Memory Lane: 1994 Premiership Predictions

[tribey]

Found this article while on Factiva the other day, thought it'd be of some interest.

Basically your usual preseason predictions from prominent AFL journalists and people, circa 1994.

The obvious thing that stands out is just how many people were in awe of our list and not only had us finishing Minor Premiers, but as Premiers with the odd Medal fancy too.

As a 12 year old I remember it being out of us and Essendon - especially as we both went on to make the '94 Foster's Cup Grand Final in the aftermath of that Prelim Final, but gee-whiz, seems as if we were the main fancy nationwide despite the success and upside of the Baby Bombres.

Sportsweek; ``Psst'' Time Capsule '94, To Be Opened After The Grand Final
970 words
20 March 1994
Sunday Age

LINDA PEARCE `Sunday Age'.
Final eight: Adelaide, Essendon, West Coast, North Melbourne, Geelong, Collingwood, Hawthorn, Melbourne Grand finalists: Adelaide and Essendon
Premier: Adelaide
Brownlow medallist: Nathan Buckley (Collingwood)
Leading goalkicker: Tony Lockett (124)
Wooden spooner: Sydney
What will be the season's highlight? Rex Hunt's mid-winter bout of laryngitis.
What should the AFL's next rule change be? Players to wear sensible straw hats in matches where the temperature exceeds 23.8 degrees.

GEORGE GRLJUSICH, ABC commentator.
Top eight: Adelaide, Essendon, Hawthorn, Geelong, Carlton, Collingwood, West Coast, Melbourne
Grand finalists: Adelaide, Essendon
Premier: Adelaide
Brownlow medallist: Ben Hart (Adelaide)
Leading goalkicker: Jason Dunstall, 115
Wooden spoon: Sydney
What will be the season's highlight? Peter Sumich regularly kicking big ``bags'' of goals.
What should be the AFL's next rule change? Eliminate the top eight, return to a final six and extend the final series by one week.

IAN COLLINS, AFL heavyweight.
Top eight: Adelaide, Essendon, West Coast, Collingwood, St Kilda, Hawthorn, Carlton, Brisbane
Grand finalists: Adelaide, West Coast
Premier: Adelaide
Brownlow medallist: Wayne Carey (North Melbourne)
Leading goalkicker: Jason Dunstall, 125
Wooden spoon: Sydney
What will be the season's highlight? Adelaide playing at the MCG.
What should be the AFL's next rule change? Free agency for players who have played 200 games, 10 years or are over 28 years of age.

TIM LANE, 3LO.
Top eight: Adelaide, North Melbourne, Carlton, West Coast, Essendon, Geelong, Melbourne, Collingwood
Grand finalists: Adelaide, Carlton
Premier: Carlton
Brownlow medallist: Nathan Buckley
Leading goalkicker: Tony Modra, 110 Wooden spoon: Sydney
What will be the season's highlight? The relentless, five-month struggle to determine which team defies the odds and misses out on the finals.
What should be the AFL's next rule change? The introduction of a penalty spot, with scores therefrom to be acknowledged by mechanical flags on top of the goal posts.

RICHARD HINDS, `Sunday Age'.
Final eight: West Coast, Adelaide, North Melbourne, Geelong, Essendon, Hawthorn, Collingwood, Carlton
Grand finalists: Adelaide, North Melbourne
Premier: North Melbourne
Brownlow medallist: Mark Mercuri (Essendon)
Leading goalkicker: Jason Dunstall 123
Wooden spooner: Sydney
What will be the season's highlight? Eighth-placed Carlton (10 wins, 12 losses) stuns first placed West Coast (16-6) in the first final, sparking the immediate introduction of the McIntyre final 12.
What should be the AFL's next rule change? The introduction of the designated ``punter'', to stem the flow of Australians to the American NFL.

ROHAN CONNOLLY `Sunday Age'.
Final eight: Essendon, West Coast, Collingwood, Hawthorn, Adelaide, Geelong, North Melbourne, Melbourne Grand finalists: Essendon and West Coast
Premier: Essendon
Brownlow medallist: Garry Hocking (Geelong)
Leading goalkicker: Jason Dunstall (130)
Wooden spooner: Sydney
What will be the season's highlight? Gary Ablett kicks 21.4 against Sydney at the SCG on 15 May. Geelong, naturally, still loses the match.
What should the AFL's next rule change be? Forced corporatisation of all league ground names (a la Carlton), beginning with Waverley's rebirth as Pacific Waste Management Park.

No wonder Cornesy got the arse when we finished 11th with 9 and a half wins.

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

Interesting reading . Carlton weren't rated that highly at all which is surprising. It was only the following year that they had the 'perfect' season, only losing two matches and winning the flag.

Whilst we'd been in the competition for three years no one seemed to know that much about us. Those selections seem a little bit like fear of the unknown. Were we priming ourselves for an assault on Victorian football just like the Eagles had done in with their 1991 apprenticeship and 1992 flag? Had we been stockpiling young talent away from the prying eyes of the VFL clubs like Hart, Rehn, Modra and Ricciuto?

Little did they (or we) know that we were pretenders and it would take another three seasons before we'd play any decent footy!

 

[Crow-mo]

just shows how stiff people thought we were in 1993.

 

[Punchy Bassett]

No wonder Cornesy got the arse when we finished 11th with 9 and a half wins.

Would have helped if his senior players got behind him instead of doing their best to get rid of him.

 

[birdmanptr]

Would have helped if his senior players got behind him instead of doing their best to get rid of him.

mcdermott mcguinness and a.jarman thread

How fitting sack them and we get 2 flags and those 3 still have shyte on the liver as they get into us every chance they get

 

[Alex99]

Would have helped if his senior players got behind him instead of doing their best to get rid of him.

Note to Neil Craig: if you keep flogging the boys on the track and this could happen to you. Hopefully the club will stand by the coach unlike they did with Cornes.

 

[Southerntakeover]

Note to Neil Craig: if you keep flogging the boys on the track and this could happen to you. Hopefully the club will stand by the coach unlike they did with Cornes.

Thats a pretty poor comment.

 

[maccas_no1]

Thats a pretty poor comment.

I will second that.

 

[Alex99]

Thats a pretty poor comment.

So Graham Cornes didn’t flog the boys on the track in 1994, ultimately leading to his removal as senior coach? If Neil Craig keeps flogging the boys on the training track he could find the player revolt and once he has lost the confidence in the playing group he will find it difficult to motivate them to win games of football.

Did the club stand by the senior coach at the time after a few senior player mad it know they wanted the coach out at the time? Rather than remove the trouble makers within the senior group, Cornes was given the chop.

As I said, hopefully Neil Craig learns from that experience and can keep the confidence in the playing group.

But that comment of yours, I wouldn’t expect anything else.

 

[maccas_no1]

So Graham Cornes didn’t flog the boys on the track in 1994, ultimately leading to his removal as senior coach? If Neil Craig keeps flogging the boys on the training track he could find the player revolt and once he has lost the confidence in the playing group he will find it difficult to motivate them to win games of football.

Did the club stand by the senior coach at the time after a few senior player mad it know they wanted the coach out at the time? Rather than remove the trouble makers within the senior group, Cornes was given the chop.

As I said, hopefully Neil Craig learns from that experience and can keep the confidence in the playing group.

But that comment of yours, I wouldn’t expect anything else.

How they are trained has nothing to do with keeping the confidence in the playing group, it comes down to one simple thing, the players have to want to play for the coach, its when the players dont want to play for the coach, is when it spells the end of the coach, I dont think the way a coach trains his players effects the way they feel about him, NC is far more experienced than you and I at how he needs to train the players, and our injuries this year havent been related to the way he is training them, blaming NC is a cop out.

 

[Alex99]

How they are trained has nothing to do with keeping the confidence in the playing group, it comes down to one simple thing, the players have to want to play for the coach, its when the players dont want to play for the coach, is when it spells the end of the coach, I dont think the way a coach trains his players effects the way they feel about him, NC is far more experienced than you and I at how he needs to train the players, and our injuries this year havent been related to the way he is training them, blaming NC is a cop out.

If the playing group has lost confidence in the coach for what ever reason they will not implement his game day strategies or methods to the best of there ability. if the playing group continually get flogged on the training track then will start to lose confidence in the coach very quickly.

You are correct, NC is experienced in coaching senior grade football but so was Graham Cornes. But if he continues to flog them, the same thing could quite easily happen to him if the board of directors listen to the players.

I didn’t and am not blaming Neil Craig, it was more a slap in the fact of the board of directors who listed to the senior group of player at the time and consequentially sacked Graham Cornes.

And if you read what I originally wrote it said “Hopefully the club will stand by the coach unlike they did with Cornes.” Meaning they will not give into the temptation to get a quick fix and sack him.

 

[maccas_no1]

If the playing group has lost confidence in the coach for what ever reason they will not implement his game day strategies or methods to the best of there ability. if the playing group continually get flogged on the training track then will start to lose confidence in the coach very quickly.

You are correct, NC is experienced in coaching senior grade football but so was Graham Cornes. But if he continues to flog them, the same thing could quite easily happen to him if the board of directors listen to the players.

I didn’t and am not blaming Neil Craig, it was more a slap in the fact of the board of directors who listed to the senior group of player at the time and consequentially sacked Graham Cornes.

And if you read what I originally wrote it said “Hopefully the club will stand by the coach unlike they did with Cornes.” Meaning they will not give into the temptation to get a quick fix and sack him.

I would say there was more to Graham Cornes sacking than just the fact he was 'flogging' them on the training track, coaches dont get sacked for training the players hard, if the players cant hack a bit of hard work on the training track with the $$$$ they are on then it's the players that needs to be questioned rather than the coach, at the minute there are no injuries due to NC training sessions, so if that is what you are basing your theory on you need to come up with something else.

 

[Alex99]

I would say there was more to Graham Cornes sacking than just the fact he was 'flogging' them on the training track, coaches dont get sacked for training the players hard, if the players cant hack a bit of hard work on the training track with the $$$$ they are on then it's the players that needs to be questioned rather than the coach, at the minute there are no injuries due to NC training sessions, so if that is what you are basing your theory on you need to come up with something else.

Considering this thread is dedicated to 1994 why don’t you share with us why Graham Cornes was sacked?

In 1994 did McGuiness, McDermott, Jarman and a few other senior players go to the board of directors and for Graham Cornes to be removed because he was training them to hard? Yes or No

Ivan Maric said on 5AA before the game last week that a few of the younger boys were a bit concerned that training was starting to become difficult and match days were easier than the main training session.

The younger boys went to the senior group of player to see if they could ask Neil Craig to decrease the length of time they train. To Neil Craig credit he did this and had made the main Wednesday session shorter. If he is as stubborn as he is made out to be, he will believe in his system and structure and continue to use this. Potentially we are in for a poor season and if losing becomes a norm this season by the second half of the season the senior player may have had enough. If history repeats itself and the senior player go to the board and complain, hopefully they back Neil Craig rather than following there predecessors and sack him.