Let me explain what really happened Reg.
After losing the 2015 prelim Ross grudgingly came to the conclusion that his gameplan was out of date and he'd never beat Hawthorn with it. He was finally forced to put his stubborn 'my way or the highway' approach aside and admit things needed to change, and that he wasn't capable of delivering that change himself.
So he went out and grabbed three ex-Hawthorn coaches in Rock, Guerra & Hale and told them he wanted to transform his team into the kind of high-scoring, free flowing side Hawthorn is.
So why did it fail? Because for the past 4 years at Freo he's done nothing but select & train players on the basis of who could deliver the most pressure, not who can actually kick a ******* football. Surprise surprise, it didn't work because you have too many 'role players' AKA hacks like Suban, Dawson, Mzungu, de Boer, Spurr, Mayne etc. with limited skillsets who can't play multiple positions at anything better than VFL standard.
By this latest announcement I gather he's admitting defeat & going back to what he knows best - dour, defensive football that's 5 years out of date.