News Assistant Coach Discussion - Leigh Adams joining?

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Feb 4, 2008
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So your argument boils down to two things:
1) You,re assumption that BC is the most important coach for us and was at previous clubs and we’re going to have an extremely difficult job in replacing him, which will make us a worse side
2) That there’s a good chance we’ll stuff it up

Mine boils down to:
1) BC is a good to elite coach, but not unique in the whole AFL industry and his replacement could be beneficial, or at least not detrimental, to the club ability to coach our players effectively
2) That there’s a small chance we’ll stuff it up, because we’re well managed and a destination club

Happy to call it a difference of opinion...but much happier with my view of the world!

People move on in all industries and there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s not the end of the world though if the organisation is run extremely well.

Definitely happy to have acknowledge and accept the difference of opinion. Your paraphrasing of my position is not accurate though, in fact is is wildly inaccurate, so I will explain further.

1) Your assumption that BC is the most important coach for us and was at previous clubs and we’re going to have an extremely difficult job in replacing him, which will make us a worse side

I do not assume that Caracella is the most important coach for us. He may or may not be, I have no reliable way to judge that. I would doubt that you do either, and that is my point. All indicators I can see suggest he is a very good coach, possibly one of the best or THE best going around including head coaches:

- he is probably about to be made the highest paid assistant in the competition, which says the assistant coach market rates him numero uno in that market place,
- has been constantly headhunted by people who have worked with him, from Collingwood to Geelong, from Geelong to Richmond and now Richmond to Messendon, presumably being offered greater financial compensation and responsibility with each progressive move,
- he has transformed Richmond's ball movement successfully, unarguably. It is very difficult to conclude from the evidence he is not the main figure behind this transformation.

I do not know how difficult he will be to replace and happily acknowledge we could stumble upon someone even better, though I would not be betting on it happening. My observation is that is a lot less likely than appointing someone who is not as good based on orthodox deductive reasoning....

1 Caracella is and has been very successful, and appears to now be rated within the market as being the cutting edge of coaches, certainly assistants
2 his replacement will by definition be someone the market rates as inferior to Caracella
3 we would expect the market to be correct more often than not given it is being guided by people with first hand knowledge
4 therefore there is a greater chance that even the optimal appointment is inferior to Caracella than there is that they will be equal or superior.
5 you add in the very real possibility of a sub-optimal appointment from even a perfectly sound appointment process...
6 you add in the real possibility, however slight, of errors being made in the appointment process...

This is how I reasoned my way to my position. How did you reason your way to yours?

Your misrepresentation of my position in your second point reads:

2) That there’s a good chance we’ll stuff it up

In my previous posts I have not only not said that, I have given clear detail and explanation to frame my comments. I have, like you, strong confidence in Richmond's decision making processes. I base this on a strong and steady stream of value adding decisions over the last 10 seasons or so. Even the very best decision makers when faced with a list of probably inferior choices is less likely to come up with a superior one than not. Is that not a sound statement?

I won't go into your paraphrasing of your own position other than to make the observation that it is funny you are describing us as a destination club over an example of us being a point of departure club.

There is a marketplace out there. It appears to me a strong resource has been poached by someone within the market place who values him more highly than we do. We may eventually be shown to have grossly undervalued this resource, hopefully not.
 
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Jan 3, 2012
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I am going to have a go at finding flaws in your post here, it is not a personal attack, you have just made some points I think warrant challenging.

Yep, if we replace him with someone rubbish to average then that will be a loss. Ahh, yeah not a lot of football insight required to make that call!

Nobody has a monopoly on appointing highly effective coaches. And some known successful coaches' abilities just don't transfer well into a new environment. Pagan at Carlton, Malthouse at Carlton, Jeans at Richmond, the list is endless. On average, where anything that is working well is replaced in a system, you have a far greater chance of a worse outcome than a better one. I agree there is not a lot of insight required to make the call, it is plainly obvious. So this begs the question why you think this plainly obvious principle is not valid here....you have said Caracella is a good to elite coach, so you must think there is no realistic possibility of the club replacing him with a markedly less effective coach. Why?

I’m saying that BC is a good to elite coach amongst one of a team of good to elite coaches.

How could you distinguish this assessment from a pure guess for us? How, for instance, could you know that Caracella is not peerless among ball movement theorists and practitioners from the knowable AFL coaching pool. How could you know he is not the single most important coach at RFC?

At the end of the day he was part of the downward shift of a Geelong side that most of us could of coached to a flag in 11, before coming to us.

I am not even sure the Cats were favoured to beat Collingwood on GF day in 2011, but they were not favoured to win the flag before the season had commenced. They had lost Ablett, had a new head coach, and did not finish the season top of the ladder or with he highest percentage, and had been trounced by the Pies in the 2010 prelim. Would it be fairer to say that as an assistant coach Caracella was an integral part in two premierships at different clubs in a 7 season span? And these clubs were roughly 3rd favourite and 12th favourite pre season...and his stint and Collingwood was his first coaching stint, and they made finals each year he was there, and he has been dragged from club to club by people who have known him and worked with him...Balme for one...because they know how good he is...?

Also last year we looked a bit stale in terms of game plan at the end of the year. I reckon it’s more our list management and recruiting that has helped us turn it around and look more dangerous this year, coupled with the foundations of a consistent brand and strategy.

So Caracella alone takes the blame when we don't win a flag but everyone else takes the credit when we come good? Bear in mind we finished top of the table in 2018 and carried two crucially unfit players into the prelim where we were eliminated.

In terms of his replacement, there’s more evidence pointing towards us getting this right than there is that we won’t given how well we’re run these days. Sit back and watch it happen.

Of decisions that get an unwanted result, there are two categories:

1 wrong decisions

2 bad decisions

Not a person or organisation in the world can guarantee they will not make decisions that turn out to be wrong. Even brilliant decisions can get the wrong result due to unforeseeable or improbable issues acting against the decision. You cannot eliminate these no matter how hard you try.

Bad decisions I would say are ones where you can look back and identify where you could have foreseen the risk of it going wrong being greater than the potential reward of it going right. You can eliminate or minimise these if you are good.

I would agree the club does not seem to make bad decisions by and large, but there is always the unavoidable risk of a wrong decision. This will apply to the appointment of Caracella's replacement the same as with any other decision and this is why I do not agree with your seemingly blind faith in the club getting this decision right.

Whatever decision is made, it will be the right decision, in time it may be the wrong decision but when they make the decision it is the right decision, no one makes the wrong decision when the make the decision.

They just need to make a decision, as it will be the right decision, which later on may become the Wong decision, but with all the available facts it will be the right decision
 

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Apr 27, 2014
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They just need to make a decision, as it will be the right decision, which later on may become the Wong decision, but with all the available facts it will be the right decision
What’s Penny Wong got to do with it? 😐
 
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RFCGloryJC

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Strange thing to do when he is already contracted (til end of 2020) and they previously agreed on a salary.
The report says Essendon offered more money.
People agree all the time, doesn't mean they follow through, given a better offer.
Nothing is preserved in aspic.
Surely we keep tabs on one of our very best coaches?
 

RFCGloryJC

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I hope we consider Sanderson as an assistant coach.
Three flags at the Cats, forwards ball movement coach at the Pies.
Best in the biz after Cara.
Surprised Leppitsch went to defence, would retain as forwards coach, bring in Sanderson to mids.
Retain McQualter and Kingsley.
Maintain status quo of VFL coaches.
 
Apr 27, 2014
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A weird thought came into my head that Griggs will be on our coaching staff team next year as he’s already done basically a years apprenticeship this season. He’s been talking up VFL players for awhile now and people have mentioned him being at training sessions a lot doing work with the kids.
He’s also been doing interviews and knows a lot of physical stats about certain newbies. If I’m right then I wouldn’t begrudge him bc if any player could do the monumental task he did for us in 2017 , which really he sacrificed his career as a player then he deserves it. He played with so much smarts to fool bigger opponents he demonstrated that he has a football brain and would be ideal for the job. Being a year on the outside means that he was around the Coaching team doing his apprenticeship picking up and sharing valuable ideas with the FD.
If I’m wrong then Nick Daffy needs a call and even if I happen to be right give him a call anyway.
 

freezer

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Oct 25, 2007
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Definitely happy to have acknowledge and accept the difference of opinion. Your paraphrasing of my position is not accurate though, in fact is is wildly inaccurate, so I will explain further.

1) Your assumption that BC is the most important coach for us and was at previous clubs and we’re going to have an extremely difficult job in replacing him, which will make us a worse side

I do not assume that Caracella is the most important coach for us. He may or may not be, I have no reliable way to judge that. I would doubt that you do either, and that is my point. All indicators I can see suggest he is a very good coach, possibly one of the best or THE best going around including head coaches:

- he is probably about to be made the highest paid assistant in the competition, which says the assistant coach market rates him numero uno in that market place,
- has been constantly headhunted by people who have worked with him, from Collingwood to Geelong, from Geelong to Richmond and now Richmond to Messendon, presumably being offered greater financial compensation and responsibility with each progressive move,
- he has transformed Richmond's ball movement successfully, unarguably. It is very difficult to conclude from the evidence he is not the main figure behind this transformation.

I do not know how difficult he will be to replace and happily acknowledge we could stumble upon someone even better, though I would not be betting on it happening. My observation is that is a lot less likely than appointing someone who is not as good based on orthodox deductive reasoning....

1 Caracella is and has been very successful, and appears to now be rated within the market as being the cutting edge of coaches, certainly assistants
2 his replacement will by definition be someone the market rates as inferior to Caracella
3 we would expect the market to be correct more often than not given it is being guided by people with first hand knowledge
4 therefore there is a greater chance that even the optimal appointment is inferior to Caracella than there is that they will be equal or superior.
5 you add in the very real possibility of a sub-optimal appointment from even a perfectly sound appointment process...
6 you add in the real possibility, however slight, of errors being made in the appointment process...

This is how I reasoned my way to my position. How did you reason your way to yours?

Your misrepresentation of my position in your second point reads:

2) That there’s a good chance we’ll stuff it up

In my previous posts I have not only not said that, I have given clear detail and explanation to frame my comments. I have, like you, strong confidence in Richmond's decision making processes. I base this on a strong and steady stream of value adding decisions over the last 10 seasons or so. Even the very best decision makers when faced with a list of probably inferior choices is less likely to come up with a superior one than not. Is that not a sound statement?

I won't go into your paraphrasing of your own position other than to make the observation that it is funny you are describing us as a destination club over an example of us being a point of departure club.

There is a marketplace out there. It appears to me a strong resource has been poached by someone within the market place who values him more highly than we do. We may eventually be shown to have grossly undervalued this resource, hopefully not.
Fair play, I see what you’re saying. Yep, that’s it, we may as well pack in and merge with the kangas in 20 once BC is gone and we completely lose any ability to move the football.

The North Melbourne Kangerigers is about the billing we deserve, if anything, as we’re basically shot.
 
What a melty thread!
Good luck to him it’s a competitive market and relatively speaking assistant coaches aren’t that well paid but I’m sure he’s about to be.
It’s also not uncommon for assistants to want to know what they’ll be doing next season well before the current season ends, one of the reasons north went early on appointing Shaw. It also puts the assistants mind at ease to lock in next years plans well before finals so any talk of him not being focused on finals is not true, it’s quite the opposite.
And finally many assistants need to strategically place themselves in line with their respective ambitions and he might be on a promise not necessarily next year but next cab of the rank.
Good luck and thanks.
 
Feb 4, 2008
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Melbourne
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Fair play, I see what you’re saying. Yep, that’s it, we may as well pack in and merge with the kangas in 20 once BC is gone and we completely lose any ability to move the football.

The North Melbourne Kangerigers is about the billing we deserve, if anything, as we’re basically shot.

Not really sure why you would carry on with your straw man argument style but that is a matter for you to consider. And anyway, nobody wants to merge with North Melbourne these days, there are way too many clubs trying to do it. :drunk:
 
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Whatever decision is made, it will be the right decision, in time it may be the wrong decision but when they make the decision it is the right decision, no one makes the wrong decision when the make the decision.

They just need to make a decision, as it will be the right decision, which later on may become the Wong decision, but with all the available facts it will be the right decision
:think:
 
Whatever decision is made, it will be the right decision, in time it may be the wrong decision but when they make the decision it is the right decision, no one makes the wrong decision when the make the decision.

They just need to make a decision, as it will be the right decision, which later on may become the Wong decision, but with all the available facts it will be the right decision

Do you think you could be more decisive please, and what's with Penny Wong reference if it all goes pear-shaped? 🤣
 
Jan 3, 2012
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Do you think you could be more decisive please, and what's with Penny Wong reference if it all goes pear-shaped? 🤣

Well when it all went pear shaped a couple of months ago Ms Wong called all Australians idiots
 

Schlurp

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Aug 21, 2009
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Rance went down with a season ending ACL injury in Round 1 and our Premiership chances went down with him (according to the experts). Now a respected line coach leaves at season's end and our chances for the future seemingly go with him (according to the experts). Fortunately I'm no expert. I have every confidence a competent replacement will be appointed and we will continue to thrive.
 
Rance went down with a season ending ACL injury in Round 1 and our Premiership chances went down with him (according to the experts). Now a respected line coach leaves at season's end and our chances for the future seemingly go with him (according to the experts). Fortunately I'm no expert. I have every confidence a competent replacement will be appointed and we will continue to thrive.

WELL, if that's what the experts say, then I'm glad not to be one of them........................
 

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