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It is all about belonging, ownership and commitment to one another. Aside from club culture and cameraderie among a group with a common purpose promoting a certain level, it is 100% about the coaching group (and leadership group) ensuring each and every member of our squad has a sense of belonging and commitment to each other.

While I do not question the commitment to the cause of our leadership group, I lament that all are prone to acts of “putting the team on my back” as opposed to the empowering of team mates and doing the sacrificial thing for the greater good. Growing those around them has not been a thing.

It goes back to thr Ratten days. It has been a tendency to shape our game around the “stars”. My biggest criticism of Ratts was that he relied on his stars and dictated that all others were there to support them. This feeling has continued ever since, bar the Bolton years which had the guns, the “meat shields” Moneyball types and the kids. Bolts focussed too much on the kids and promoted factions. He had the Weitering, McKay, Curnow, Cuningham and Silvagni group as a club reset, relegated the senior types and ignored the footsoldiers. Teague returned to status quo and lifted the team temporarily off the back of the aging “stars”.

Voss is another to put it on the leaders. And play the kids and others in support roles as opposed to integrating them. During this period Ratts to now, the coaching evolved, the game is now a 22/23 man show, more than ever before. Roles have evolved, players must be two way, or have structures built in to accommodate the odd superstar one way worker. Voss incorporates too many negating players to support his premium pieces. These days, the premium types must do their bit in defence, two way running. Voss still engages his mosquito fleet to work excessively defensively, couldn’t wait to bring Cinc back as a tagger, offering little offensively by deployment.

The deployment again makes divisions in the group. We need to embrace a full team, full squad ethos. Everything is creating divisions. We now have the (relatively) new dads focussing on the kids in the crèche, even on game day. It is not unreasonable for some players to either find career best form or drop off after starting a family. Think we have a couple who have gone each way.

The Cats, Pies and a couple of other clubs have established the playing groups and many of their support staff as families, and no they don’t have to be parents. We do not have that level of cameraderie. The boys are mostly mates, but in puff pieces have identified cliques for want of a better word (may, be too strong).

We need a coaching and welfare group mindful of creating unity. I am not talking the modern “learned” leadership, we need good old fashioned instinctive, natural cohesion production. Not this contrived hand/fist slaps and punches crap if something good OR bad occurs. Going through the motions means nothing, genuine emotions over tokenism please.