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Indictment

  • Thread starter Thread starter CJH
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JAKLAUGHING said:
I had a strange feeling that we were going to do real well in 2017, even after that sheet 2016 season.
Simply because of our recruitment...
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I was oddly optimistic. Club had a clean out, introduced a game plan that looked like it would work better, and even if we were still crap, would at least be watchable. Of course, we weren't crap.
 
Reminds me of tugga 's famous quote after round 1, 2017:

Me: Gee we looked good
Tugs: I'm not sold, I don't like it, it will be a slow season
 

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TheLoungeLizard said:
BUMP

Interesting, in 2000 we were talking about how coaching instability was a factor in our performance, fast forward 10 years and we have had another 3 coaches in that time (including Jade 'The Blade' Rawlings) and then fast forward another 9 to now, we have stuck by one man Damian "Premiership" Hardwick.

Just goes to show, had we caved after 2016 we could be back at the bottom and the cycle continues...
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Lol Frawley 5 yrs Wallace 5 yrs Rawlings was an interim after wallace walked.they had plenty of time to improve the team and its finishes and didnt.

To me the biggest single improvement has been the clubs footy dept spend in Recruiting and development two key areas in any clubs fortunes and we were the worst at these things.

While damien has been great for us us later in his career i reckon with the new coaches who came in we would have improved significantly weather Hardwick stayed or not.

It certainly wasnt Damiens game plan that won us a flag that came from the new assistants mainly Caracella. Hardwick was smart enough to know what he was doing was not working and embraced the new way of doing things.

It also came from the smart recruiting of Nankervis, Prestia, Caddy and the emergence of a few junior players.
 
I'm pretty sure this "Caracella brought the game plan and drive it all" theory had been debunked
 
Bojangles17 said:
Yea I wasnt aware this site in 2000 , I was on tiger talk some group email boloney , weaver ran it and recommended I join here , I think he said that too all the top posters
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Yeah I was on that site too. Interestingly so was CJH (the OP). That site even had everyone's real names, including Weaver's. I once looked him up on Linkedin and believe it or not he went on to work at two clubs in recruiting (one of them magpies IIRC). Don't think they recruited anyone decent though.
 
mopsy said:
So we totally change the way we play having got rid of basically all the coaches bar Damien AND THE NEW BLOKES HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.
We arent that naieve are we.
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I'm not saying they didn't bring ideas/key elements but if Caracella was the key and driver, they wouldn't have re signed Hardwick and paid him a shit load to sit in the Box and be willing to have Blake leave
 
mopsy said:
So we totally change the way we play having got rid of basically all the coaches bar Damien AND THE NEW BLOKES HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.
We arent that naieve are we.
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Things can change fast in footy club when you tip out nearly everyone. Something needed to change. The players loved Dimma so much that sending him packing would have fractured the group. Balme saw that, he knew that. Out went nearly everyone else.

I don't think for one minute that Blake came with a Blueprint of what won us a premiership, but the collaboration was huge.

Even in training sims in early January 2017 there was no visible signs of the evolved game plan we won the flag with. We had high hopes still for Ben Griffith to take the next step, and when he went down even played Elton (ffs) for 6 games.

We also welcomed back Leppa and his role was even more massive - you don't coach an AFL Club (even the lowly Lions) without bringing plenty to the table. He was forward coach when it was decided (he convinced others) to go small and score from pressure-created inside 50's when the tall options were exhausted. We had been recruiting for pressure, players that will sweat on you, play close and close you down - he and others tweeked the game style through the early part of the season out of sheer desperation (note again we were still playing Elton tall fwd).

Agree that recruitment took a leap forward, and it's no co-incidence that this is in Matthew Clarke's time as National Recruitment Manager. But it wasn't throw the baby out with the bath water, he still had Francis Jackson on part-time. Past and present intel has value.

Trent Cotchin's role in building buy-in should not be under estimated either. His on field role as Captain has been huge, but off-field, and his deep respect for Dimma, these elements are incalculable but profound.

Dimma of his own self had nothing to do with it Mopsy, but neither did anyone else of their own. Dimma has that Hafey quality with his players, it's better than his coaching skillset perhaps. So Balme and Gale surrounded him with the best quality they could get. Not a bad plan really was it?
 
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Phar Ace said:
Things can change fast in footy club when you tip out nearly everyone. Something needed to change. The players loved Dimma so much that sending him packing would have fractured the group. Balme saw that, he knew that. Out went nearly everyone else.

I don't think for one minute that Blake came with a Blueprint of what won us a premiership, but the collaboration was huge.

Even in training sims in early January 2017 there was no visible signs of the evolved game plan we won the flag with. We had high hopes still for Ben Griffith to take the next step, and when he went down even played Elton (ffs) for 6 games.

We also welcomed back Leppa and his role was even more massive - you don't coach an AFL Club (even the lowly Lions) without bringing plenty to the table. He was forward coach when it was decided (he convinced others) to go small and score from pressure created inside 50's when the tall options were exhausted. We had been recruiting for pressure, players that will sweat on you, play close and close you down - he and others tweeked the game style through the early part of the season out of sheer desperation (note again we were still playing Elton tall fwd).

Agree that recruitment took a leap forward, and it's no co-incidence that this is in Matthew Clarke's time as National Recruitment Manager. But it wasn't throw the baby out with the bath water, he still had Francis Jackson on part-time. Past and present intel has value.

Trent Cotchin's role in building buy-in should not be under estimated either. His on field role as Captain has been huge, but off-field, and his deep respect for Dimma, these elements are incalculable but profound.

Dimma of his own self had nothing to do with it Mopsy, but neither did anyone else of their own. Dimma has that Hafey quality with his players, it's better than his coaching skillset perhaps. So Balme and Gale surrounded him with the best quality they could get. Not a bad plan really was it?
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Nah bro, it was all 100% Caracella :drunk::drunk:
 

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Caracella did come with idea's and a game plan that was n ways similar to Hardwicks but had more dare and run foward at all cost but that included having 2 KPF. We had to adapt due to not having a 2nd KPF after Ben Griffiths was ruled out and no suitable replacement or the player not being ready

so the smalls got played and it evolved
 
You blokes give too much credit to individual coaches.

It was the circumstances that we were dealt with that changed our fortunes and caught the AFL footy world off guard. Had Griffiths not got injured and forced us to go small with only 1 tall then 2017 may never have happened. The small forward mosquito fleet started to pay dividends after our 4th loss in a row and the playing groups confidence went sky high with it. The inclusion of using the battering ram Townsend and seeing him kick 6 against Freo gave him the self confidence to play the way he did for the remainder of the season. The whole team bought into it at the right time of year and we had the perfect storm heading into a finals series with a top 4 chance.

Confidence does amazing things, it makes you play with more purpose and speed and then all of a sudden you are playing the way you are supposed to play. does anyone really think the players were playing to a coaches plan in 2016? They knew the way they wanted to play but lost all confidence and our ball movement suffered.

Our new assistant coaches helped with getting our players to buy in and grow in confidence but to say they changed our game plan is sheer nonsense.
 
Coach_Required said:
You blokes give too much credit to individual coaches.

.
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Re-read the thread and the closest anyone came to that statement was Mopsy, and even he didn't really.

Our four losses were Rnds 6,7,8, and 9. Townsend played Rd 22 onward. There were 13 Rnds in between - that's were the changes were most noticeable.

Inside 50 tackles in particular. That Essendon game in Round 10 for example - it was something like 40 to 5 for Inside 50 tackles, yet it was about 75 a piece across the ground. The round before, about 60 a piece, both teams about 10 inside 50, the week before against Freo we had about 70 tackles, 10 or so more, and just 15 were inside 50.

Not every game followed that pattern, but we certainly scored more frequently from inside 50 that a lot of other teams, so there was definitely a tweak going on.

If you want to criticise past departed coaches, then you have to also compliment their replacements and say they contributed because the difference is profound. It wasn't dumb luck
 
Potentially unpopular opinion: We have always wanted at least two talls in the team, we just haven't had anyone good enough to be 2nd tall.
We had Griffiths. He went down. We tried Elton. He was shit. Through the middle of 2018 we tried Moore. Aside from those, we've mostly used Caddy or Townsend as 2nd marking option. Without going back I doubt we've set up with Jack/resting mid/4 smalls very often at all. Certainly when you think about when we've been at our best - late 2017 and much of 2018 - it's been when we've had our best 2nd options in Townsend and Caddy.

Now we've got Lynch we can finally unleash plan A on the competition.
 
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harrythetiger said:
Potentially unpopular opinion: We have always wanted at least two talls in the team, we just haven't had anyone good enough to be 2nd tall.
We had Griffiths. He went down. We tried Elton. He was shit. Through the middle of 2018 we tried Moore. Aside from those, we've mostly used Caddy or Townsend as 2nd marking option. Without going back I doubt we've set up with Jack/resting mid/4 smalls very often at all. Certainly when you think about when we've been at our best - late 2017 and much of 2018 - it's been when we've had our best 2nd options in Townsend and Caddy.

Now we've got Lynch we can finally unleash plan A on the competition.
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Not unpopular, I'd say that's bang on.
 

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