Tas
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TheBrownDog
- Dec 23, 2002
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- There can be only one...
GC and WB last year... The latter made me the angriest I ever got.
I mean, you can't win every game. However, the way we came out in some games was like we couldn't give a *, no pressure whatsoever, half-arsed turnstile tackling, one opposition pushing past 3 or 4 of our players. The way you go down means a lot, North supporters not knowing if and when the guys have a crack defensively must do the promotion's department heads in, it is what creates so much apathy, how excited can you get from a win when you know they might not even try the following week.
Yeah, the conditions were s**t against GC but when it stopped raining and the ground dried out somewhat, we were obliterated in the middle, the crap conditions did us more favours because it limited their ability to attack.
We don't really do anything to promote consistency, we shouldn't need to throw the book at players who roll over, just start dropping key players who played the worst, it will send a clear signal. Sure, we want to do everything humanly possible to win every game but at some point, if you don't take one step backwards to establish high minimum standards you are never going to take two steps forward. Lt couldn't kick a goal from the goal square and Scott played him for 3/4 of a season. Goldy couldn't buy a hitout and he played him the entire season and left Preuss sitting in the VFL who was crushing it.
There is too much of a boys club. It is important to have good relationships but that has to be on a platform of excellence. I'd rather Scott be liked less by the players and us being a better team. How many career players for us are going to look back with no success during their careers, no premiership reunions to attend. We need to strive for a much better standard of consistency. Sure, you might get killed by better quality players but it doesn't matter how much you are being murdered by a more talented player, the better someone plays on you, the more aggressive and relentless your pressure on them has to be. If you get killed but still laid 6+ tackles and had a whole bunch of 1%ers and pressure acts then nobody can question your commitment. When we don't see that defensive application we can and we should question the commitment. So should the coaches. We can't accept 19yo sub 25 game standards from 25+yo 100+ game players. If we can't have higher expectations than that then we are never going to be consistent enough to go further than we do.
We need to define clear benchmarks for what isn't acceptable and if any players fall below that threshold then the player must be aware that they will be dropped and be forced to earn their spot back in the side through the VFL. If you put the jumper on, you have to go out like it is your last game and you want to look back at your last game and not have any regrets that you didn't put in 100%. If these easy to coach players can't do it consistently without being penalised, the coach needs to step in. There will be some mediocre teams that will pull s**t out of their arse and play the best game they have in a long time and we will get on the wrong end of some of those games and will get rolled now and then, but when that happens I expect us to put up a fight, not just roll over.