Bit of a spruik for a footy mag, but in this week's Inside Football is a two-page interview with Gerard Neesham. Some insightful comments from his time at Freo.
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IF interview: Gerard Neesham
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Andrew McLeod announced his retirement this week, be interesting to get his version of events surrounding McLeod.
Likewise Jeff Farmer and why he was moved on.
Still a lot of Neeshams' ideas were correct but ahead of their time. His gameplan played on the nice dry tracks we have today with fast running players is not that far off what most teams are aiming for now.
Likewise Jeff Farmer and why he was moved on.
Still a lot of Neeshams' ideas were correct but ahead of their time. His gameplan played on the nice dry tracks we have today with fast running players is not that far off what most teams are aiming for now.
Neesham was certainly ahead of his time ... but at the same time even back then his tactics worked, when his team had the cattle relevant to the opposition (Claremont). They even worked for us sort of, people didn't really know what the hell we were doing, but they could just wait for us to F&*% it up because the players were no good.
Doesn't excuse his (and the club's) unprofessional attitude towards McLeod, Bell and others.
Doesn't excuse his (and the club's) unprofessional attitude towards McLeod, Bell and others.
Bullsh*t, Neesham wasn't ahead of his time, he totally stuffed the establishment of the playing list, along with a garbage game plan. Appointing him as inaugural coach will forever be one of the worst decisions made by this club, just after Damien Drum.
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The interview is mainly regarding his Clontarf work but there is a bit about McLeod and reading between the lines it seems McLeod's attitude may not have been the best. It's the first time he has ever mentioned anything about it & in McLeod's book I got the impression that McLeod wasn't really that keen & only came over to try & get more money.
Sheez, like the club had a lot to choose from? Certainly not from WA, in 1994-5 there was a crippling talent drought here.
And pretty hard to gauge the interstate talent when your chief recruitment officer hasn't even flown interstate before
The AFL certainly learnt from our experience, why do you think they (correctly)
allowed Port to cache players ahead of their introduction to the league? And you think this 3 year protracted birthing of the Suns is an accident?
Sheez, like the club had a lot to choose from? Certainly not from WA, in 1994-5 there was a crippling talent drought here.
And pretty hard to gauge the interstate talent when your chief recruitment officer hasn't even flown interstate before
The AFL certainly learnt from our experience, why do you think they (correctly)
allowed Port to cache players ahead of their introduction to the league? And you think this 3 year protracted birthing of the Suns is an accident?
The point still stands, it was an abject failure and as far as I'm concerned he played a big part in it. We didn't have to recruit a WA coach, if there wasn't anyone suitable here they could have looked East! I was totally p*ssed when they announced him as coach.
I agree with you on the bolded bit!
shark75
Senior List
Neesham's run and carry gamestyle and switching play is standard now. His game style was ahead of its time but he had one problem. He never listen to advise and didnt adjust his game style to players he had.
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This is one of those ongoing debates and will probably go on for ever. I tend to sit on this side of things too. Basically, the style he tried to play is what evolved early in the 2000's and when it worked it worked quite well. A fairly average list would often outplay better teams - sometimes he even managed to come away with a win and at least some of the credit has to go to his style.
He made some decent mistakes as an inaugural leader of our club, but he was outside the box, a good bloke - at least he was entertaining. Regardless of this, his work after AFL can't be denied though. He's got a great thing going with the Clontarf thing.
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Just remember there were only two applicants for the coaching job, Neesham and Ken Judge, know one else in the country wanted the job. Neesham was a coach who was asked to be a coach, talent scout, recruiter, list manager and marketing manager with no money, no training facilities, no support staff, NO F*** ALL!!!
Well clearly if you are building a club from scratch and those are your choices, you choose Judge. He has AFL experience and connections (yes Neesh was on Sydney's list and played a game) far beyond what a coach who has derived almost their entire repertoire from WAFL experience. Neesham was a quirky selection as coach. It brought an aura of unpredictability which was/is part and parcel of the club ethos, when what was actually needed was a much more conservative building process, putting some basics in place.
Neesham may well have been a great second coach for the club, especially if it followed a period as an assistant at an AFL club.
Quite possibly, always wished Judge had been in the coaches box alongside Neesham and Daniher (who were a good team).
But there were several key advantages that Neesham had, one being his ability to lure Ben Allen, Mann and Watters to the new franchise. Another was that Judge was (is?) quite an intense character and unlikely to have the same degree of patience to build a team from scratch; one of the reasons for his demise at the Eagles imo.
