Senior Players

[PicaBoo]

I agree that we have leadership issues. That's on Buckley.

Players choose leaders.

 

[jmac70]

Players choose leaders.

It's not the process that's the issue. The current environment does not seem to cultivate leadership.

 

[PicaBoo]

It's not the process that's the issue. The current environment does not seem to cultivate leadership.

The past didn't of which we are now suffering the fall out. I don't see the issues in the years to come when players like Adams Grundy, Treloar , Marsh Moore make the next step. So current environment does cultivate it.
There was an article on it a few months ago of the various stages that the players are going through. It featured Grundy and Marsh amongst other IIRC.

-edit link is here
http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/how-to-build-an-afl-footballer-20160229-gn66qg.html

 

[Markfs]

Mark appears to want to blame MM for the current leadership problems. Describing Maxwell as an enforcer is incredibly disrespectful and just plain wrong. Maxwell is his own man and was a great captain. Without his leadership we would have been overrun in the 2010 drawn grand final. I don't think Mark has a clue what he is talking about TBH.

Which is why I come to BF.... I want to learn so that I can make accurate posts. That's why I diligently read your posts.

As for Maxwell, I don't think he put anything into Malthouse's gameplan. He merely enforced his master's wishes. I thought he was a pretty good captain. He always thought of things from a team angle.

And to clarify your first statement, I would say that Mick is poison if you're trying to foster the type of leadership that is required to implement a modern game plan...I thought I might clarify that.

 

[Markfs]

With all due respect, that is a pile of poo.

jmac you seem to follow me around making respectful statements. I've read your insightful analysis embodied in the above statement about 50 times and I still cant poke a hole in its logic. You really have a talent ...

 

[Markfs]

The past didn't of which we are now suffering the fall out. I don't see the issues in the years to come when players like Adams Grundy, Treloar , Marsh Moore make the next step. So current environment does cultivate it.
There was an article on it a few months ago of the various stages that the players are going through. It featured Grundy and Marsh amongst other IIRC.

-edit link is here
http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/how-to-build-an-afl-footballer-20160229-gn66qg.html

The reason that there was such a lack of leadership coming out of the malthouse years is that Mick was suspicious of anyone who would question him. I don't think i'm coming up with anything new here. We've all seen his paranoia .... his paternal attitude to his boys..... all that crap. He never wanted any of them to grow up and be questioning adults. There's a little bit of irony in the fact that it has taken the transition to Figjam for something to finally be done about leadership among the players. You would have thought that Figjam would be telling the players to do as I say, but the fact is, it was Malthouse who started coaching that way with the Dogs and never got off that bus...

 

[jmac70]

Which is why I come to BF.... I want to learn so that I can make accurate posts. That's why I diligently read your posts.

As for Maxwell, I don't think he put anything into Malthouse's gameplan. He merely enforced his master's wishes. I thought he was a pretty good captain. He always thought of things from a team angle.

And to clarify your first statement, I would say that Mick is poison if you're trying to foster the type of leadership that is required to implement a modern game plan...I thought I might clarify that.

What has Mick got to do with the current team?

 

[jmac70]

jmac you seem to follow me around making respectful statements. I've read your insightful analysis embodied in the above statement about 50 times and I still cant poke a hole in its logic. You really have a talent ...

Thanks.

 

[Markfs]

What has Mick got to do with the current team?

Luke Hodge was drafted in 2001
Sam Mitchell was drafted in 2001
Jordan Lewis was drafted in 2004
Alastair Clarkson started coaching Hawthorn in 2005.

I ask myself, "Just how much input did Clarkson have in recruiting those three players?"

and then I ask myself "Just how input do those three players have on the leadership at Hawthorn?"


Here endeth the lesson....

 

[Markfs]

What has Mick got to do with the current team?

btw I was a little disappointed that you would raise this question. I expected better from you...

 

[Bay Pie]

It's not the process that's the issue. The current environment does not seem to cultivate leadership.

Leading Teams was brought in by Bucks to cultivate this because it was lacking in the current group outside Maxwell and Ball. The old environment did not cultivate it. We all know Malthouse was a control freak.

Maxwell himself in his retirement speech at the Copeland spoke of this. For a new group of leaders to step up.

Guys like Johno, Taz, Didak, Davis, Swan & Shaw were all good players but none had great leadership qualities. They would have been consistently in leadership groups under Malthouse if they did.

At the moment our younger players are driving the culture as guys like Nate Brown, Goldy, Toovey and Cloke have been injured or performing poorly, so they'd be rightly focusing more on their own performances.

You just can't compare the onfield leadership that Hodge, Lewis, Mitchell, Burgoyne and Gibson provide with anything, any of our seniors players provide. It was a big gap once Bucks, Burnsy & Licuria finished up. Lockyer and O'Bree got fazed out and luckily Maxwell was a brilliant leader, backed up admirably by Luke Ball with Pendles just learning the caper.

 

[MarkT2]

Who needs talent when you develop the perfect culture.

 

[jackcass]

Mark appears to want to blame MM for the current leadership problems. Describing Maxwell as an enforcer is incredibly disrespectful and just plain wrong. Maxwell is his own man and was a great captain. Without his leadership we would have been overrun in the 2010 drawn grand final. I don't think Mark has a clue what he is talking about TBH.

Agree, Maxwell was a great captain. I'll even add that Pendles is a good captain.

But leadership is about more than 2 individuals and we certainly have a scarcity of it at the moment. We have some great prospects coming through the ranks but that doesn't fill the void this year.

You talk about 2010, but it wasn't just Maxwell. We had Ball and Jolly and Fraser and Lockyer and Presti and yes even Shaw.

 

[Markfs]

Agree, Maxwell was a great captain. I'll even add that Pendles is a good captain.

But leadership is about more than 2 individuals and we certainly have a scarcity of it at the moment. We have some great prospects coming through the ranks but that doesn't fill the void this year.

You talk about 2010, but it wasn't just Maxwell. We had Ball and Jolly and Fraser and Lockyer and Presti and yes even Shaw.

the problem with the word "leadership" is that it's got this historical context where the captain kicks the goal, or takes the ball out of the ruck and drives it forward. I think the leadership before 2010 was fine for the game plan that was in style then. We all knew it. I saw it first hand in it's purest form with West Coast in the early 1990s. The team played to the boundaries..... they played one on one.... but they played team football in key circumstances.... Woosha and Bluey would come across and assist Jacko when he was standing Carey.... etc etc etc. Peter Matera was given a free reign to attack etc etc. It was pre-programmed before the game. We all knew it and the plan stayed the same and Malthouse would get down from his perch between the quarters and act like an attack dog and "tell his boys" what they were doing wrong etc etc....

In short... it was like a sophisticated game of schoolboy footy..

Leaders were there to remind the youngsters what the game plan was. Maxwell did an admirable job as well as the other guys mentioned.

The problem with the Malthouse model is that it takes 3 or 4 minutes for Mick to see what the problem is, tell the runner the message and for the runner to go out and co-ordinate the change. It's inflexible and the players dont own the solution so it requires this "playing for the coach" trust. You have to ask yourself the question, why does empowerment work in the workplace but apparently Mick doesnt think it works on the footy field..... I'd go further and argue that Malthouse's paternalistic method of coaching stunted the growth of some of the players under him... I lost count the number of times that I wished that certain players would just grow up and act like professional sportsman...

 

[jmac70]

btw I was a little disappointed that you would raise this question. I expected better from you...

Perhaps you could actually answer the question.

 

[jmac70]

the problem with the word "leadership" is that it's got this historical context where the captain kicks the goal, or takes the ball out of the ruck and drives it forward. I think the leadership before 2010 was fine for the game plan that was in style then. We all knew it. I saw it first hand in it's purest form with West Coast in the early 1990s. The team played to the boundaries..... they played one on one.... but they played team football in key circumstances.... Woosha and Bluey would come across and assist Jacko when he was standing Carey.... etc etc etc. Peter Matera was given a free reign to attack etc etc. It was pre-programmed before the game. We all knew it and the plan stayed the same and Malthouse would get down from his perch between the quarters and act like an attack dog and "tell his boys" what they were doing wrong etc etc....

In short... it was like a sophisticated game of schoolboy footy..

Leaders were there to remind the youngsters what the game plan was. Maxwell did an admirable job as well as the other guys mentioned.

The problem with the Malthouse model is that it takes 3 or 4 minutes for Mick to see what the problem is, tell the runner the message and for the runner to go out and co-ordinate the change. It's inflexible and the players dont own the solution so it requires this "playing for the coach" trust. You have to ask yourself the question, why does empowerment work in the workplace but apparently Mick doesnt think it works on the footy field..... I'd go further and argue that Malthouse's paternalistic method of coaching stunted the growth of some of the players under him... I lost count the number of times that I wished that certain players would just grow up and act like professional sportsman...

It's one thing to remind young players of what they should be doing, it's another thing altogether to actually get them to perform their role. That's leadership, and it's something Maxwekk had in spades. Pendles on the other hand reminds players by giving them a tap on the bum. It's not quite the same thing.

I would also add that Maxwell didn't have to rely on the coach to make positional changes. He had the authority and tactical nous to change the backline around according to circumstances.

 

[Markfs]

It's one thing to remind young players of what they should be doing, it's another thing altogether to actually get them to perform their role.

if you have to rely on getting them to perform their role then you may as well cash in your chips because hawthorn is going to kill ya....

 

[Markfs]

We've never been a club who's had many 300 game players and at least in the last couple of decades our players don't play deep into their 30s. It has to be more than the current admin/fitness staff.

Consider our current veteran role players with their all australian team mates who are conceivably still young enough to be playing.

Blair (26) -> Didak (33)
Goldsack (28) -> Maxwell (32)
Macaffer (28) -> Ball (32)
Toovey (29) -> Davis (34)

There's no doubt that if these players or others like Brown (34), Jolly (34), Johnson (35), Krakouer (33), Medhurst (34) and Tarrant (35) were able to produce the level we see with veterans from other clubs we'd be better placed. Davis aside, all the others had injury and/or massive drop offs in form.

The loss of Thomas (29), Shaw (30), Wellingham (28), Lumumba (29) and Beams (26) also hurts in terms of senior players.

While the term "senior players" has a lot to do with age, I think it also ropes in the leadership question and the amount of responsibility that the senior player takes in the performance of others in the team. I would never have referred to Alan Didak as a senior player even if he had played at 34. The same is true for Wellingham and a number of the others. We might be better off for "leadership" if they had hung around longer but I still dont think it's the kind of leadership that is required now. But if you want an alternative point of view, then wait for the post of jmac who appears to be following me around recently...

 

[4#Didak#4]

There was always going to be a leadership vaacuum when we had that glut of older players retire at around the same time. We will see the same thing happen at North and also the Hawks and Geelong. Although I think the Cats have managed this better than most.

We had a mini generation gap occur when we had a dominant side in 2010/11. Everyone banged on about how young we were. We did have young guys, but we had just as many old guys and very little in between. So when the oldies dropped off we replaced them with draftees which made us a very young side very quickly. In addition to this, for various reasons, we lost guys who would now be senior players like Lumumba, Dawes, Wellingham, Thomas, Beams and Shaw. All except Shaw & Beams we will not have missed from a player talent perspective but they were the next generation of senior players and hard to replace that.

It is hard to buy games and insert that into your playing list, especially if you are trying to grow your own. We have in small parts added guys like Varcoe, Greenwood & Howe who fill in some of the age gap that we need.

I think we just have to accept that this is something that will fix itself. A cross section of the list will show we have a much better spread from 18-28 whilst the 28+ is pretty barren. While this is a problem now it won't be in 3-4 years as I have reluctantly accepted that the aging process is unstoppable.

 

[Roverjg]

The reason that there was such a lack of leadership coming out of the malthouse years is that Mick was suspicious of anyone who would question him. I don't think i'm coming up with anything new here. We've all seen his paranoia .... his paternal attitude to his boys..... all that crap. He never wanted any of them to grow up and be questioning adults. There's a little bit of irony in the fact that it has taken the transition to Figjam for something to finally be done about leadership among the players. You would have thought that Figjam would be telling the players to do as I say, but the fact is, it was Malthouse who started coaching that way with the Dogs and never got off that bus...

Markfs...MM was my very first Manager and you are spot on with your first two paragraphs. A leopard does not change its spots

 

[Markfs]

There was always going to be a leadership vaacuum when we had that glut of older players retire at around the same time. We will see the same thing happen at North and also the Hawks and Geelong. Although I think the Cats have managed this better than most.

We had a mini generation gap occur when we had a dominant side in 2010/11. Everyone banged on about how young we were. We did have young guys, but we had just as many old guys and very little in between. So when the oldies dropped off we replaced them with draftees which made us a very young side very quickly. In addition to this, for various reasons, we lost guys who would now be senior players like Lumumba, Dawes, Wellingham, Thomas, Beams and Shaw. All except Shaw & Beams we will not have missed from a player talent perspective but they were the next generation of senior players and hard to replace that.

It is hard to buy games and insert that into your playing list, especially if you are trying to grow your own. We have in small parts added guys like Varcoe, Greenwood & Howe who fill in some of the age gap that we need.

I think we just have to accept that this is something that will fix itself. A cross section of the list will show we have a much better spread from 18-28 whilst the 28+ is pretty barren. While this is a problem now it won't be in 3-4 years as I have reluctantly accepted that the aging process is unstoppable.

I dont want to harp on it but age doesn't necessarily bring leadership. I'm not saying that the two arent related because obviously some players improve their leadership as they get older but our many of our talented players - the ones that retired or got traded - didnt really develop as leaders...

Let me say something else controversial. The Rat Pack. If Malthhouse was fair dinkum about leadership, he would have broken it up. The division that it put between some players and the main player group undermined the modern leadership required by a football team. I know we got the 2010 premiership and it's probably fortunate that Maxwell was the captain and outside the rat pack, because allowing a group like that to fester is terrible, as far as I'm concerned. I dont want to get too nasty on Mick but I think the presence of the rat pack served his purpose. The fact that Thomas was in the pack was probably fortunate too. If I put myself in the place of non rat pack players, it makes me roll my eyes...