No, it isn’t. That’s not how football works and if you actually opening yourself up to other people’s logic rather than just ‘I’m right come hell or high water’ you will work this out.
If a team finishes 4th every year for a decade, and their finals results are dictated by ladder position (ie. higher ranked team is considered ‘favourite’) then they will lose 66 per cent of matches, getting knocked out in the preliminary final every year, while a team who finishes 6th and gets knocked out on semi-final weekend will boast a 50 per cent record for the decade.
The coach with the ‘sub par’ 33 per cent record in this instance is actually coaching his team in finals to exactly where they SHOULD be finishing each year.
It’s not rocket science but you keep try to make out like it is.
Forgetting mathematical formulae for a second, and yes there are a couple of seasons - 2014 is the standout and 2016 wasn’t much better - where we were really really ordinary across two finals in each season.
Any coach who makes 11 finals campaigns will have poor ones.
Hardwick going out in week one three years in a row, once against the team who finished ninth in one instance, for example.
On the flip side Scott beat a side that no other coach could beat in 2011. He overachieved.
In 2020 he got a side from fourth into the grand final. Ladder position should have indicated that we never made it that far.
So yes there are years on both sides of the equation where he has exceeded or missed what ‘should’ have happened.
