Team Bonding

[footyfix]

It continually comes to my mind this season so to get it out there........I can't help remembering when Heath Black came back to Freo he said he was astonished that there was seemingly no real comraderie in the club between the players. That probably wasn't his exact words but he said very few of the players were friends off field. There were no bonding excersises/ outings etc.no relationship other than the fact that they played for Freo and He wanted to turn that around. He then took some young guys on an organized pub crawl in which some guys (not involved in our club) got into trouble and although it had nothing to do with our guys naturaly the west beat it up and dragged us into it. To my memory there was also another attempt that went pear shaped as well(?) and then presumably Heath gave up. It does appear there is no real team spirit, comraderie, mutual respect or any bonding whatsoever between our guys.Mutual experiences and shared experiences especially out of their comfort zone(ie the footy club) are what builds relationships and familiarity.The young guys in particular should be sharing frequent team and confidence building/ bonding excersises. Every year the eagles take their junior players out on a sailing day. A lot of them freak out on the Swan particularly if it's really blowing( I still wet myself remembering Sampi, it was hysterical!) It is a fantastic day for them, usually a brand new experience way out of their comfort zone and they share a lot of great stories at the end of the day and I am jealous that it's not our guys but them. I also remember a fair few stories of this ilk from other clubs,Hawtorne(?) doing the Kokoda trail, Malthouse taking his guys camping, and plenty others. As far as I can tell our guys have a week at Rotto and I may be wrong about that. These experiences can be invaluable to team bonding and I would love to know what, if anything, we are doing. Failing all else why don't they get in that group called leding teams it seemed to do the trick for Geelong.

 

[Tundrawolf]

Fair point.

Whenever I go to see Souths play at Freo Oval I see a big group of Eagles young blokes (Naitanui, Masten, Arrowsmith, Ebert etc) come and watch the game, can't say I've ever seen a lot of young Freo guys together at a game.

There doesn't seem to be a bond or chemistry of any kind amongst our guys when they are playing.

 

[footyfix]

And scarily enough I've heard of Steven Hill hanging out with some ofthe young Eagle guys too. So what's being done in this area?

 

[Chris25]

It's easy to say this sort of stuff from the outside looking in, but I'm sure there is plenty of team bonding. If there was no chemistry or bond, I doubt guys like Mundy would have re-signed with the club.

Just because you don't see it all the time, doesn't mean it isn't happening.

 

[sumavich]

It'd be good now Mundy has re-signed for him to start giving a shit !!

 

[E Shed]

I saw Sibo, Mayne, Campbell & Shaun Mac watching Ruffles playing for the dees a few weeks ago. They got excited when he got the ball which suggests team feeling.

 

[Split Personality]

It's all well and good to have great team bonding, but don't think this correlates to out atrocious skills much!

Seems to be good encouragement from the older guys to the draftees.

 

[Palmervich]

Shane Crawford said it on the footy show last week, and I absolutly agree with him (even though Sam told him he was a **** head)
You have to play for your team mates, and at the moment clearly we are not.