Ridley This
Team Captain
Team development is something I’ve taken a detail interest in over the past couple of off-seasons, not only from our own team, but from the history of how other successful sides were built beyond simply hitting the draft jackpot. In a previous thread I’ve looked into long-term quantitate data (http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threa...nd-profit-2014-edition.1042660/#post-31389610), whilst here I want to address some qualitative concerns I have.
What makes or breaks a premiership team is the worst of your best. Malthouse ear Collingwood popularised the term ‘best 25’, indicating a level of depth and ‘next man up’ that characterises a successful long term campaign. The idea is to broaden the number of people at your team who can do the lifting and, taken to it’s logical this end, means that it can be the responsibility of your entire list to win a flag. In practice, its about making use of everything that you have and creating a natural cycle where not everyone has to be at their best all the freaken time. Ross Lyon is the modern master of this process, mainly because he has created this cycle for two teams (Freo and StKilda) within a relatively short space of time. Freo were historically categorised as being composed of two superstar players (Sandilands and Pav), and if you could stop them, the rest would crumble. Lyon’s teams are are characterised by group effort and total ground hustle, which not only diminishes the pressure on your top tier, but also has a flow on effect of raising seemingly mediocre players into great ones. The mark of a true champion may be to play consistently well in a bad team, however you ought not build your team around that champion because it fosters a tendency to pass the buck. If you’re attempting to shed a losing culture, this type of holistic thinking is a good place to start. Geelong are the prime example, whilst Swans and Hawks can be cited to a lesser degree.
Personally I feel the Bulldogs over-relied on a handful of player through their last two credible finals campaigns. Wallace and Eade both had a habit of bracketing off the best and forgetting the rest. Equally,our general fan base seems to have gotten into the habit of canonising three or four players, whilst being blind to the deficiencies of our list as a whole. I’m not saying everyone does this, but when most of us haven’t lived through a Dogs flag, it’s easy enough to cling too tightly to the positives we can find. However, this is something we must culturally keep in check if we ever want to actually win something.
Philosophically, this is why I like McCartney and want to back him to the hilt. BMac’s long time mentor and partner, Mark Thompson, placed huge emphasis of growing a complete unit of men, which includes their personal development as well as sporting. McCartney’s message, at least from the outside looking in, is one of first principal footy, where you build from the ground and bring everyone along. This is reflected in his simple messaging and his relatively straight talking persona. That's all great, assuming it’s not all smoke and mirrors, with a guy who really doesn’t have a clue being just clever enough to spin AFL 101 into sounding more profound than it really is.
It’s year 3 of McCartney, which in my opinion is judgment time. Obviously we’re all pleased with the likes of McCrea and Libba going through the roof. Others, such a Dalh. JJ, Clay, Hunter, Talia and Rough continue on a relatively steady upward trend. However, I feel that McCartney still has a huge amount to prove under his own standards of critique; specifically the number of player currently in our senior rotation who are ‘flakes’.
I define a flake as a player who has demonstrated capacity to be a useful first grade footballer, but who goes totally missing for long periods of games, if not several weeks. They have the tendency to unfairly become the whipping boy of some fans, yet still deserved reasonable scrutiny. In fact, most of these are players which I like and think we should persist with, however if they continue to demonstrate an inability to find consistent form then we should be rightfully concerned about them as individuals and our development strategy at large.
To name names:
Campbell
Crameri (on Essendon form)
Dickson
Goodes
Grant
Jones
Stevens
Stringer
Tutt
Wallis (hidden by a tagging role)
Wood
The intention of this thread is to track the overall state of the our Flakes, as a group and individual, rather than simply sporadically potting them in every post-match vent. Some may drop out of contention completely, whilst other, so-far-unsighted types will probably be added as the season progresses. I would like you guys to help me review of each of these players in 4 week batches as to allow long term tends to emerge. Hopefully this will provide some useful data to inform our support base at large.
For BMac to be considered a successful developmental style of coach, we must be able to chart considerable improvement across this named group over 2014.
What makes or breaks a premiership team is the worst of your best. Malthouse ear Collingwood popularised the term ‘best 25’, indicating a level of depth and ‘next man up’ that characterises a successful long term campaign. The idea is to broaden the number of people at your team who can do the lifting and, taken to it’s logical this end, means that it can be the responsibility of your entire list to win a flag. In practice, its about making use of everything that you have and creating a natural cycle where not everyone has to be at their best all the freaken time. Ross Lyon is the modern master of this process, mainly because he has created this cycle for two teams (Freo and StKilda) within a relatively short space of time. Freo were historically categorised as being composed of two superstar players (Sandilands and Pav), and if you could stop them, the rest would crumble. Lyon’s teams are are characterised by group effort and total ground hustle, which not only diminishes the pressure on your top tier, but also has a flow on effect of raising seemingly mediocre players into great ones. The mark of a true champion may be to play consistently well in a bad team, however you ought not build your team around that champion because it fosters a tendency to pass the buck. If you’re attempting to shed a losing culture, this type of holistic thinking is a good place to start. Geelong are the prime example, whilst Swans and Hawks can be cited to a lesser degree.
Personally I feel the Bulldogs over-relied on a handful of player through their last two credible finals campaigns. Wallace and Eade both had a habit of bracketing off the best and forgetting the rest. Equally,our general fan base seems to have gotten into the habit of canonising three or four players, whilst being blind to the deficiencies of our list as a whole. I’m not saying everyone does this, but when most of us haven’t lived through a Dogs flag, it’s easy enough to cling too tightly to the positives we can find. However, this is something we must culturally keep in check if we ever want to actually win something.
Philosophically, this is why I like McCartney and want to back him to the hilt. BMac’s long time mentor and partner, Mark Thompson, placed huge emphasis of growing a complete unit of men, which includes their personal development as well as sporting. McCartney’s message, at least from the outside looking in, is one of first principal footy, where you build from the ground and bring everyone along. This is reflected in his simple messaging and his relatively straight talking persona. That's all great, assuming it’s not all smoke and mirrors, with a guy who really doesn’t have a clue being just clever enough to spin AFL 101 into sounding more profound than it really is.
It’s year 3 of McCartney, which in my opinion is judgment time. Obviously we’re all pleased with the likes of McCrea and Libba going through the roof. Others, such a Dalh. JJ, Clay, Hunter, Talia and Rough continue on a relatively steady upward trend. However, I feel that McCartney still has a huge amount to prove under his own standards of critique; specifically the number of player currently in our senior rotation who are ‘flakes’.
I define a flake as a player who has demonstrated capacity to be a useful first grade footballer, but who goes totally missing for long periods of games, if not several weeks. They have the tendency to unfairly become the whipping boy of some fans, yet still deserved reasonable scrutiny. In fact, most of these are players which I like and think we should persist with, however if they continue to demonstrate an inability to find consistent form then we should be rightfully concerned about them as individuals and our development strategy at large.
To name names:
Campbell
Crameri (on Essendon form)
Dickson
Goodes
Grant
Jones
Stevens
Stringer
Tutt
Wallis (hidden by a tagging role)
Wood
The intention of this thread is to track the overall state of the our Flakes, as a group and individual, rather than simply sporadically potting them in every post-match vent. Some may drop out of contention completely, whilst other, so-far-unsighted types will probably be added as the season progresses. I would like you guys to help me review of each of these players in 4 week batches as to allow long term tends to emerge. Hopefully this will provide some useful data to inform our support base at large.
For BMac to be considered a successful developmental style of coach, we must be able to chart considerable improvement across this named group over 2014.
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. For the record what is the man's name?
