Opinion Crossroads

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dave10

Premiership Player
Veteran
Apr 26, 2004
4,323
3,533
Melbourne
AFL Club
Essendon
A club drifting. Here are my thoughts:
1. Player Development. Parish (not improving as hoped / looks disillusioned), Francis (backwards / insufficient work rate), Langford (disillusioned / lacks workrate), Laverde (injury), Tippa (struggles when pressures on), Stewart, Clarke (kicking weakness). Much of our high end talent hasn’t developed to the trajectory hoped or looks disillusioned. Big concern.

2. Game Plan. Can’t cope with teams that go man on man or block space. Unless it’s on our terms we can’t win. Is the game plan too one dimensional? What’s the plan B when teams dictate the game (Geelong / Sydney prime examples)?

3. Onfield Leadership. Essendon to me appear to lack natural leaders who have a big impact on matches. That thing with Heppell and Myers last night was symbolically terrible. That attitude to me is symbolic of how they approached the JLT and round 1. Comfortable with where the clubs at.

4. Toughness. Essendon aren’t tough. I mean they aren’t 110% tough. They’re not playing with the same intensity displayed late last year. Why? The key indicators that got them going last year like pressure ratings, stuck tackles etc... MINDSET. It’s not uncompromising. It needs to be.

A club st the crossroads. Players not developing, lack of leadership, a game plan that appears one dimensional and easy to shut down and uncompromising mindset on and off field to me are at the heart of the clubs predicament. Until it displays these qualities across its entire football program I fear we won’t go anywhere as a club.
 
Didn't take long for us to go back to being the laughing stock of the league.

All very valid points.
I hate this thread already
 
Need to get Collective Minds in on our next pre-season....:)
 

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It’s just my observations. There must be drivers behind why this club isn’t advancing forward. The saga was debilitating however we need to move on. We are 3-5 and outside the 8. We are tracking behind where we wanted to be. Every team has injuries.

Mediocrity can’t be accepted. I thought the first JLT Cup game against Richmond last year set the tone for the first 8 weeks in 2018. Same for JLT match against Carlton this year setvthe tone for round 1. It was brushed off by most as overreacting early.

Mindset and resilience is big in football and I don’t think Essendon is where it needs to be. It got ahead of itself over the summers of 2018/9 with big recruits and hype. The club believed the hype. It got back on track late last year with mindset and defensive focus and I thought that would be the catalyst for a big 2019.

Then you overlay apparent issues in player Development, leadership, game plan and this is where the clubs at.

It’s not good enough and needs to be dealt with or the club will drift for another 15 years. The supporters are losing confidence in the clubs output.
 
Fantasia, McKenna, and Tippa are the only guys who have clearly improved from 2017. Maybe Ambrose?

Langford, Laverde, Daniher (although injured), Parish, Heppell, Merrett, Hooker, Hurley, Myers, Bagueley, Hartley, Brown, Smack, Hartley, Stewart, Bellchambers, Gleeson (injured), Long, have all failed to improve.

That’s a diabolical result.
 
Football people often refer to “what a club stands for”. Essendon stands for mediocrity and has done for a long time now. Once that is ingrained into the culture of a club it’s like a cancer. I’d suggest Carlton and Melbourne as prime examples of that cancer but the reality is that we we don’t need examples. We are an example, we are their contemporaries in that respect, we are a mediocre organisation in every respect and it lights an intense fire in my guts that something I love so much is so very ******* pathetic.
 
Tassieboy said:
Fantasia, McKenna, and Tippa are the only guys who have clearly improved from 2017. Maybe Ambrose?

Langford, Laverde, Daniher (although injured), Parish, Heppell, Merrett, Hooker, Hurley, Myers, Bagueley, Hartley, Brown, Smack, Hartley, Stewart, Bellchambers, Gleeson (injured), Long, have all failed to improve.

That’s a diabolical result.
Click to expand...
Too many younger players brought into the club are not advancing. Some of it high end talent. Langford should be better than he is and playing senior football now. Why not? Francis for all his noted challenges to me isn’t going about his footy with the focus and repeated determination required. Parish hadn’t improved. If they walk out at years end that would be an indictment on the club. Player Development is the biggest issue needing to be addressed.

My other main concern is mindset and culture. We may not even know what impact the saga has had in creating the culture of the club. To me it feels like Essendon has lost its ruthlessness. It’s a nice club with great blokes and a nurturing environment of inclusiveness and acceptance. That’s the look and feel of Essendon that I see. It produces good outcomes in a learning environment. It’s inconsistent in effort. It’s the Melbourne Foitball Club in this sense to me.

I feel like it’s become a soft and accepting club. It needs to bring back some mongrel. It can’t accept that rubbish from Heppell and Myers post game. On the flip side, it did show Essendon is a nice club with good blokes!

And I don’t know whether we have a good coach btw.
 
Essendon is a business. They are doing fine. That's all that really matters, innit?


If fans actually started voting with their feet, and didn't turn up, revoked their membership, etc, we might, ah you know what I can't even be bothering articulating it.


I'm off to Japan for the next few weeks!


Watashitachi Wa Hissudesu! Watashitachi Wa Hissudesu! Watashitachi Wa Hissudesu!
 
When the CEO took back his real thoughts on Twitter about ‘that’ loss to Brisbane in 2017 at Ethihad because he thought it was too brutal... That’s culture. The meaning of that action and reconsideration was telling in so many ways to me.

The pressures on at Essendon. The coach, President and CEO.
 
I think the main issue in terms of onfield reaults sits with the "leaders" of the playing group.

We treat players who have never won a final like undroppable 3 time premiership greats

When 3 of your top 5 or 6 most competitive players are brought in from outside our culture last year that's should highlight the issues within the group.
Saad, Stringer and Smith welcome to Essendon, please meet Myers, Zaharakis and Bellchambers - our current senior players...
 
CBombers17 said:
I think the main issue in terms of onfield reaults sits with the "leaders" of the playing group.

We treat players who have never won a final like undroppable 3 time premiership greats

When 3 of your top 5 or 6 most competitive players are brought in from outside our culture last year that's should highlight the issues within the group.
Saad, Stringer and Smith welcome to Essendon, please meet Myers, Zaharakis and Bellchambers - our current senior players...
Click to expand...
Yep.
Have a look at Hawthorn and Roughy!
 
We could get around some of the issues but we really need.

1. Quality inside midfielder.
2. Someone who can take some contested marks in the forward line.

Probably will not happen this year but behind developing a team defence these are the areas that hurt us. Quality inside player to replace Myers and Langford. It would also help a player like Parish who could concentrate on his own game more rather than feeling he has to win a lot of inside ball.

Last night not having anyone being bale to mark hurt us big time. Two weeks ago when Joe produced something that looked like his best in the last 3 quarters we got close to what most people are saying is the best team in the comp.

A couple of other issues that would turn our fortunes right now.

Shiel lifting his kicking efficiency.
Stringer not missing 2 or 3 easy set shots every week.
Walla playing at a more consistent level and not continuing going to ground.
McKenna not turning the ball over in the back half.
 

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Kakkle said:
Essendon is a business. They are doing fine. That's all that really matters, innit?


If fans actually started voting with their feet, and didn't turn up, revoked their membership, etc, we might, ah you know what I can't even be bothering articulating it.


I'm off to Japan for the next few weeks!


Watashitachi Wa Hissudesu! Watashitachi Wa Hissudesu! Watashitachi Wa Hissudesu!
Click to expand...
Yakult
 
IT IS ALL OK BECAUSE THE SEASON STARTS NEXT WEEK.
 
IggypopsTshirt said:
Football people often refer to “what a club stands for”. Essendon stands for mediocrity and has done for a long time now. Once that is ingrained into the culture of a club it’s like a cancer. I’d suggest Carlton and Melbourne as prime examples of that cancer but the reality is that we we don’t need examples. We are an example, we are their contemporaries in that respect, we are a mediocre organisation in every respect and it lights an intense fire in my guts that something I love so much is so very ******* pathetic.
Click to expand...


Just look at the milaise Richmond FC wallowed in for decades & how hard it was for them to get that first finals win. We are living in that football hell & it's going to take some doing to get out.
 
It all comes down to culture. All of it. We have the players and the talent, but we lack what great sides possess, hell, even average sides, and that's an uncompromising position when it comes to the point of football.

I think the drugs saga hurt this club in so many ways that they're impossible to really articulate or measure, but I feel like the club has an attitude that it owes a lot of the players for what it did to them, and they are treated with kid gloves. Who knows, maybe it does owe them, but whatever your thoughts are on that, we're a soft club who's more interested in providing a safe, sterile, corporate and marketable image, than we are in winning games of football.

I hate Collingwood, more than almost any club, but I bloody well respect them. They stand for something and don't take well to people challenging their position. Whatever you think of Eddie, he's fostered an 'us against them' mentality which all the supporters and players can get behind and be on the same page, through wins and losses. We had this briefly with Hird, but haven't had it ingrained in our supporters or players since Sheedy.

I feel so disconnected from the club I used to know and love and respect that I wonder why I support them figuratively and financially every time I see that debit on my bank statement. I bet the members of Collingwood, Hawthorn, Geelong, Richmond, Bulldogs, just to name a few, understand what their clubs are trying to achieve and the part that the club plays in their lives.

I see Essendon becoming more and more like a business first and club second. Their members merch screams of maximising profit margins, their events are hundreds of dollars to attend, member's benefits equate to tea and biscuits at half time. None of this is value for money or particularly enticing. This is a club that is turning over nearly $100 million a year.

All of these things in isolation maybe appear not so bad, but when you see your captain and vice having a laugh after losing by a kick to an undermanned bottom placed Sydney in Sydney (again), then it highlights everything I've outlined and really points to quite a big problem, from top to bottom, within the very fabric of this club.
 
Fine margins, it’s never as good or bad as it seems.

I will say Worsfold is not putting players in positions to give them the best chance to succeed, that much is blatantly obvious
 
Was expecting a YouTube link to that bone thugs n harmony song
 
ant555 said:
We could get around some of the issues but we really need.

1. Quality inside midfielder.
2. Someone who can take some contested marks in the forward line.

Probably will not happen this year but behind developing a team defence these are the areas that hurt us. Quality inside player to replace Myers and Langford. It would also help a player like Parish who could concentrate on his own game more rather than feeling he has to win a lot of inside ball.

Last night not having anyone being bale to mark hurt us big time. Two weeks ago when Joe produced something that looked like his best in the last 3 quarters we got close to what most people are saying is the best team in the comp.

A couple of other issues that would turn our fortunes right now.

Shiel lifting his kicking efficiency.
Stringer not missing 2 or 3 easy set shots every week.
Walla playing at a more consistent level and not continuing going to ground.
McKenna not turning the ball over in the back half.
Click to expand...
This killed us last night. We could not take a contested mark anywhere but it especially hurt us in the F50 because we kept bombing it as if something different would happen.
 
What is happening at the moment is not an on field issue. Well, it is to an extent - but only by extension. Our problem is cultural & goes all the way up.

We are NO DIFFERENT to Carlton in many ways.

Many of you will not be old enough to remember the change in culture that happened at Essendon in the early 80's, when Sheedy came across to the club. A 'good time' club attitude needed to change.

If you aren't aware, google the speech that Sheedy made after the 1983 premiership loss. My parents were there & at the time, couldn't believe how Sheedy spoke - and were not happy with it - we'd made a Grand Final, after all. Both, in retrospect, changed their minds and agreed that it was exactly what needed to be said - and exactly what the club needed.

I shudder to think what Sheedy would be thinking deep down about Hep & Myers having a smile after losing to the BOTTOM SIDE...

Well, we are in exactly the same position right now that we were in back in the early 80's, and cultural change needs to happen right now.
 
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