Autopsy Where are we?

[Vicky Park]

8.30 on the clock

AM or PM?

 

[Unknown Identity]

We're in footy purgatory.

Not good enough to play finals, not s**t enough to finish bottom 2-3.

Stuck on an infinite loop of mediocrity.

 

[Frank Gallagher]

We're in footy purgatory.

Not good enough to play finals, not s**t enough to finish bottom 2-3.

Stuck on an infinite loop of mediocrity.

Which is why it's time to play the kids.

 

[Unknown Identity]

Which is why it's time to play the kids.

Absolutely.

Shaz should be playing every game.

Kirby is a must to get fans to actually want to show up to games.

Daicos debut needs to happen very soon.

 

[76woodenspooners]

We're in footy purgatory.

Not good enough to play finals, not s**t enough to finish bottom 2-3.

Stuck on an infinite loop of mediocrity.

Haha, we've got around 30 years to catch up to Richmond on that infinite loop, and probably around 20 years behind North.

 

[Darkyprotector]

Rupert? Don't quite get that? Does he even know football exists?

But good post.

Wasn't Bill Deller a Collingwood supporter?

Can't think of any others lol. #freesforhawthorn #freesforbulldogs #everythingforAFLGiants

commonly known as a demon fan ,knows footy, bet your arse he does went to the launch,talked about our great game and his passion as a kid,daddys team too,also donated a couple of cars in the past for raffles as well
certainly runs the game no suprise to me ,plenty of free to air ,plenty of coverage , plenty of afl support both on and off the field

 

[Saintly Viewed]

commonly known as a demon fan ,knows footy, bet your arse he does went to the launch,talked about our great game and his passion as a kid,daddys team too,also donated a couple of cars in the past for raffles as well
certainly runs the game no suprise to me ,plenty of free to air ,plenty of coverage , plenty of afl support both on and off the field

How about that.
Didn't know.

Learn something every day.

So he's not Collingwood, delist him

 

[gopies1981]

I probably see these things as being much greyer than most. There isn't a lot of black and white (sorry) in winning flags and being successful. This is all the more so now we are in an 18 team competition. Means breaks between ultimate success are only going to get longer so for me I try and avoid too many absolute statements.

With that background I see our current position as being very middle of the road and unfortunately probably a long way from contention. Our list is our basic short coming. It can improve with more tweaking but overall it lacks the required class. The challenge is to add to the class quickly while we have Pendlebury, Reid, Wells and Sidey still up and going. Elliott, Grundy, De Goey and Moore have the potential, maybe Maynard also, to be A graders one day and Treloar is currently. Of the older 4 Pendles is the only one a chance to be an A grade talent when the others mature. Think this is going to leave us light on in the next few years.

We have dropped off a lot of our good talents too quickly and missed with too many of our replacements. The injuries to Shaz and Freeman are a really big blow and the then picking up of Aish and WHE, while top rated talents in their draft years, don't look likely to snag any top players. Likewise we haven't picked up a top talent from later draft picks like we did with Heater ( was never ranked highly in his year) Swanny et al. Its brutal to try and contend in an 18 team comp and too much has gone wrong. There is grey and luck involved to a degree here. My guess is any contending is probably 5+ years and at least a rebuild of sorts away for us.

Can Bucks be the man to do that. I have serious doubts but think he will be given at least another season with how the club sounds currently.

Bucks most not stay. This will be the 4th year out of the finals. We will have to go simple!! get new coach and start a rebuild hopefully contend for a premiership in 2021-2022. Also look at getting new recruiters and a new coaching panel and get a coach outside of our club who has had success

 

[Bad Horse]

Quo vadis?

Romam eo iterum crucifigi.

I guess that means we are going back to Rome to be crucified upside down.

Sounds about right.

 

[Baltimore Jack]

Quo vadis?

Romam eo iterum crucifigi.

I guess that means we are going back to Rome to be crucified upside down.

Sounds about right.

SPQR

 

[Bad Horse]

SPQR

Romanes eunt domus

 

[10571z]

Throw JJ, Patton and May into the side and i think we would be right up there with the current level of competition. But landing 3 decent players is very very hard if not impossible.

 

[HeathySure]

Romanes eunt domus

i know i have stuffed eyes but i read that as Romans eat donuts at first!

 

[greening22]

We're in footy purgatory.

Not good enough to play finals, not s**t enough to finish bottom 2-3.

Stuck on an infinite loop of mediocrity.

Up s__t creek! I would like to be more constructive but I am really struggling. Bye.

 

[Howezat]

Now that the AFL has achieved it's American Dream of "Any given Sunday" and any team can beat any other team on any given day there is no team that isn't an off season recruiting drive away from contention.

But we need stars in the recruiting department, take risks like Carlton did instead of investing in 30 year olds. It can turn quickly but the right people have to make the right decisions.

 

[Quicky]

What might be happening is something along the lines of this ...

(1) Review of the organisational structure. Going back to basics - it's well understood that we're trying to win games of footy, but what is the ideal organisational structure to achieve that? For example, does it make sense that the person who designs the high level gameplan strategy over the course of a season is the same person who moves the chess pieces around the field on gameday? Leverage the learnings of other competitive pursuits (Other teams, other sports, the military, politics, etc, etc). It'll also include designing the right balance between experienced people (know what they're doing) and junior people (innovative, energetic); also the right balance between people from within the industry and people outside the industry. It's unclear whether this step is in or out of scope of the review - Ed has been ambiguous about that in his public statements.

(2) Review whether the right people are in the right positions in that organisational structure? For example: what kind of personality do you want in a skills coach? A gameday tactician? The participation of Chris Thomas (Executive recruiter) in the review probably means that they're serious about getting the right experience and personalities in the right places (e.g.: including using the dark art of psychometric testing ).

(3) Feedback between (1) and (2) above. Whilst it might seem possible to design the perfect organisational structure, it's much less possible to design the perfect people to fill it. Sometimes (1) needs to be adapted to compensate for the people who are available from (2). For example, the best candidate for a key position might be lacking in experience in a certain area, so a mentoring position might be created for them to fill that void. Sometimes it means providing training.

(4) Putting the right systems in place to learn and adapt and evolve. No organisation gets (1) (2) and (3) right first time. They need to have systems that review performance and make adjustments and adapt as needed. For example: Setting objectives and measuring against them, regular reviews that staff are motivated, assessing their ongoing training requirements, that they're adapting to an ever-changing world.

----

Getting all this right is a critical but difficult part of running any organisation. Many organisations that do have this right have either done so out of intuition or accident. An experienced business operator in Peter Murphy will understand the mechanics of all of this.

I don't think we're necessarily guaranteed of a better outcome straight away - this is an imperfect science - but if it's done right and we give it time to adapt (Sadly we're an impatient bunch at Collingwood) then there's a good chance it'll work for us.

Impatient? I'm not sure I agree. I think we've been very patient with Bucks and the succession plan. Both the club and the supporters. It's reaching a critical mass now but it's not from impatience.

I think off-field stability has actually been a marker of the Eddie run Collingwood. We've loyally stuck by coaches, fitness staff, CEO's, and development staff. Very stable.

Two notable exceptions are the merry-go-round for the head of the football department (probably the worst position to have lacked stability) and on-field with list turn-over. I wonder how those have impacted our strategic direction (football related) and on-field chemistry collectively.

 

[76woodenspooners]

Impatient? I'm not sure I agree. I think we've been very patient with Bucks and the succession plan. Both the club and the supporters. It's reaching a critical mass now but it's not from impatience.

It was one of the benefits of recruiting a club champion to be senior coach - the supporter base would be more patient than usual. I couldn't imagine the supporter base being that patient if our next coach is (for example) Brett Ratten.

I think off-field stability has actually been a marker of the Eddie run Collingwood. We've loyally stuck by coaches, fitness staff, CEO's, and development staff. Very stable.

Indeed. Ed has been a politically strong president which has created stability around the place.

 

[partypie]

We're in footy purgatory.

Not good enough to play finals, not s**t enough to finish bottom 2-3.

Stuck on an infinite loop of mediocrity.

You mean we're the new Ninthmond?

 

[Lefthanded]

IMHO we have list that is potentially impressive ( a few tweaks but not a clear out needed) . The biggest problem is the development of many of our players. We have players that have been or will be ( given the aforementioned development), AA standard; Pendles, Sidey, Reid, Treloar, Grundy, Adams, Wells, Varcoe, Elliot, Moore, Maynard, De Goey, Shazza and possibly Brown.
However under the current game plan or coaching instructions they are all experiencing total indecision and looking inept. Occasionally they all figure it out or play on their instincts ( I'm really not sure which ) and they show us what could be.

Agree on the development but bit of an early call on Shaz & Brown, potentially a long bow on Adams and missing Howe (in the AA mix this year).

I suspect we have struggled to adapt to football department cap and correctly prioritising our expenditure combined with too many jobs for the boys. Our coaching / coaching related staff is over represented with ex Collingwood players - Buckley, Burns, Rocca, Lockyer and Macaffer. For me it's a tough pill to believe they are all best available candidate for the job but maybe some are just making up the numbers. We need to be ruthless and have one best available rather than two making up numbers. Who stands out as great at player development? Tapping got good results with VFL last year, we lose him this year. Hudson seemed to have Grundy & Witts tracking well and we lost him. How much better would we be now if we still had those two instead of our weakest two? Are any of our current crop going to be considered comparable to Richardson or Beveridge at development in several years time? (Those two used as examples as they've previously worked at Pies).

We excel at late picks being serviceable - recent examples include Frost, Langdon, Crocker, Phillips, Blair, Crisp, Schade, Smith.

We seem to struggle realising the potential of too many of our top picks - Shaz, Freeman / Aish, JDG (arguably behind his contemparies), Broomhead & Kennedy.
JDG note - not a standout choice when compare stats ahead of any of Miller (Suns), McLean (Dogs), Steele (Saints), Lever (Crows), Blakely (Freo), Daniel (Dogs) - all of whom were later in JDGs draft year.
Improvement in this group through your identified development (plus early enough picks, Ramsay, McLarty & Sier) will either make or break our current list. Some of it may be development, some injury management / prevention.

Could it be that our development is struggling when our senior coach is still trying to grow into the role? Perhaps too green when appointed and through Malthouse not fulfilling his contract and Eade being not up to it has not had enough support?

With 6 losses last year by more than our biggest loss this year there are at least signs we've bottomed out. With only Grundy, Moore & McLarty as young talls (rookies excluded as they are too hit or miss) I fear we don't have the list composition to reach premiership glory.

 

[MISFITS]

Agree on the development but bit of an early call on Shaz & Brown, potentially a long bow on Adams and missing Howe (in the AA mix this year).

I suspect we have struggled to adapt to football department cap and correctly prioritising our expenditure combined with too many jobs for the boys. Our coaching / coaching related staff is over represented with ex Collingwood players - Buckley, Burns, Rocca, Lockyer and Macaffer. For me it's a tough pill to believe they are all best available candidate for the job but maybe some are just making up the numbers. We need to be ruthless and have one best available rather than two making up numbers. Who stands out as great at player development? Tapping got good results with VFL last year, we lose him this year. Hudson seemed to have Grundy & Witts tracking well and we lost him. How much better would we be now if we still had those two instead of our weakest two? Are any of our current crop going to be considered comparable to Richardson or Beveridge at development in several years time? (Those two used as examples as they've previously worked at Pies).

We excel at late picks being serviceable - recent examples include Frost, Langdon, Crocker, Phillips, Blair, Crisp, Schade, Smith.

We seem to struggle realising the potential of too many of our top picks - Shaz, Freeman / Aish, JDG (arguably behind his contemparies), Broomhead & Kennedy.
JDG note - not a standout choice when compare stats ahead of any of Miller (Suns), McLean (Dogs), Steele (Saints), Lever (Crows), Blakely (Freo), Daniel (Dogs) - all of whom were later in JDGs draft year.
Improvement in this group through your identified development (plus early enough picks, Ramsay, McLarty & Sier) will either make or break our current list. Some of it may be development, some injury management / prevention.

Could it be that our development is struggling when our senior coach is still trying to grow into the role? Perhaps too green when appointed and through Malthouse not fulfilling his contract and Eade being not up to it has not had enough support?

With 6 losses last year by more than our biggest loss this year there are at least signs we've bottomed out. With only Grundy, Moore & McLarty as young talls (rookies excluded as they are too hit or miss) I fear we don't have the list composition to reach premiership glory.

I agree with most of this.
Only query that I have is:
"What was the Malthouse contract?"

Director of coaching?
What was his role?
It was never actually put in writing so perhaps we will never know?

 

[HFF]

Under the current regime…we are nowhere and will continue to be in decline.

 

[MISFITS]

Agree on the development but bit of an early call on Shaz & Brown, potentially a long bow on Adams and missing Howe (in the AA mix this year).

I suspect we have struggled to adapt to football department cap and correctly prioritising our expenditure combined with too many jobs for the boys. Our coaching / coaching related staff is over represented with ex Collingwood players - Buckley, Burns, Rocca, Lockyer and Macaffer. For me it's a tough pill to believe they are all best available candidate for the job but maybe some are just making up the numbers. We need to be ruthless and have one best available rather than two making up numbers. Who stands out as great at player development? Tapping got good results with VFL last year, we lose him this year. Hudson seemed to have Grundy & Witts tracking well and we lost him. How much better would we be now if we still had those two instead of our weakest two? Are any of our current crop going to be considered comparable to Richardson or Beveridge at development in several years time? (Those two used as examples as they've previously worked at Pies).

We excel at late picks being serviceable - recent examples include Frost, Langdon, Crocker, Phillips, Blair, Crisp, Schade, Smith.

We seem to struggle realising the potential of too many of our top picks - Shaz, Freeman / Aish, JDG (arguably behind his contemparies), Broomhead & Kennedy.
JDG note - not a standout choice when compare stats ahead of any of Miller (Suns), McLean (Dogs), Steele (Saints), Lever (Crows), Blakely (Freo), Daniel (Dogs) - all of whom were later in JDGs draft year.
Improvement in this group through your identified development (plus early enough picks, Ramsay, McLarty & Sier) will either make or break our current list. Some of it may be development, some injury management / prevention.

Could it be that our development is struggling when our senior coach is still trying to grow into the role? Perhaps too green when appointed and through Malthouse not fulfilling his contract and Eade being not up to it has not had enough support?

With 6 losses last year by more than our biggest loss this year there are at least signs we've bottomed out. With only Grundy, Moore & McLarty as young talls (rookies excluded as they are too hit or miss) I fear we don't have the list composition to reach premiership glory.

Malthouse leaving the club..
It's unknown if it was detrimental or a blessing.
It's pretty clear that Mick and Bucks were not going to work well.

I think that the loss(or storming out mid-contract) of Geoff Walsh was more damaging.

Our footy dept has been all over the shop since.

 

[jonbe54]

Some of you make me chuckle.

Firstly how many teams are there now?? 18 methinks and how many expansion teams have been warping the draft with their priority picks??

Seriously there is only so much top grade talent out there and most of that is siphoned off to the expansion teams which gives probably the bottom 80% to be divided amongst the rest.

We have undoubtedly under performed of late but having a go at recruitment without framing it in the context of availability is seriously warped.

 

[Lefthanded]

I agree with most of this.
Only query that I have is:
"What was the Malthouse contract?"

Director of coaching?
What was his role?
It was never actually put in writing so perhaps we will never know?

As part of the succession plan Malthouse was supposed to become the director of coaching. I don't believe the specifics of the role had been worked out or perhaps just not made public but I would have thought it pretty simple - mentor Buckley in same way Roos / Longmire or Roos / Goodwin.

Malthouse leaving the club..
It's unknown if it was detrimental or a blessing.
It's pretty clear that Mick and Bucks were not going to work well.

I think that the loss(or storming out mid-contract) of Geoff Walsh was more damaging.

Our footy dept has been all over the shop since.

I don't think the Malthouse / Buckley plan was well handled by either of them or the higher ups - be that Eddie, Pert or other. Maybe the plan didn't have enough thought eg what happens if we win a premiership in 2010 or 2011 (or both)? Were their specifics in the succession plan for Buckley's role & Mick's mentoring in 2010, 2011? Were those specifics met? Those and other questions not having been sufficiently addressed when the plan was put in place probably led to Mick & Bucks not working well and in the end it was probably best they parted ways.

I didn't know / remember circumstances around Walsh leaving so googled them. Given he left in July 2013 (but was still consulting for 3 months (or at least supposed to when resignation first announced but I don't know if he saw that out given he joined North in late 2013)) and we haven't made finals since and North made finals for all 3 years Walsh was there, there is circumstantial evidence to support your suspicions but without inside knowledge or detailed analysis of public comments it would be hard to know for sure. He certainly seems respected in the industry and I guess it depends on how well he and Pert work together given some reports that was a large part in his leaving.

 

[SnakePlisskin]

Some of you make me chuckle.

Firstly how many teams are there now?? 18 methinks and how many expansion teams have been warping the draft with their priority picks??

Seriously there is only so much top grade talent out there and most of that is siphoned off to the expansion teams which gives probably the bottom 80% to be divided amongst the rest.

We have undoubtedly under performed of late but having a go at recruitment without framing it in the context of availability is seriously warped.

not so much talent wise but it does seem like we have too many mids with questionable skills.