Club History is there any getting over the saga?

[boncer34]

I roundly enjoy being called a snake oil salesman, being a weak cop out or having a dumb theory.

I didn't call you a snake oil salesman.

And I believe blaming the saga for now is dumb and a weak cop out refusing to accept that we as a club at the moment are s**t, that until we face up to that and stop looking for excuses such as the saga it won't change. That's my opinion, how else do you want me to say it?

But here is a simple question you ignored.

You said

are we bound to accept mediocre senior players who were there?

this is why its till biting us.

I said

EDIT: Further to this which average senior player? Myers? Who else?

 

[DapperDon]

Let's not forget we were s**t before the saga too. The saga just blanketed it for a few seasons.

 

[boncer34]

Let's not forget we were s**t before the saga too. The saga just blanketed it for a few seasons.

I'd argue it may have given us a spike, the whole "us vs the world" mentality.

 

[DapperDon]

I'd argue it may have given us a spike, the whole "us vs the world" mentality.

I agree with this also, no surprise that once the articles and talk back radio anger stopped so did the will to lift on field.

 

[SherbertLemon]

Good blokes inc

 

[Howard Moon]

So what’s your point? The club has been / was poorly run for a long time, and we’ll never turn it around?

It’s a bit different to “never getting over the saga”, isn’t it?

look, i'm generally an over thinker, and I sometimes sit and extrapolate things further than they need to go sometimes but I am thinking further ahead than just now. Its more about the overarching feeling within a club, not what happens on the ground. If you have an unhappy bitter club, a scorned club still not at peace with what happened its an environment that is not going to be enjoyable for new kids coming in, development has never been our strong point anyway..that the kid of things that keeps going and going unless you can somehow put a stop to it. irrespective of how s**t we were before the saga, its just another layer of stuff our club has to deal with.

like I said my style of though can not always be accurate or concise but it was just feeling I had last night when I was thinking about it

 

[Howard Moon]

It has nothing to do with the saga. We've had the same attitude and shortcomings since the latter part of the Sheedy era.

I actually hoped that the saga was a wakeup call that the club desperately needed.

that was the hope!, clean slate, start again - but I don't know that we did that, we just tried to find ways to look like we had gotten back on the horse

 

[Howard Moon]

the other element has been discussed in recent times- due to the saga we had a ready made will to win, an emotional driver - us vs them ect

now it seems we cant emotionally get up for regular games - we need something huge to get us going.

 

[SydneyBomber]

Partially agree.
Don't think we'll make enough of the hard calls on the players that were involved in the saga (in terms of selection or retirement), which will lead to another 5 years of accepting mediocrity.
As sad as it is, i cant see how we'll get anywhere for the next 5+ years as a result.

 

[Jesse Custer]

It's all in the mind. And I think the senior players are mentally drained. It can be turned around but it's really up to them.

 

[Mercurial89]

I'd argue it may have given us a spike, the whole "us vs the world" mentality.

I actually would argue it has damaged a few of the players in how they respond emotionally to this day to be honest.

This club only responds to big challenges Examples are "oh your coming up against last years runner ups" or " your 25 points down" or " we play a ladder leader this week"
Players we have lift for these games. Conversely they are so flat for winnable games that its embarrassing

You even see it in games. Against Adelaide i thought we were pretty poor most of the night to be honest, when we went down by 20 or so i thought that was where we probably deserved to be. Then Tippa went for a run and started getting involved and the team lifted.

We don't even try to manufacture the excitement, we don't get around players we don't celebrate the defensive efforts like the tigers do. As many pointed out a few weeks ago players don't fly the flag. We look dull, which is possibly a byproduct of the flair and dare being coached out of the group.

 

[Squeaky]

Partially agree.
Don't think we'll make enough of the hard calls on the players that were involved in the saga (in terms of selection or retirement), which will lead to another 5 years of accepting mediocrity.
As sad as it is, i cant see how we'll get anywhere for the next 5+ years as a result.

This is an interesting post - I have also thought that.
I remember at the time when the players were banned, David King said that Essendon could approach this in two different ways:
Let the players go (Hurley, Hooker, Watson, whoever wanted to move on to another club - let them all go and get some good draft picks); or
Fight hard to retain them all (or as many was we could) which is what we ultimately did.

I wonder what might have happened if we took the other option.
Sure it would have been hard (particularly on the fans) - but I wonder where would we be now.
Does anyone else recall this comment - I'm sure it was Kingy.

 

[Mercurial89]

This is an interesting post - I have also thought that.
I remember at the time when the players were banned, David King said that Essendon could approach this in two different ways:
Let the players go (Hurley, Hooker, Watson, whoever wanted to move on to another club - let them all go and get some good draft picks); or
Fight hard to retain them all (or as many was we could) which is what we ultimately did.

I wonder what might have happened if we took the other option.
Sure it would have been hard (particularly on the fans) - but I wonder where would we be now.
Does anyone else recall this comment - I'm sure it was Kingy.

You are correct, it was King. His idea was to own the draft, and build a team from the ground up.
There would have been a lot of pain going that road, im not sure the club was in a position to do that. We would have lost sponsors, fixturing deals, crowd numbers and members. The hurt would have been both on field and off field. At least this way we have stayed strong off field.

 

[Howard Moon]

This is an interesting post - I have also thought that.
I remember at the time when the players were banned, David King said that Essendon could approach this in two different ways:
Let the players go (Hurley, Hooker, Watson, whoever wanted to move on to another club - let them all go and get some good draft picks); or
Fight hard to retain them all (or as many was we could) which is what we ultimately did.

I wonder what might have happened if we took the other option.
Sure it would have been hard (particularly on the fans) - but I wonder where would we be now.
Does anyone else recall this comment - I'm sure it was Kingy.

in hindsight, that's the scorched earth policy that may work better in this instance.. fresh start is fresh. but you don't keep the membership numbers up - which I reckon was their sole purpose in pushing ahead like they did. Short term fix

 

[Mercurial89]

in hindsight, that's the scorched earth policy that may work better in this instance.. fresh start is fresh. but you don't keep the membership numbers up - which I reckon was their sole purpose in pushing ahead like they did. Short term fix

Short term fix or was it the best way to save the club?

We go the fire and brimstone route and strand ourselves at the bottom of the ladder for years, with no senior leadership. We would lose fans, money and respect, plus the stain of what we did to the comp with the 5 year battle is much easier to stick to an under performing club. Imagine the pain that would cause to see players that the club wronged running around in opposition colors, while our young players are shackled to the bottom of the ladder.

At least this way we have had moderate on field results (i wont say success we have achieved nothing) but off field we have kept faith with the members, we have kept our commercial partners and maintained the image of a strong club.

Who knows which way was the better way, but we went the way we did so its best to just focus on fixing it from here.

 

[Howard Moon]

Short term fix or was it the best way to save the club?

We go the fire and brimstone route and strand ourselves at the bottom of the ladder for years, with no senior leadership. We would lose fans, money and respect, plus the stain of what we did to the comp with the 5 year battle is much easier to stick to an under performing club. Imagine the pain that would cause to see players that the club wronged running around in opposition colors, while our young players are shackled to the bottom of the ladder.

At least this way we have had moderate on field results (i wont say success we have achieved nothing) but off field we have kept faith with the members, we have kept our commercial partners and maintained the image of a strong club.

Who knows which way was the better way, but we went the way we did so its best to just focus on fixing it from here.

i'm happy enough to say I bought in!

I was happy with the direction - hindsight is a funny ting though I guess, its easy from here to look back and think.. damn, how did we not guess jilted players may cause issue?

 

[Squeaky]

You are correct, it was King. His idea was to own the draft, and build a team from the ground up.
There would have been a lot of pain going that road, im not sure the club was in a position to do that. We would have lost sponsors, fixturing deals, crowd numbers and members. The hurt would have been both on field and off field. At least this way we have stayed strong off field.

Agreed. Definitely the club didn't want to piss off the members/supporters. But they are doing that now anyway (just in a different way)
Swings & Roundabouts!

 

[JayJ20]

the other element has been discussed in recent times- due to the saga we had a ready made will to win, an emotional driver - us vs them ect

now it seems we cant emotionally get up for regular games - we need something huge to get us going.

That's the biggest problem. We only get up for big occasions. Maybe we play too many blockbuster games.

We only get up if there is a narrative. I wish that was a by product of the saga, but we've been doing that long before the saga.

We lift above Adelaide's level and drop below Carlton's.
We're building something good in the VFL. The kids that play regular footy in the VFL don't need a narrative.

We'll be better when our senior players are eventually phased out. That is, if our younger players aren't corrupted by then.

 

[Squeaky]

i'm happy enough to say I bought in!

I was happy with the direction - hindsight is a funny ting though I guess, its easy from here to look back and think.. damn, how did we not guess jilted players may cause issue?

Yeah I also have to agree that I was delighted to retain the players at that time.

 

[Howard Moon]

Yeah I also have to agree that I was delighted to retain the players at that time.

it felt like little wins when we were getting pounded from all sides...

 

[Squeaky]

We'll be better when our senior players are eventually phased out. That is, if our younger players aren't corrupted by then.

I call it getting 'Essendoned' and it happens to our blokes a lot.
Development needs a hell of a lot of work at our joint.

 

[Howard Moon]

I call it getting 'Essendoned' and it happens to our blokes a lot.
Development needs a hell of a lot of work at our joint.

heres the thing.

I was listening to Ollie florent on the radio yesterday, and to ronke

they were gushing over how they were welcomed by the senior players, felt comfortable by day two ect, inspired

I dunno why, but when I think of our senior players I think of cliques, instagram, then the clique within the clique that endured the year off

 

[Mercurial89]

heres the thing.

I was listening to Ollie florent on the radio yesterday, and to ronke

they were gushing over how they were welcomed by the senior players, felt comfortable by day two ect, inspired

I dunno why, but when I think of our senior players I think of cliques, instagram, then the clique within the clique that endured the year off

Remember that is your external perception.
Which rightly or wrongly means very little.

lets not go blaming cliques etc when we really have no idea.

The team is out of form, woefully. however remember we had less than 20% of a AFL midfield last year and we went and pulled one of our biggest and hardest bodies out of it who also happened to be a bit of a talisman for this club.
This year was never going to be as easy as what people were projecting. i don't think we were ever a shot for top 4.
That is the root cause of our issues. Cant compete in midfield, cant pressure, puts everyone else under pressure, start to drop games and lose confidence and so the spiral goes down.

 

[Dave]

heres the thing.

I was listening to Ollie florent on the radio yesterday, and to ronke

they were gushing over how they were welcomed by the senior players, felt comfortable by day two ect, inspired

I dunno why, but when I think of our senior players I think of cliques, instagram, then the clique within the clique that endured the year off

Which is pretty much the opposite of what one of the new players said to someone at the sponsors night. He might have been telling porkies but I doubt it.

 

[Howard Moon]

Remember that is your external perception.
Which rightly or wrongly means very little.

lets not go blaming cliques etc when we really have no idea.

The team is out of form, woefully. however remember we had less than 20% of a AFL midfield last year and we went and pulled one of our biggest and hardest bodies out of it who also happened to be a bit of a talisman for this club.
This year was never going to be as easy as what people were projecting. i don't think we were ever a shot for top 4.
That is the root cause of our issues. Cant compete in midfield, cant pressure, puts everyone else under pressure, start to drop games and lose confidence and so the spiral goes down.

Makes you wonder John wanted to change the game style so we could take the next step

would that imply if we had have left it as it was, would we still be winning games but capped at the bottom half of the 8?

anyhow, I was at pains to try and separate on field from off field in this original post - we could be winning now but I would probably still be questioning what the club is based on, even last year when we were OK..there were still curious things happening, curious selections ect

and for the purposes of vindication. Nobody will ever know if my feelings were right for a decade or more. its very long term projection, hence why its probably met with distain. No one really wants to look too far ahead. (and rightly so)