What's wrong with Collingwood?

[tess]

Below is an interesting read that has been posted on a few Pies Boards where the posters will allow a fair a reasoned debate on these things.

I don't agree with everything Sky says here although it is interesting that Sly and I have the same thoughts "But by commenting on everything, he gets constant exposure, which is good for Millionaire." on Eddie all of a sudden raising his profile via The Collingwood Football Club.

I also think the inward looking attitude the Club has developed lately that unless your working for Collingwood, staff, players or footy department your views are worth less than worm droppings is atm and will soon become a major issue.



http://www.voy.com/52178/42499.html

From 1999-2002, Collingwood were very focused and purposeful. I don't agree with all their trade decisions, but they clearly had a goal to rebuild the club into a power.

Made a grand final and lost.

Should've walked away, said they weren't good enough, and that would've character building.

Instead, we lost because Rocca's goal was a point, Tarrant was smacked in the head and not awarded a free, Brisbane had salary-cap advantages, etc.

There's always a reason for failure at Collingwood.

Same thing happened in 2003.

McGuire and Malthouse had a chance to reinvent the culture at Collingwood. Instead, they reinforced it. It's got nothing (or is not exclusively) to do with losing the grand finals, but the fact they walked away from those losses and blamed everybody and everything else but themselves.

Take responsibility. Accountability - which is meant to be Malthouse's watchword. But there's none of that.

It's Collingwood's culture. They're victims. They set up reasons to fail, e.g. Malthouse last year citing 'blockbusteritis' the week before they played Carlton, which gave the players every reason to go out and lose - why not? They're suffering blockbusteritis!

The one time this club was successful in modern history was 1990. The reason? Because in the 80s, the club was brought to the brink of bankruptcy. They had to abandon everything they knew - all their Collingwood-instincts and cultures - to survive.

Their financial woes cut players who were there only for the money, e.g. Geoff Raines and Mark Richardson left because they wouldn't take the twenty per cent paycuts.

The nucleus of their rebuild used home-grown talent, (the 1986 Under 19's premiership team).

They traded very wisely - Barwick, Morwood, etc.

Amazingly - for Collingwood - when they needed some pacey smalls, they actually went out and got them in Francis and Russell.

Going into the finals in 1990, Darren Millane had a broken thumb. In any other year, with any other player, that would've been it - the player would've missed, we would've bombed in the finals, and lamented, 'If only he hadn't broken his thumb . . . ' But Millane refused to be bowed, played with the broken thumb - brooked the Collingwood culture - and was instrumental in leading us to a premiership.

No excuses.

And throughout this period, we shut up. There was no hype, (although there was no reason for it), no excuses, no spin. Matthews kept Collingwood low-key, and McAlister during that period was just some anonymous figure operating in the background.

This is the one time in modern history we've done everything opposite to our culture, and we succeeded.

After we won the flag, the circus was back:

* lots of hype about Collingwood - we were 'the greatest show on Earth', etc.
* poor list management, e.g. we had the best midfield in the league, and then for some reason felt the need to go out and get Barry Mitchell; we had great key-defensive stocks in Christian, Kelly, and McKeown, and then decided to also add Pert. Nothing against these players, but they were superfluous to our needs.
* the president would absolutely not shut up.
* Matthews's own coaching stagnated and failed to evolve.
* excuses were back.

Nowdays, I think the club's completely lost its focus. To me, this period now is very reminiscent of 1994-1995.

Breaking it down:

Eddie McGuire: won't shut up. Fans - even his supporters - are getting sick of it. In my opinion, this has now entered the realms of 'conflict of interest'. I never had issues with Eddie being president and commentating games and those other conflicts of which he was accused, because there never seemed - in my opinion - any direct conflict. E.g. How's commentating affect his presidency, or vice-versa? But now, he's using one forum (the presidency) to promote his media career, which directly presents a problem to Collingwood. I seriously do not want to hear Eddie mutter a single comment about things which are totally unremarkable. Have written it before - it's like Alan McAlistair in the early 90s, where the media would go to him because they always knew they'd get something from him. Eddie is excellent at phrasing what he wants to say articulately - unlike Big Al - but I seriously do not care about incidental umpire contact or Dave Hughes or whatever the case. It's just not worth talking about. But by commenting on everything, he gets constant exposure, which is good for Millionaire.

Mick Malthouse: the tide of opinion is really turning against him. He's always had his critics, but now his supporters are beginning to abandon him; rational people are suggesting that, regardless, ten years is enough; and the media has begun to question his gameplan. Mick's normal petulance has grown tiresome also, and everybody's tired of the lack of accountability.

Gameplan: has really fallen under scrutiny, not just from fans who are actually waking up to its existence (years ago I used to have arguments with people on the Bullet In Board who denied we played this way), but also the media who are putting it under the spotlight, and opposition. I remember toward the end of Mark McGough's career, opponents would just stand off him because they knew he couldn't hurt them by foot, so it was safe to surrender the possession. This is what opposition are now doing to Collingwood - standing in the corridor and surrendering the boundary because the hurt factor is low. It's taken ten years, and we've been worked out, which I think is another contributor to losing to mediocre teams like Adelaide, Essendon, North Melbourne (last year), etc.

Players: Are developing a list of frontrunners, lacking leadership and genuine initiative. Top-end of the list contains too many marshmallows, or guys who have serious question marks upon their consistency or commitment. Too many of the younger players also seemed to have plateaued. Seems this can only be corrected by pumping games into kids, getting the likes of Pendles and TC are up 100 games, McCarthy and Beams up to 50 games, etc., to developed what you would consider a strong, tiered infrastructure within the list.

Certainly seems an air of stagnation about the place. As many have pointed out, the 2-3 start is no different to the last couple of years (3-2 in 2007, 2-3 in 2008), but the prevailing attitudes from fans and media have changed.

As far as Eddie goes, he still has a place if he can refocus.

Malthouse would have to completely reinvent himself, which I can't see him doing. It's a shame, because the other facets of his coaching can be exemplary. If he adopted a modern gameplan, he'd be almost unstoppable.

 

[The Dawes]

I agree with much of what he says about the club, but have to take exception to his rating of the list. Totally undersells the fact we've made the last two finals series with a predominantly young team - in 1994-5 we we a much older side and didn't help ourselves by hanging onto premiership players until well past their use-by date. We are far better placed now than we were then IMO.

Also, giving it to Eddie over his media committments is unnecessary - we all knew what we were getting when he got on board, no point whinging about it now. I have no doubt he has the best interests of Collingwood at his core.

However I do think the next few weeks will reveal a lot about the club and where we're at.

 

[tess]

Also, giving it to Eddie over his media committments is unnecessary - we all knew what we were getting when he got on board, no point whinging about it now. I have no doubt he has the best interests of Collingwood at his core.

We knew what Ed was like but we also didn't have much of a choice when Ed took over. Now it's not a coincidence he has a Newish millionaire show starting this week and the past couple of weeks he has been in the media commenting on everything as Collingwood President.
Eddie does nothing media wise without a reason and this noise he made raised his profile.

However I do think the next few weeks will reveal a lot about the club and where we're at.

True, another Loss to Carlton should see Mick say enough is enough and do what Tony Shaw did for the Club in 1999.

 

[Quicky]

^^ It was a great post by Sly. DNine posted a link to the thread in the MM discussion thread yesterday.

 

[lyfsux]

We knew what Ed was like but we also didn't have much of a choice when Ed took over. Now it's not a coincidence he has a Newish millionaire show starting this week and the past couple of weeks he has been in the media commenting on everything as Collingwood President.
Eddie does nothing media wise without a reason and this noise he made raised his profile.



True, another Loss to Carlton should see Mick say enough is enough and do what Tony Shaw did for the Club in 1999.

Cant see Malthouse doing it he is to pigheaded to go Blames players not himself as was seen after the Geelong and Essendon game

 

[didaka]

One of Collingwood's major problems is we don't lift to the occasion, as we are coached to believe that each game is as important as the previous or the next. This is why we lose games against sides like Essendon and Carlton that we should win, hence costing us top 4 finishes.

Other then that we have just not been good enough. Our most powerful side has not been able to keep with the other powerful sides of the decade.

Flags now come from making the most of draft selection through the 2nd, 3rd and even fourth round selection, and we haven't recognized the best talent at these points as well as wasting selection in the 1st rounds, Cole, Nixon and Egan.

If you do not make the most of drafting, you will not become a Geelong.

Now you can also add an out of date game plan.

 

[FuManchu]

The biggest problem at Collingwood is the substitution of team success, with glorification of the individual.

They have made deities out of Malthouse and McGuire and are too scared to question these identities for fear of slipping from being average to poor if they leave.

McGuire has done wonders for the club, but he has issues as a President, he is not perfect, he is good tho. If he shut his gob and ran the club with the right amount of oversight and arms length review, we probably wouldnt be talking about a coach who has failed for 9 years and looks to be failing again this year.

That is Eddies biggest sin as club pres. Everything else can be forgiven because he has either recitfied or countered other things.

Some people are so scared of losing MM and I for the life of me can not figure out why. 15 years without a flag as a coach. 9 years here without a flag, overseeing some of the worst recruting in the modern game. A gameplan that rivals valium for inducing sleep, skill levels only seen at primary school level and a rigid adherence to the gameplan when more proactivity is needed.

MM is a good coach, but he is not the best coach, he has been outcoached every year at Collingwood by at least one other come September. He has a very average 50% record, his best year was 68%................... And yet, supporters think that the world will collapse if he goes. The world is already slowly collapsing with him as coach. It's a gradual slide into the mid ladder ( no mans land). He just is not cutting edge enough these days to recruit a good COMPLETE LIST (or counter an opposition on gameday that have assumed the ascendency late in the game). That has always been his hurdle. But it is of his own making and as a consequence of this failure, the gameplan has had to suffer.

People will make the excuse that he can only coach what players he gets.

But, every other coach lives and dies by recruiting, why absolve MM of this consequence? He got Judkins to the club, he got Hines to the club, if they havent produced the players, then he must bear the responsibility, like every other coach has had to.

We need to start demanding more from the board in terms of accountability and overview, not this glorification that some have used because they are so starved of success on field. Kicking out individuals if they dont perform is not the worse thing that can happen to the club. Keeping underperforming people IS the worst thing that can happen.

 

[Col Davies]

Re: What's wrong with Collingwood? ........

...... too many Richmond supporters

 

[tess]

Re: What's wrong with Collingwood? ........

...... too many Richmond supporters

I don't who you think you are CD but I support Collingwood and find that accusation very much uncollingwood like. We have since our inception as a Club prided ourselves on being a diverse group of supporters and not being sheep like in our thinking. This has made our Club the great Club it is, sad to see you undermining our Clubs biggest strength, the supporters who ask the questions.

 

[FuManchu]

Re: What's wrong with Collingwood? ........

...... too many Richmond supporters

too many supporters that are happy to have the same results as Richmond. Coming 2nd thru to 16th is the same in the final wash. They are meaningless results that no-one can boast about

Winning is the only goal and anyone who wants to keep the status quo which has proven for 9 years to result in the same meaningless results is supporting mediocrity.

 

[Col Davies]

Oh we're from tigerland a fighting ...................

 

[Paddywhackers]

Re: What's wrong with Collingwood? ........

...... too many Richmond supporters

I agree with this statement...

 

[FuManchu]

Oh we're from tigerland a fighting ...................

I get the impression you are, you seem to have a vested interest in maintaining the same results as them.

 

[tess]

They are just setting out to derail this thread, it's why they get a gold .... um star.

 

[Bay Pie]

Interesting read.

I have loved what MM has gotten out of our group and has done plenty for the club ovwer his tenure but only just recently have I thought, perhaps it's time for a change.

In the 5 games so far this year, we consistently let teams run the ball through the middle, basically unchecked. We are going to keep any team in games playing like this. No, I don't know all the workings of the coaches and what they are trying to achieve but surely we need to correct this type of play.

I'm beginning to think that after a long time at the club, perhaps the players are feeling a little stale about his message.

As for Ed, we are all grateful for what he has done and continues to do, to provide us with stable financial structure (Yes, the pub deals went bad, but we are in a position to withstand this). I wish too, that he'd shut up some times.

Lastly our list. In much better shape then 95/96. We have a very young team, where our best players are our younger ones. Just need to get more games into them.

 

[Snag Breac]

"Deities" Fu? Lol.

 

[FuManchu]

"Deities" Fu? Lol.

Its shorter than 'god like figures'

 

[mattys123]

People seem to forget who we are, we are Collingwood.

Collingwood is a club, that despite repeatedly making GF's bombs on the big day. A club that has won one flag in 52 years. A club that has played in more finals and GF's then anyone else yet has 2 less flags then the leader.

We are Collingwood, unfortunately it is correct to say "we live with failure".

We do, and we have for too long.

I don't know the answer, hell, maybe their isnt one, maybe we are stamped as we are to struggle for eternity till the day another "saviour" like Leigh Mathews arrives at the club.

That's the one thing people forget too, we didnt win a flag due to luck or going against the Collingwood grain, we won a flag because of one man, Leigh Matthews.

Therefore the next step I would take would be to look outside the realm of conventional coaching candidates, and do something completely different.

We need one of the following if we are to be successful some time in the rest of my life;

1. A coach that has no affiliation with Collingwood whatsover.
2. A team that has no fear of failure
3. A completely new coaching strategy, I have no idea what this might be, but why not try something left field like 2 major coaches, or 1 coach and 2 main understudies, one offensive, one defensive.

What has become clear is that we need to do something different to achieve our next premiership, it wont just happen if we continue along the same path we are on at the moment, and I am not placing all the blame with MM or Eddie, the whole club has to answer for this, and whoever is appointed as the coaching panel next year has to dramatically change our on field culture.

 

[Paddywhackers]

Interesting read.

I have loved what MM has gotten out of our group and has done plenty for the club ovwer his tenure but only just recently have I thought, perhaps it's time for a change.

In the 5 games so far this year, we consistently let teams run the ball through the middle, basically unchecked. We are going to keep any team in games playing like this. No, I don't know all the workings of the coaches and what they are trying to achieve but surely we need to correct this type of play.

I'm beginning to think that after a long time at the club, perhaps the players are feeling a little stale about his message.

As for Ed, we are all grateful for what he has done and continues to do, to provide us with stable financial structure (Yes, the pub deals went bad, but we are in a position to withstand this). I wish too, that he'd shut up some times.

Lastly our list. In much better shape then 95/96. We have a very young team, where our best players are our younger ones. Just need to get more games into them.

I agree with all of this post,

I believe that the game is going past MM, but could he be a victim of his own success, that is getting the most out of his players and consequently putting us in a poor position in the draft that isn't reflective of the talent on out list...

That being said, we had quality players to replace such as Buckley, Rocca (hasn't done a thing in the past two years) Clement, Burns and Licuria. And seem to have recovered quicker than maybe we should have.

Another point is, after out early from in the pre season comp people were claiming that we had peaked early. Maybe we are going to start firing when the finals are here.

 

[FuManchu]

I agree with all of this post,

I believe that the game is going past MM, but could he be a victim of his own success, that is getting the most out of his players and consequently putting us in a poor position in the draft that isn't reflective of the talent on out list...

That being said, we had quality players to replace such as Buckley, Rocca (hasn't done a thing in the past two years) Clement, Burns and Licuria. And seem to have recovered quicker than maybe we should have.

Another point is, after out early from in the pre season comp people were claiming that we had peaked early. Maybe we are going to start firing when the finals are here.

You got to make the finals first

 

[Koki Freelander]

The problem I have with an analysis such as that is, however, that it perpetuates a myth that "lack of Premierships = not successful". Setting aside that Collingwood is a financial and cultural powerhouse off the field, people suggest that because we have only won one Premiership in the last 50 years C'wood are shit. It ignores that we made 12 others. The best two teams of each year play off (theoretically). The ultimate prize is the Premiership, for sure, but appearing in around 1/3 of all Grand Finals (someone's signature on here also states that we have been top four 71 times - I did not double check this, but that is like 2/3 of all seasons!!!) is not half bad. Perhaps we should do a win loss record in the last 50 years. see where we are on the ladder (I am not volunteering). It doesn't make us premiers, but it does dispel the myth of "losing culture", "think we're better than we are" and reinforces the theory of the "tall poppy" syndrome

 

[FuManchu]

The problem I have with an analysis such as that is, however, that it perpetuates a myth that "lack of Premierships = not successful". Setting aside that Collingwood is a financial and cultural powerhouse off the field, people suggest that because we have only won one Premiership in the last 50 years C'wood are shit. It ignores that we made 12 others. The best two teams of each year play off (theoretically). The ultimate prize is the Premiership, for sure, but appearing in around 1/3 of all Grand Finals (someone's signature on here also states that we have been top four 71 times - I did not double check this, but that is like 2/3 of all seasons!!!) is not half bad. Perhaps we should do a win loss record in the last 50 years. see where we are on the ladder (I am not volunteering). It doesn't make us premiers, but it does dispel the myth of "losing culture", "think we're better than we are" and reinforces the theory of the "tall poppy" syndrome

There is only one primary purpose for any club in the AFL, it is for the ultimate onfield success. To finish 2nd or less is not fulfilling the primary purpose. One success in 50 years is pretty much failure by any definition when the averages would suggest it shoud be at least 3 times in that era.

 

[well left]

That's all well and good but AFL clubs and AFL footballers pursue one thing: AFL premierships. That's why Robert Harvey played for 20 years, why Shane Crawford could retire at the end of last season with his ambition achieved. It's why any Brownlow Medalist that never won a premiership will tell you they would gladly exchange it for a premiership medallion.

It is not the only form of success but it is the ultimate success and that is what we should be striving for.

I don't think MM can deliver the ultimate success. That is why we need the change.

 

[tess]

The problem I have with an analysis such as that is, however, that it perpetuates a myth that "lack of Premierships = not successful". Setting aside that Collingwood is a financial and cultural powerhouse off the field, people suggest that because we have only won one Premiership in the last 50 years C'wood are shit. It ignores that we made 12 others. The best two teams of each year play off (theoretically). The ultimate prize is the Premiership, for sure, but appearing in around 1/3 of all Grand Finals (someone's signature on here also states that we have been top four 71 times - I did not double check this, but that is like 2/3 of all seasons!!!) is not half bad. Perhaps we should do a win loss record in the last 50 years. see where we are on the ladder (I am not volunteering). It doesn't make us premiers, but it does dispel the myth of "losing culture", "think we're better than we are" and reinforces the theory of the "tall poppy" syndrome

Played in Finals over 70 times for 40 Grand Finals and 14 Flags.

That was my signature ...

Since 1981 just 28 years ago we have played in 3 Grand finals and about 10 years of finals..... we are and will fall behind Clubs like Hawthorn very soon.

 

[FuManchu]

maybe thats also an extension of the problem of the cult of personality over the real purpose for existing and that is glorifying things such as culture and money.

The bottom line is flags, all the money in the world is pointless if it doesnt help get a flag. We have fantastic facilities, but they have done nothing to get that ultimate goal. We have this supposed culture at the club of being underdog and hated, but it amounts to nothing if it doesnt galvanise and create actual success.

Maybe we are so tied up in our own self promoting myths, that we are not seeing what the reality is.

the reality is, we have money, we have facilities, but we have a dwindling culture of real success. We are starting to look to non essential aspects to bolster our own self belief.

FLAGS, that is what the culture should be about, and we aint getting them.