Opinion Mick Malthouse

[serenityNow]

If Mick stays he should lose some control over his assistant coach choices. He can't keep bringing in his guys to be yes men. Review all of them.

You look at our assistants and wonder .... which one would I be happy to have as caretaker coach if Mick went? There are no standouts is there?

I'm also thinking Rob Wiley's role is not really achieving anything.

Well said, Been thinking this for a while now. How is it that the assistants avoid scrutiny? Our coaching box is terrible, merely made up of people who are no threat to Micks position and all have failed to produce anything of note.

Tip the whole box out and start over.

 

[Cipher]

You can't be instilling the message into players that they can get coaches sacked.

The onus is on the players to perform. It should never matter who the coach is, what the game plan is, or whether players 'buy in' to either as to whether they perform, and right now they are not.

Weekly beltings are solely a reflection on the players, and will speak volumes of their pride and desire if they continue. You sell that message to guys like Menzel now, do they then put in half arsed efforts in the final year of the next coaches contract if they don't see eye to eye.

Is that what is happening now from those we've already instilled the message?

 

[Bluey da balls]

I am now of the opinion Mick is not the one but I'm not sure sacking him now will achieve too much. For mine, the best course of action would be to get to the mid year break when MLo stated the contract would be assessed and consider all personell in the coaching dept on their merrits. If it is decided Mick is out then of
fer him the choice to coach out the year or retire, if it is an assistant thats out, send them on the way immediately.
After the decision is made we can then conduct a compete search with still enough time before the next draft and trade period for the new coach to have an imput.
I don't think a care taker coach will achieve a lot so may as well let Mick go out with the dignity he deserves whilst the club still has the benefit of the new guy being involved early.

 

[carlton2dabone]

You can't be instilling the message into players that they can get coaches sacked.

The onus is on the players to perform. It should never matter who the coach is, what the game plan is, or whether players 'buy in' to either as to whether they perform, and right now they are not.

Weekly beltings are solely a reflection on the players, and will speak volumes of their pride and desire if they continue. You sell that message to guys like Menzel now, do they then put in half arsed efforts in the final year of the next coaches contract if they don't see eye to eye.

Is that what is happening now from those we've already instilled the message?

When you have a company, the best way to get the best output you can is by lifting the morale in the place, and if that means getting the players to buy into the game plan, then you change things around and do it.

Companies do it all the time, they take surveys of their employees and rework management if things are running as well as they should be.
If a supervisor at a factory is not getting his production line to meet the output levels required, then the company doesnt sack all of the workers on that production line and replace them, they figure out why the workers are not happy and they improve the the conditions to raise output.

Similarly, in a football club, if the players are not buying into the coaches game plan or they can't get a proper understanding of the coaches game plan, then you either rework tje game plan to one that makes more sense, or you replace the coach until you find one that can get the playing list to buy into whatever he is asking them to do every week.

 

[The Old Dark Navy's]

My View.

1. Meet with Malthouse and Silvagni. Make it clear that we believe that the current list is not up to playing AFL, and that we need a full rebuild. Discuss a plan to build a list to be competitive in 3 - 4 years and make sure that both of them can commit to working together to achieve that goal. If Malthouse is up for the challenge than ask him to sign immediately for 3 more years as we need the stability, and inform him that he will be measured at the end of the year by the development of the kids and not by wins and losses. If he is not on board, let him go immediately, promote Laidley with the same mandate and let him know that while there will be an extensive search and open selection process for a new coach, what he does with the kids this year will be taken into account should he wish to apply.

2. Sack and payout Green and Barker, the are both simply awful at their roles and I believe that they are actually hampering the development of the young kids. Just get rid of them immediately, Wiley can coach the back line and offer Sav a 1 year contract to coach the forward line.

3. Meet with the senior players, Juddy, Murph, Carrots, Simmo, etc. Let them know what we are doing and that the older players are not likely to be play much this year, those that want to retire, great, pay them out and thank them for their service. Those that want to stay and help mold the kids great.

4. Setup three meetings, One with the all of the managers in the afl and representatives from the players association, to be addressed by Macca, Malthouse (Laidley)and SOS for say 9am Monday. One for the senior players and their managers to be addressed by Macca for say 11am Monday, and one for the kids and their managers to be addressed by Malthouse (Laidley) and SOS.

a) Get together with all the player managers and let them know our plan (most will already know of course), let them know that we recognise the role they have played in many of the successful trades over the past few years, and that while we are looking to trade out a number of players, that we are asking for their help to make sure that their clients are well looked after and if possible get to where they want to go. Also sell them on the new environment at Carlton, the opportunity for their younger clients to get game time, and to increase their salaries faster than they could elsewhere. Think GWS / GWS but in Melbourne.

b) Address the senior players and let them know the new plan, tell them that we all actively be looking to trade players out and bring younger players in. Inform them that if they wish to leave that we will do our best to trade them to their preferred club, but we will trade them for the best possible outcome for the Carlton football club.

c) Address the kids and let them know that they are our future captains, leaders, etc amd that we will be doing everything we can to fast track their development, and that includes playing them as often as possible. Talk to them about the meeting the senior players are having and that there may well be some hard feelings around the club at the moment, and that they as a group need to come together and start to shape this team.

I appreciate the effort that went into this and I am fine with points 2-4. Point 1 has provisos attached.


Answers to these questions.

What is the game plan and will it work?
Why are so many players in career worst form?
Why has it taken until year 3 to figure out the players won't or can't follow the game plan?

I can't subscribe to the theory that the current state we find ourselves in is in no way attributable to Mick. Nobody thinks political parties spending an entire 3 year term, apparently regressing and blaming the former government for their woes is a viable strategy. Nor should it be for a football club or coach.

I would love some honest reflection to occur. Hate rhetoric and sound byte press conferences.

 

[lachie charm]

Despite what they are spouting publically, the players are not happy under Mick, especially the younger ones. Each week is causing more and more damage to their confidence and morale. Any further games Mick coaches is just taking us backwards.

Club is worried about the dollars required to sack Mick. Yet the dollars they are losing from gate revenue, memberships etc is going to be more costly if this charade goes on any longer. We made a loss yesterday.

 

[El Topo]

MLG is doing the right thing. It's been said a few pages back, Mick may not be the solution but he is only one part of the problem. Let MM coach out the year or fall on his sword beforehand, then use the money to clear out the litany of hacks and yes men who surround him.

 

[The Old Dark Navy's]

You can't be instilling the message into players that they can get coaches sacked.

The onus is on the players to perform. It should never matter who the coach is, what the game plan is, or whether players 'buy in' to either as to whether they perform, and right now they are not.

Weekly beltings are solely a reflection on the players, and will speak volumes of their pride and desire if they continue. You sell that message to guys like Menzel now, do they then put in half arsed efforts in the final year of the next coaches contract if they don't see eye to eye.

Is that what is happening now from those we've already instilled the message?

I've been a critic of our playing group as a collective for the last 5 years or so. Mentally fragile they are.

However this manifested in a lack of effort on multiple occasions. What I am seeing now is a deskilling of players, a lack of awareness, a lack of confidence, a lack of understanding about ball movement and running patterns even when we are putting in effort. That is on the game plan and on the coach/coaches.

I'm not making excuses for the players but I'm no longer making excuses for the coach. This is worse than just a bunch of lazy players.

However, if you would like to break down the game plan for me, point out where it is going wrong and which directions are not being followed, and offer a little analysis on team selection to see if we have the right side to pull off this game plan then I am all ears.

I still find it impossible to believe that we had to turn over a list of 44 players over 6, 7, 8 years after these guys played finals, in order to get a side to fit this amazing game plan that nobody can quite put a finger on.

 

[carlton2dabone]

MLG is doing the right thing. It's been said a few pages back, Mick may not be the solution but he is only one part of the problem. Let MM coach out the year or fall on his sword beforehand, then use the money to clear out the litany of hacks and yes men who surround him.

And when we keep getting smaller and smaller crowds to our home games because none of us want to watch a team run around with no direction or viable game plan?

You realise that we would have lost money yesterday with a paltry 16,000 attendance.
And I guarantee you that a big chunk of the 16,000 that stuck with the club and went to the game yesterday, would seriously be on the fence about attending anymore games. Did you hear the booing yesterday, do you think that supporters want to go to games to get so frustrated that they boo their team at half time because the team can't even string a couple of kicks together unless they are going backwards.

 

[Doro]

Despite what they are spouting publically, the players are not happy under Mick, especially the younger ones. Each week is causing more and more damage to their confidence and morale. Any further games Mick coaches is just taking us backwards.

Club is worried about the dollars required to sack Mick. Yet the dollars they are losing from gate revenue, memberships etc is going to be more costly if this charade goes on any longer. We made a loss yesterday.

Has he lost them or is it the realisation that their opponents are actually better than them? It happens to 1 or 2 teams every year, confidence erodes and they look abysmal- Melbourne's time in the sun has finally ended. We are going to be making losses for some time, whichever way we go with coaching, I'm not sure there is a short term solution.

 

[The Flying Doormat]

Despite what they are spouting publically, the players are not happy under Mick, especially the younger ones. Each week is causing more and more damage to their confidence and morale. Any further games Mick coaches is just taking us backwards.

Club is worried about the dollars required to sack Mick. Yet the dollars they are losing from gate revenue, memberships etc is going to be more costly if this charade goes on any longer. We made a loss yesterday.

I would have thought MM's contract will cost the club same amout if he stays or gets the boot. A replacement if sourced from outside the existing coaching group would be the added cost. Unless, if there is a messy axing, MM sues the club for damages.

 

[El Topo]

And when we keep getting smaller and smaller crowds to our home games because none of us want to watch a team run around with no direction or viable game plan?

You realise that we would have lost money yesterday with a paltry 16,000 attendance.
And I guarantee you that a big chunk of the 16,000 that stuck with the club and went to the game yesterday, would seriously be on the fence about attending anymore games. Did you hear the booing yesterday, do you think that supporters want to go to games to get so frustrated that they boo their team at half time because the team can't even string a couple of kicks together unless they are going backwards.

It's certainly an interesting predicament, surely if things haven't improved in a month or two then Mick will have to walk for the sake of his own sanity (and ego)... but who replaces him? The question is whether Mick goes sooner rather than later, we're up shit creek either way and quite frankly I'm lost as to which course is the lesser evil.

 

[Heres Waite]

Mick Was never the right man for the job, but everyone involved in the decisions' egos would not allow them to see that. If anything the move smacked of trying to stick it up Collingwood.

I'm never one for giving the coach the arse mid stream, but in this case it has to happen. Leaving Mick there any longer is only going to sink the cub further into the mire.

I have to put my hand up and say that I was one that was happy that Mick got the job initially. At the time I thought Mick was the kind of coach that could harden up some of our players and teach them to run both ways. Under Ratten, we were kind of flat track bullies that would look fantastic when things were going our way but crumple when things where going the other way. I thought Mick would give us a kind of hardness to fix that issue.

I have to admit that I was wrong and that I only really started seeing that this year. However I was happy for Carlton to stick with him till the end of the season and to see where things go. However his attitude in the last few weeks has caused me to lose respect for him and like you say is doing more harm then good. The development of our young players needs to be our focus, yet the way players such as Nick Graham and Matthew Watson (it wasnt his fault he couldn't get near it on Saturday) are treated doesn't allow them to develop any confidence. Also saying publicly that the players don't have what it takes to compete, tells me that he is working hard to save his own arse. This attitude has filtered down to the players too. Players running away from the opposition player with the ball to cover their own man screams to me that our players are playing for themselves and not the team.

 

[lachie charm]

Sacking Mick will cost extra dollars because if an assistant takes over they will need to be paid more.

 

[carlton2dabone]

It's certainly an interesting predicament, surely if things haven't improved in a month or two then Mick will have to walk for the sake of his own sanity (and ego)... but who replaces him? The question is whether Mick goes sooner rather than later, we're up shit creek either way and quite frankly I'm lost as to which course is the lesser evil.

IMO the lesser of 2 evils is unless Mick can rework his game plan to make it less defensive and so much more attacking, then we should sack him ASAP.

Its one thing to not be able to win games, its a whole other problem to have your team concede 80-32 inside 50's while you are employing an ultra defensive game plan.

Yes our players need to learn to defend, but at the moment, they are not learning anything other than how to make it someone else's problem by slamming the boot on the ball without even looking where they are kicking, or making it someone else's problem by going long and high along the boundary even if the opposition have more numbers there than we do.

 

[The Flying Doormat]

Sacking Mick will cost extra dollars because if an assistant takes over they will need to be paid more.

So, the question is then whether this cost - say $100k - will offset potential losses across the whole Club incurred by sticking with MM.

 

[krisholio14]

Sacking Mick will cost extra dollars because if an assistant takes over they will need to be paid more.

You've got to weigh up the financial costs of keeping him. The loss of revenue etc is probably going to cost more in the long run than just paying him out and getting someone else to come in and have a look at it.

 

[chunkylover53]

Games gone past him.

Just watch the AFL doco on the coaches from last year. He's the only one that doesn't 'code'. Just another small example I remembered.

 

[Heres Waite]

Sacking Mick will cost extra dollars because if an assistant takes over they will need to be paid more.

If money is the issue, I'll offer to coach the club for 25k till the end of the year. I promise to play the kids and allow them to take the game on just like Buckley does. I also promise not to play more than 1 tagger (Curnow)at a time, and that at least one marking forward will always be in our forward 50. Any player (I don't care if your name is Marc Murphy) shirking the issue is out.

Couldn't do much worse then we are doing now.

 

[Cipher]

I still find it impossible to believe that we had to turn over a list of 44 players over 6, 7, 8 years after these guys played finals, in order to get a side to fit this amazing game plan that nobody can quite put a finger on.

You find it impossible to believe that in order to build a premiership team, the majority of our list in 2012 would need to be turned over? Really?

If that's truly the case then I believe you overrated our list and the relevance of playing finals. Discounting the expansion teams, every single team in the comp have played finals at some point over the last 10 seasons. Everyone. All but two have played finals over the last 5 seasons. Again, almost everyone. Yet just 3 teams account for 8 of those premierships.

There is no correlation between playing finals and having a list capable of winning a flag and/or backing it up. And if there was, winning just 1 final during Ratten's tenure surely had us square in the 'pretenders' basket.

I don't find it impossible to believe at all that we likely need to turn over 80 percent or more of the list Mick inherited, and given that, I am also not surprised that the process will take 6 - 8 years. I have waited 20 years, I can wait for another 5 more if it will actually mean we are finally contenders, rather than going the supporter appeasing finals 'pretender' route.

The above stats show any team can play finals within 5 years. I don't want finals. I want a premiership. I still have faith that Mick is the right man for that currently, and I believe despite our on-field performances, we are closer to a flag currently than what we were in 2013 when we played finals.

 

[Robbo's my hero]

If money is the issue, I'll offer to coach the club for 25k till the end of the year. I promise to play the kids and allow them to take the game on just like Buckley does. I also promise not to play more than 1 tagger (Curnow)at a time, and that at least one marking forward will always be in our forward 50. Any player (I don't care if your name is Marc Murphy) shirking the issue is out.

Couldn't do much worse then we are doing now.

What about the cost of the airfares?

 

[Heres Waite]

What about the cost of the airfares?

Ill drive

 

[lachie charm]

I don't agree with the cost concerns of the club. I want Mick gone tonight after the damage I know he is doing to our young players (and it's not the ones you'd expect like Bucks or Graham). But just stating why there is apprehension by the club.

 

[passmark]

I don't agree with the cost concerns of the club. I want Mick gone tonight. But just stating why there is apprehension by the club.

They are broke.

We also don't know what the terms of the contract are.

For all we know there's a option or penalty for early termination and that might run across all the lame arse assistants this pelican has brought with him.

 

[MrsEddieBetts]

So #justmalthousethings is done then?

They really need to take a strong stand now. Saying that we honour contracts is all well and good but the damage that it is doing far outweighs the image protection that MLo clearly thinks is required.

We really need to get some games under the younger players' belts before Judd, Carrazzo and Simpson (maybe) retire, or we're going to end up trading our only players with currency at the end of the year and ending up with a whole bunch of players on less than 30 games.