Coach Sam Mitchell's direction for the club and 2024 news

Billyc

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Oct 17, 2009
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We play the right brand under Mitchell, its just that we don't have the top line cattle yet. Draft right over the next 2-3 years and we should be OK.
Agree with this. I would also add that my favourite thing so far under Mitchell (and including his stint at Box Hill) has been his ability to quite steeply and rapidly develop players who would not have been initially identified as "top line cattle" (Newcombe, CJ, Lewis, Nash). If Mitchell can continue that trend of developing young players and we can bring in a few more very talented ones through the draft, we are well-placed for success. We definitely need to add and develop talent to the midfield mix.
 
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I think finals by 2025 is a realistic expectation for Sam Mitchell as that will be year 4 at the helm.

The progress and trajectory of sub 50 game players such as

Lewis
Kozzie
Butler '
Moore
Newcombe
Day
Ward
Macdonald
Jiath
DGB

+ whoever we draft in 2022 and 2023 will be massive.

The 10 guys listed should all be between 50-100 games come 2025.
 

offtherails9

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May 30, 2012
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I think finals by 2025 is a realistic expectation for Sam Mitchell as that will be year 4 at the helm.

The progress and trajectory of sub 50 game players such as

Lewis
Kozzie
Butler '
Moore
Newcombe
Day
Ward
Macdonald
Jiath
DGB

+ whoever we draft in 2022 and 2023 will be massive.

The 10 guys listed should all be between 50-100 games come 2025.

If we finish 13th this year and get the bottom 6 band fixture, I'd be surprised if we didn't make finals in 2023. We're not that far off.
 
I reckon we'd be playing finals this year if we really wanted to
On what basis?

I've no doubt we're improving a lot, but we've been trying to win every game, and failing more often than not. By a little, mostly, and occasionally a lot.

We are where we are because thats our output right now.
 
Last edited:
Aug 23, 2009
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So the players just don't want to play finals, is it?

Of course that's not the case.

I think that this year (and he has said so in his own words) Mitch is focusing more on development of the playing group rather than wins/losses.

If his neck was on the line and we had to make the eight for him to keep his job we'd have seen Jaeger & Chad in the midfield more often, we'd have recruited a ready made ruckman in the MSD etc etc.

He doesn't want us to make up the numbers in the finals, he wants to win a flag
 
On what basis?

I've no doubt we're improving a lot, but we've been trying to win every game, and failingmore often than not. By a little, mostly, and occasionally a lot.

We are where we are because thats our output right now.
I can see his point.

We’d have Tom and JOM at the majority of the CB’s and wouldn’t have tried to fast track so many youngsters into the side.
 
I can see his point.

We’d have Tom and JOM at the majority of the CB’s and wouldn’t have tried to fast track so many youngsters into the side.
True...that is a strategy that most would associate with doing our best to make finals

However, we've seen that strategy...we played Tom & JOM at the middle consistently for the last 4 years..and totally failed to make finals.

So moving them away from there may not be a sign that we don't care about making finals; it could just as easily be a sign that he knows constantly playing them there is a tested and failed strategy of making finals.
 
Some here think Sam has already achieved success, but we’re a long way off it.
Happy to give him time, but getting thrashed by a team which is average, and ordinary players like Liberatore waltzing around is not satisfactory.

Tonights game was embarrassing

.
 
Sep 28, 2019
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Some here think Sam has already achieved success, but we’re a long way off it.
Happy to give him time, but getting thrashed by a team which is average, and ordinary players like Liberatore waltzing around is not satisfactory.

Tonights game was embarrassing

.
Plenty of work to still do.

Libba is far from ordinary though, he’s been in the best handful contested possession and clearance players over the last few years.

No doubt Mitchell will be putting a lot of work into the midfield over the coming years though
 

Simon Crawshay

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Jun 4, 2016
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Plenty of work to still do.

Libba is far from ordinary though, he’s been in the best handful contested possession and clearance players over the last few years.

No doubt Mitchell will be putting a lot of work into the midfield over the coming years though
I like to imagine Mitch will be like my neighbour down the road always underneath his beaten up Commodore on the Concrete Blocks on his driveway over the offseason but substitute Commodore with Hawthorn Midfield 🤪

Hopefully he can turn that old Commodore into bashing new Mercedes-Benz
 

CHUBBSS

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Apr 6, 2010
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Plenty of work to still do.

Libba is far from ordinary though, he’s been in the best handful contested possession and clearance players over the last few years.

No doubt Mitchell will be putting a lot of work into the midfield over the coming years though
Perfect game to show how far our midfield is off the pace (and it’s our most senior part of the ground)

Sam basically has nothing to work with atm, other then a player with 20 games, an early stage ruckman and some senior players who don’t stack up to good opposition.
 

rei154

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Jun 13, 2019
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He's aware we're on a learning journey and he's going to use this to drive our standards moving forward and that is really important.
Next year when we've hopefully got an extra midfielder or two in the middle with some more leg-speed I would imagine we'll look a lot more impressive.
 
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