wooden spoon and a list likely to get worse before it gets better. When he learnt of the succession plan Clarko doubled down on what most of us see as a ridiculous approach to selection. He keeps playing Burgoyne, Shiels, Ceglar, and won’t play the likes of Finn, Downie or Newcombe etc. He keeps displaying loyalty to past champions or those he recruited in his failed attempt at topping up. Clarko’s continued insistence on a failing short and long term strategy was the real deal sealer. I’m not sure it wasn’t his plan to force an impasse and resultant pay out. Either way I don’t care. I have become very tired of what Clarko has delivered of late. Continued faith in oldies with too little rejuvenation. Too much faith in failed top up players. Too much control and too large a wage. Increasingly poor on field results.

Yes - Kennett and co handled this poorly but so did Clarko. He is not a coach at the top of his game (as much of the footy press continuously and ridiculously claim ). I love him but Clarko’s pressers have become an embarrassment. His reflections on player performance in Burgoyne’s 400th (that the players were trying too hard when down 41 points at half time) were an absolute joke and quite possibly a piss take. However those comments grated with me and I presume others. Those comments reflected a lack of accountability for underperformance and effort from all including the coach. It was clear to me at this point he was on his last legs at Hawthorn (he might bring ruthlessness and success to another club).

I look forward to a positive future. I will have wonderful memories of premiership success that Clarko helped engineer. I am now hopeful of a return to the ruthlessness that Clarko had in 2005 but no longer has in 2021. Go Sammy

 

[Yardie]

Couldn't agree less. The Culture of this Club was changed forever by John Kennedy. The fact he's no longer with us has no impact. You are equating Clarko with ALL good that's ever happened here. Plenty of people have done just as much or more.

You are quite correct with that statement however the club lost its way in the 90s and the culture of the place was a basket case. It took a player who was coached by John Kennedy to bring that culture back into the club.

Building and maintaining culture is hard. Destroying culture is easy. What we have done is made it harder for Sam.