Coaching v. Systems?

[MrChristo]

Given the amount of Bevo talk here on a consistent basis, I just think it's an interesting topic...

Mid-season picks have come in, been given games and played well.
Hall-Kahan, Fitzgerald, Herbert.

Obviously Sellwood for us. McCarthy last year.

These guys just come in and play. Minimal (at best!) training/integration.
They just play.

Thoughts?

 

[MaxiBont]

Given the amount of Bevo talk here on a consistent basis, I just think it's an interesting topic...

Mid-season picks have come in, been given games and played well.
Hall-Kahan, Fitzgerald, Herbert.

Obviously Sellwood for us. McCarthy last year.

These guys just come in and play. Minimal (at best!) training/integration.
They just play.

Thoughts?

There’s a lot of talent in the VFL.

A lot of them are older as well meaning they have been playing structured footy in the VFL.

You see it a lot with older rookies, they surpass expectations in the first couple of games due to being more ready but often stagnant.

It happened to us with Davidson. Not all of them kick on like Mannagh, Max Hall etc

 

[BEaston]

I'm not sure what the question is

 

[MrChristo]

I'm not sure what the question is

How much overall effect does a coach have on team performance?

Besides selecting the team and the odd 1-1 match up (which isn't done by the coach alone anyway) does months (years?) of training to play a certain way actually matter when second tier players get picked in a Mid-season draft, play the next week and are in the best 10 players on the ground?

(* Sellwood had months of training with us before his debut, plenty of others haven't).

 

[Foxman98]

These discussions are better off in 2-3 years time

Playing a role for 1-2 games is more than doable for many mature age players hell Billy Gowers

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Billy Gowers

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won our leading goal kicker in 2018

It’s becomes can they do it week in week out for multiple years

 

[BEaston]

How much overall effect does a coach have on team performance?

Besides selecting the team and the odd 1-1 match up (which isn't done by the coach alone anyway) does months (years?) of training to play a certain way actually matter when second tier players get picked in a Mid-season draft, play the next week and are in the best 10 players on the ground?

(* Sellwood had months of training with us before his debut, plenty of others haven't).

I see.

My opinion is that it's not that much as the populace think (and this applies across all sports I follow). We've seen "great" coaches go to poor lists and look mediocre while great lists make some coaches look legendary. It definitely has some impact but there is truth to the line that many coaches have said that once the game starts they cannot affect the game too much.

You get the odd instance where a coach like Bevo or King comes to a club and results change immediately (although there are many other factors at play with these situations too - a big one in these was removing cancerous players) - but for the most part this doesn't happen.

I think there are many styles/strategies/systems that can win in modern footy, so it's not really about having the "right" system either. More about employing a strategy that fits the list.

The other thing is there are basically no really poor coaches anymore. Gone are the days of the Peter Rhodes types, who seemingly have no clue what they're doing. The closest we have to this are the golden children of some clubs who come into senior positions (Hird, Voss etc) without having done the background development work - this is very rare now. Pretty much all coaches have extensive resumes coming into senior roles. This means the gap between best and worst is very slim which reduces the relative impact of coaching.

I'd put it at a maximum of 20%, probably more around 10%. The ability of a team's players determines most game outcomes.

Different sport but my team in the NBA Dallas, made the Finals 2 years ago off the back of the ability and structure of the team's players, while employing one of the worst coaches in the league, Jason Kidd. Happens quite often. The reverse example is Clarkson and Hardwick at their new clubs who are underperforming compared to past success.


I acknowledge I'm probably in the minority in this view though.

 

[manutd/dogs]

How much overall effect does a coach have on team performance?

Besides selecting the team and the odd 1-1 match up (which isn't done by the coach alone anyway) does months (years?) of training to play a certain way actually matter when second tier players get picked in a Mid-season draft, play the next week and are in the best 10 players on the ground?

(* Sellwood had months of training with us before his debut, plenty of others haven't).

Just posted this in the autopsy thread but it probably belongs here in at least partial response to your question:


I . . . feel the need to push back on the minimising of coaching influencing the application of and the withstanding of pressure. If our coaching group had made it a specific focus to not only spend a great deal of time over the off-season focussing on training in-game situations involving large and continuous amounts of pressure, but kept it up in-season, to the point where it was drilled into the players so much that it began to become club culture, then I dare say we would have seen a different match on Thursday night.

Now, some of it is undoubtedly the players. We are young, slight and developing across much of our 23 and swapping out a Hynes, Lennedy and Lewis for a Libba, Williams and Darcy would make an undeniable difference. But have you noticed almost all other teams are jumping and waving their hands desperately when we're trying to get a handball off, often in groups of two or three? That's not exactly a difficult skill. You or I could do it. It comes down to coaching making it into a required club culture. In my mind's eye I imagine that somewhere in their training grounds is stuck up a repeated message along the lines of, "We do NOT let opposition players get off easy possessions if we can do something about it."

The Crows have clearly focussed on pressure and tackling for a while now, as it's no mistake that they are both the number one tackling and the number one defensive pressure side in the league. That doesn't come about by accident, or just because a few players are inherently suited to or are good at it or feel like doing it for 20 mins or so because their coach suddenly got them fired up with talk about Che Guevara or some arbitrary nonsense about 'the journey'. It happens because it is drilled into them on the training ground at West Lakes time and again that this is how they must play football and if they don't, then unless they bring something spectacular or crucial to the team in other ways, then they won't last long in the senior side.

Meanwhile, we seem much more enamoured with running patterns, and Bevo emotionally championing players that (I'm sorry Bevo) have proven time and again that they aren't quite good enough for the level as 'the glue' or lionising VDM's "running patterns" when his and McNeil's substandard skills have let us down in front of goal in crucial moments time and time again.

And as our supposedly vaunted and powerful midfield were made to look weak and second rate by a supposedly inferior version on Thursday night, it was the same story I've seen in countless finals or crunch matches over the years. Bar a few players (Libba, Bont, Selwood, Williams, Naughton, Darcy, maybe one or two others) we are a mostly soft football team that relies on individual talent, confidence, offensive running patterns and a pressed up forward zone to score more than the opposition, and while this kind of football has often made us look like Harlem Globetrotters in the past against the teams who aren't great at pressuring us, when we inevitably come up against teams that have figured us out and are well-coached and well-organised to apply consistent and well-organised team pressure, we will almost definitely crumble every single time.

And in the world of us strangely addicted, often irrational, highly competitive, ego-dependent football fanatics, identifying then accepting such a ruinous truth is admittedly difficult when we all want the best for this team and this club, even if only to make our weekends a little bit brighter, but it was something I did a while ago, as much as it stings, and until it changes, until our coaching across the board learns to marry up our skills and offensive game with a fierce and manically-applied pressure on the opposition then we won't come close to winning a flag.

 

[Freshwater]

People who didn’t like him, hate to admit Brendan McCartney contributed much to our premiership. We were never winning a flag under McCartney. But he emphasised contest and ruthlessness to the team. We won the flag with so many hard heads. The fact that reining All Australian and premiership back pocket was marginalised for Bob in 2017 was the typical hubris that cost us many years. We will never win another flag under Bevo, we will never be top 4 either. Best player and best list ever assembled at the Whitten Oval deserves a new coach.

 

[The White Mouse]

At the end of the day, when all is said and done, it's probably cliche, but you have to want it more than the other guy.

In 2016, guys like Dale Morris, Liam Picken

Liam Picken

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, Matt Boyd, Easton Wood

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and Clay Smith

Clay Smith

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just wanted it more. A critical mass of players who just wanted it more than their opposition and it's infectious.

We have to wait till next season ... but it's coming.