- May 1, 2016
- 28,894
- 56,303
- AFL Club
- Carlton
- Moderator
- #26
My question is, you're looking at the success stories and seeing that, but are you looking at the failures?When I look at Richmond, Hawthorn, Brisbane and Geelong Over the past 20 years, I see clubs coached by hard at it players, nasty players and it has come out in their sides, all this talk about being fair and skilful and by playing by the rules, it’s crap, you play to win and you do what needs to be done to get the job done.
People used to whinge about Essendon, Brisbane, Hawthorn and now Richmond for being dirty, unsociable, for having dirty players, do their fans or historians care? When people talk of the Hawks dominance in the 80s or 10s do they get stuck on the fact they had dirty players or is it about them winning?
I look at Cameron Smith in the NRL
Jordan in the NBA
Rodman in the NBA
Brady in the NFL
Hodge in the AFL
And all I see are winners who would throw the opposition in front of a bus to win for their team, I’m not sure if Cripps and Docherty or many of our players are like this but I agree with you that we need to get a harder edge
How many sides have overegged it? How many sides have had that nasty streak, and gotten absolutely nowhere because - at the end of the day - you've still got to be able to get the ball through the big sticks, out run and out play your opponent. You look at the dying days of Brisbane's run, in 04, 05 and 06; those blokes couldn't do it anymore, so nasty is what they became. Didn't do them much good when they ran into hungrier, younger and better sides.
In a modern context, four teams have tried to add that nasty edge to their games after having talented lists: Melbourne, St Kilda, Richmond and GWS. All three ****ed it up; it took richmond actually becoming good before it became something that benefited them or spoken about.