Autopsy Where are we?

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bunter

bunter

Club Legend
Veteran
Apr 20, 2016
1,540
2,729
AFL Club
Collingwood
are we :
On the cusp of greatness?
One or two players from having a real crack?
A club in turmoil needing a rebuild and total revamp?
Tracking very well and developing towards success?
Does not care as long as we make a profit with record member levels?
Have a definite plan for future success and will not deviate until premiership glory is achieved?
Hope that netball and Women's AFL expand our reach but not our quest for more flags?

I just get a bit confused sometimes and wonder what the club is trying to achieve lately
 
McKenna6 said:
are we :
On the cusp of greatness?
One or two players from having a real crack?
A club in turmoil needing a rebuild and total revamp?
Tracking very well and developing towards success?
Does not care as long as we make a profit with record member levels?
Have a definite plan for future success and will not deviate until premiership glory is achieved?
Hope that netball and Women's AFL expand our reach but not our quest for more flags?

I just get a bit confused sometimes and wonder what the club is trying to achieve lately
Click to expand...
On the cusp of greatness? - No.
One or two players from having a real crack? - No.
A club in turmoil needing a rebuild and total revamp? - Yes.
Tracking very well and developing towards success? - No.
Does not care as long as we make a profit with record member levels? - Club says yes.
Have a definite plan for future success and will not deviate until premiership glory is achieved? - No.
Hope that netball and Women's AFL expand our reach but not our quest for more flags? - Couldn't care less.
 

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I honestly reckon we are 2-3 good players away from having a real crack. A tall forward, tall back and a very good user of the ball with good speed. Obviously they would have to be good players to fit those positions and not just anybody!

I also agree with another one of the questions OP asked. That being, doesn't care as long as membership levels are high and making a profit, i have said it for a while now the club feels like a business these days, i may be wrong and happy to be proven wrong but it feels like as long as the club is making a profit then everything is fine, i miss how the club used to be when it was more about football, i just don't get that same feeling anymore for some reason.

I am looking forward to this review coming at the end of the year because i think the club needs a big shake up. Change a few things around, Buckley will get his own individual seperate review to determine if he stays or goes, if we finish bottom 6 i reckon he will go. If he does stay then i would really want to see the people around him changed, just about everyone in the coaches box is Buckleys best mates of years, people probably to scared to go against his opinion. But anyway, i don't want to turn this thread into a Buckley bashing thread, there are plenty of those already..

I feel this off season is a very important one, probably the most important for many years, it's going to determine a lot if we're going to do anything in the near future, likely to have a good first round pick the way things are going, some quality free agents going around, the trade period we are always involved in. Will be very interesting.
 
Stoods said:
I honestly reckon we are 2-3 good players away from having a real crack. A tall forward, tall back and a very good user of the ball with good speed. Obviously they would have to be good players to fit those positions and not just anybody!

I also agree with another one of the questions OP asked. That being, doesn't care as long as membership levels are high and making a profit, i have said it for a while now the club feels like a business these days, i may be wrong and happy to be proven wrong but it feels like as long as the club is making a profit then everything is fine, i miss how the club used to be when it was more about football, i just don't get that same feeling anymore for some reason.

I am looking forward to this review coming at the end of the year because i think the club needs a big shake up. Change a few things around, Buckley will get his own individual seperate review to determine if he stays or goes, if we finish bottom 6 i reckon he will go. If he does stay then i would really want to see the people around him changed, just about everyone in the coaches box is Buckleys best mates of years, people probably to scared to go against his opinion. But anyway, i don't want to turn this thread into a Buckley bashing thread, there are plenty of those already..

I feel this off season is a very important one, probably the most important for many years, it's going to determine a lot if we're going to do anything in the near future, likely to have a good first round pick the way things are going, some quality free agents going around, the trade period we are always involved in. Will be very interesting.
Click to expand...
Give any team 3 good players and they are going to be decent or a lot better. ANY team.
 
I'd say we're one or two elite players away from challenging, whether that be bring them in through trade or guys like De Goey developing into one. We also need an AFL standard back up for Moore and AFL standard rebounding and lockdown defender.


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So far, we're still on track with my ladder predictor pre-Queens Birthday.

So, until a result from that ladder predictor turns out different, we're still on track for 12 wins. I had us losing to Melbourne and Port.
 
On the cusp of greatness? No

One or two players from having a real crack? It'd be more than 2, and our problems are more than just players.

A club in turmoil needing a rebuild and total revamp? IMO a revamp is needed to get us to where we want to be, and that will happen.

Tracking very well and developing towards success? IMO we're tracking upwards, but I think currently there's a low ceiling on that.

Does not care as long as we make a profit with record member levels? I believe the club consider that the best way to make good profit and get good membership is to win games of footy. It's not an 'either/or' situation at all.

Have a definite plan for future success and will not deviate until premiership glory is achieved? The point of the current Peter Murphy review is to come up with that plan. We are so far away from any Premierships at the moment, fixating on them only fuels frustration and angst. We need to focus on winning games of footy, making finals, making Grand Finals, and then we can start thinking about Premierships.

Hope that netball and Women's AFL expand our reach but not our quest for more flags? Both AFLW and Netball have been fantastic for the club and fully support them. Any Premiership, whether it be AFL or VFL or AFLW or Netball would be a great achievement for our club. Besides, success begets success.

I just get a bit confused sometimes and wonder what the club is trying to achieve lately I haven't been confused about the club's direction at all. IMO they've been very clear about striving to win games of footy. All the problems have been with the execution, rather than anything to do with direction.

Any attempt to blame our poor AFL results on too much business focus, or on the presence of the AFLW team, or the presence of the Netball team is scapegoating and a copout IMO.
 
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It's a bit frustrating to be so middle of the road at the moment. This comp is set up to be a contender or rebuilding for the next era. There is no other prizes other than the Grand Final. It's not like soccer where you can be concentrating on the FA Cup instead of the Premier League etc.

So all focus needs to be on the next premiership tilt.

At the moment we have an ok side, capable of competing against most team, capable of beating the bad ones and capable of the odd upset. But we don't have enough firepower or class to be a top 4 side. I think if we have a good run of injuries and some turn in luck we can be a top 8 side, but probably not much more.

So it really begs the question where do we go from here??

We either throw everything at the trade and free agency table to land a star....or we bottom out and recruit some good kids.

We'll probably win this week, which will keep us in the hunt for finals. But there is going to have to be a point this year where we acknowledge we are no longer a chance, and start preparing for the future.
 

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Interesting read of opinions.

But we are NOT in turmoil.
That's just so far off the mark.

Is there disputes amongst players, coaches, board? No not all.

Are we tracking in the right direction?

That's the real question and could go either way; which is what usually happens to all clubs that aren't at the pointy end.

But spare me the turmoil, with respect to my fellow posters an indication of what happens on social media forums, where all manner of things are given a voice far greater than reality.

My little rant over
 
I'll hop on 76woodenspooners here and say:

We're tracking upwards, but we don't have enough upside to go all the way. Changes need to be made not only in the footballing department but also seriously on the list. Too many failed draft picks in the last handful of years has us at a difficult position that won't get us very far. and it's set back our ladder movement by 2-3 years, which puts the futures of Pendlebury, Reid, Wells etc. at jeopardy.
 
My views on where we are
  1. Stable strong leadership at board level, albeit I would like to see a limit on how long someone can stay on the board.
  2. A powerhouse both financially and membership with it set to grow once the netball and women's team develop. Club will leverage these team to broaden appeal and continue to build to give us the capacity to reinvest in the club
  3. In Football terms
    1. Football department needs a refresh. Recruitment / development and overall list management has been behind pace setters. Our current list has significant deficiencies with lack of KPP, and an over abundance of vanilla type mid fielders who are not game changers.
    2. Too much C and B grade talent on the list.
    3. We are 5-6 years away from challenging for a flag given the current make up of our list. Unless we can identify and secure high end talent then we are not likely to move from where we are now - no mans land.
    4. Coaching - unless Clarkson was to become available, then I would stay with Buckley and reappoint for a further 2 years.
    5. Focus on improving the VFL team to being super competitive. Hawks, Geelong, Bulldogs have all had super competitive and dominant VFL team over the past decade.
 
peter9789 said:
Coaching - unless Clarkson was to become available, then I would stay with Buckley and reappoint for a further 2 years.
Click to expand...

This cannot be a serious option?
You mentioned above we are 5-6 years away from challenging…
That means a decade plus of decline.

And after 6yrs…you want to extend the coach if we can't get Clarkson and take his tenure to 8 seasons of decline?

If we are that far away as you are suggesting, then we need to go complete overhaul and that includes the current coach.
 
HFF said:
This cannot be a serious option?
You mentioned above we are 5-6 years away from challenging…
That means a decade plus of decline.

And after 6yrs…you want to extend the coach if we can't get Clarkson and take his tenure to 8 seasons of decline?

If we are that far away as you are suggesting, then we need to go complete overhaul and that includes the current coach.
Click to expand...

Yes I know it might seem at odds with my view that we are 5-6 years away. I just don't subscribe to the view that its all about the coach. Show me a great coach and I'll show you a great list. Our list is very low on high end talent or game changing players. Lots of vanilla type players and out best player of the last 10 years (Pendles) is closer to the finish than the start.

By all means change the coach but don't expect significant improvement. Maybe just maybe Bucks is getting the best out of the current list.
 
I will tell you where we are.
We are on 5 wins. Hawthorn are on 5 wins and every says they are in decline after years at the top. They beat one of the Flag favourites last week.
Which Hawthorn will show up this week? Who cares.
Which Collingwood will show up this week? The one that only has 5 wins for the season. The one that only has one A grade forward who is in the stands, and 1 learning. All others are b- or weaker.
The team that has a so called A grade mid field, yet they seem to have no compass.
The team that has a serviceable back line, that is held up by 3 veterans, a cripple and a few kids who do well but make rookie errors.
The interchange are made up of players covering for injuries who would otherwise not get a game.
The Coach has had 6 years to correct/fashion/mould in his image/implement plans (yes there have been multiple that have not worked) and teach all of the above changing lists how to realise what is in his head.
Well, I know the coach is a clever bloke. But it has not proven to be that he is a good coach.
Where we are is every week/month/year, we are showing a working model of the definition of insanity. Repeat and hope it works.
We are all insane as Collingwood supporters.
<a href='http://www.gifbin.com/984837' title='Funny Gifs'><img src='http://www.gifbin.com/bin/112010/1290603068_crazy-brazilian-murderer-interview.gif'></a>
 
Things are never as good or bad as they seem! At the conclusion of round 6 the grand finalists of last year were 7th and 18th respectively with 4 games and 35% separating them. Fast forward two months and the gap is now one game and Sydney are 8% ahead. The lesson is that it doesn't take much for the wheel to turn.

IMO, we're one role filled (KPF) and two star players (I would hope for Elliott and Moore) from being in contention. The proviso is we need to be better in the one area that we can have the edge over GWS, the football department. To be blunt ours is below average to poor currently and is in drastic need of a shake up. I would start at the top and work down, but I hazard a guess the club will shuffle some deckchairs at the bottom of the heap and the status quo will remain for the time being.

I'm afraid I'm now of the belief that whilst the current board remains in place our FD will not get torn asunder as it needs to be. Rather we'll continue to drift aimlessly along our path of mediocre mid table finishes. This year will make it 4 in a row and how many will it take for action? 5? 6? Fix the FD and we'll be fine the rest is just noise!
 
% is the best indicator of how a team actually ranks.

We are 98, which is par and similar to the Dogs and Saints.

This time last year we had a % of 88, so IMO we hit the bottom last year and are building.

We have enough reason to be optimistic that time and development put into the likes of Moore, Maynard, DeGoey will start to bear fruit.

A couple of smart off-season acquisitions, and a bit more composure in game would easily see us potentially jump into a 110% type team ala Rich or Melb this year in 2018.

From there who knows
 
We are not that far away. I have said many times we have a totally unbalanced list but this can be fixed in 1 or 2 trade periods. We need to trade away the players that we have more than 2 types of. (eg inside mids, small forwards who cant crumb etc) and get a decent tall backman and a decent tall forward (Sam Reid can do both). We have too many players who can play who are played out of position but are better than the role players who usually play that position. (i hope that makes sense). This is an easy fix.
We got rid of the wrong ruckman (no one will agree with me, but Grundy may be good around the ground, but we have a midfield that is good around the ground, and Grundy gets in the way of the better ball users.. we need a ruckman that can direct the ball to our midfield better than Grundy does).
We need to bite the bullet and trade some of our youngsters, unfortunately the ones we have played this year have lost currency though.
And we just need new blood up up top, appointed by a totally independent committee, because what we are doing now is clearly not working.
 
peter9789 said:
Yes I know it might seem at odds with my view that we are 5-6 years away. I just don't subscribe to the view that its all about the coach. Show me a great coach and I'll show you a great list. Our list is very low on high end talent or game changing players. Lots of vanilla type players and out best player of the last 10 years (Pendles) is closer to the finish than the start.

By all means change the coach but don't expect significant improvement. Maybe just maybe Bucks is getting the best out of the current list.
Click to expand...
You are straying into my kind of posts.

Absolutely bang on.

Need players with A grade to elite levels.
Need to build to get those. Which is what every club is trying I imagine.
GWS have whip hand with their support network (see AFL).

Until we get better quality or the young ones jump to higher levels, we'll be where we are.
No coach on earth can beat those odds, unless they get the requisite talent.
 
Part of the answer to where we are at in 2018... can be found by priorising the playing our 1st, 2nd and 3rd year kids for the remainder of the year to see which ones will cut it...

That means Crocker, Kirby and Cox (young in football terms) play ahead of known quantities Mayne or White

It means Broomhead, Brown, Daicos play ahead of Blair

Mclarty plays ahead of Keefe if Reid or Dunn need a rest or are carrying a niggle

It means Greenwood gets rested to give Wills a game (when ready)

Aish and Phillips are persevered with

De goey gets time on the ball ahead of others like greenwood

And it means the club trials Scharenberg ahead of known quantities Langdon and Oxley

First year kids aside... there are a number of 2nd and 3rd year players who need to be given the chance to produce or we move them on and draft more in.

Once we know more about the kids we have we can better make a better call at which ones we cull.... and which ones we persevere with leaving us to make some tough calls on the future of some senior blokes
 
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