Its been a few years since I have started a new thread however with the teams demise I just wanted to share my thoughts and create a discussion on what has caused our demise, in my opinion there is not one single factor its a mutilple of factors, they include:
1. List Management
2. Footy Program
3. Player Leadership
4. Team Selection
Firstly List Mgt
Once upon a day under Noble's guidance the club would not offer multi year deals to players who had past 30 and would prefer to offer 2 year deals to players who were 29 approaching 30. However now we have Gibbs, Eddie, Tex, JJ and Lynch all on multi year deals which now creates further issues at selection and how to now re-generate this list.
Footy Program
3 years ago Fagan and Chapman promised an elite footy program, since this decision we have lost Noble and replaced him with Burton and lost coaches like JPod, Teague and Francou, with this in mind it can be argued that our coaching strength has gone backwards, Campo has been there too long, Hart has failed in every role to date, our midfield has gone backwards under Godden who has never been head hunted for any other AFL job and I think Mattner has done a good job considering our defence is under fire due to the midfield and forward line under performing
Roo cannot escape criticism either, he seems to be at the club by Title alone and I cant see where he is stamping any influence on the club other than making comments in the media.
Roo has a similar position to that of Dunstall when he went to Hawthorn, what is clear Dunstall was active in driving change at Hawthorn and went against the easy decision to hire Ayres over Clarkson and as a result has left his mark in an off-field role at the club. However Roo was central in getting Burton to the club, is a strong supporter of Campo and was keen to bring Goody back as a Head Coach.....
Like all, I love Roo however if he is to stay in a Board role he needs to be as ruthless off the field as he was on the field.
Player Leadership
This is a biggy for me....... Walshy use to talk about Nan-Conversations however over the past 2 years I've heard Tex say on numerous occassions that he would never ever question the players effort, which in itself is disturbing!
How can you be an elite program that reviews thoroughly however your not prepared to question effort when effort has a major contribution to the outcome of a game?
Lets also go back to the famous camp of two pre-seasons ago, my info is the players had a sook about not having mobile phones for 2 days however there were protocols put in place for family to reach players if an immediate or urgent issue was to arise......….. this grievance by the players (about the phones) went on for too long and demonstrates to me the culture of the playing group.
Interesting that the two playing groups that have complained about pre-seanson camps (Adelaide / Melbourne) are now struggling to be tough enough for long enough on the field.
Now I hear that with Gibbs, JJ, Douglas and Betts all being dropped this year that their are members of the playing group don't like playing with the fear of the selection axe over their head!!! Honestly have I missed something here? Hasn't football always been a performance based sport, if your in good form you play, if your in poor form you risk the chance of losing your spot
Team Selection
Let me start of by saying that I am a supporter of Pyke however my support is starting to dissolve and my biggest concern is his selection policy, Pyke's selection policy doesn't reward form, lacks courage to change his preferred structure and its 100% focus on winning next week.
The lack of having an eye on the future creates a selection behaviour to keep going back to the likes of DMac, Gibbs, Douglas and Otten in the hope that thier experience will help us get the 4 points but in doing so we lose the opportunity to play players who will hopefully be our future.
We are not going to win the flag this year, finishing 8th or 10th makes minimal difference to me so lets take the Clarkson approach and play players who wil be part of your next premiership challenge
There is a lot that needs to be fixed to get us back challenging and playing consistent footy
1. List Management
2. Footy Program
3. Player Leadership
4. Team Selection
Firstly List Mgt
Once upon a day under Noble's guidance the club would not offer multi year deals to players who had past 30 and would prefer to offer 2 year deals to players who were 29 approaching 30. However now we have Gibbs, Eddie, Tex, JJ and Lynch all on multi year deals which now creates further issues at selection and how to now re-generate this list.
Footy Program
3 years ago Fagan and Chapman promised an elite footy program, since this decision we have lost Noble and replaced him with Burton and lost coaches like JPod, Teague and Francou, with this in mind it can be argued that our coaching strength has gone backwards, Campo has been there too long, Hart has failed in every role to date, our midfield has gone backwards under Godden who has never been head hunted for any other AFL job and I think Mattner has done a good job considering our defence is under fire due to the midfield and forward line under performing
Roo cannot escape criticism either, he seems to be at the club by Title alone and I cant see where he is stamping any influence on the club other than making comments in the media.
Roo has a similar position to that of Dunstall when he went to Hawthorn, what is clear Dunstall was active in driving change at Hawthorn and went against the easy decision to hire Ayres over Clarkson and as a result has left his mark in an off-field role at the club. However Roo was central in getting Burton to the club, is a strong supporter of Campo and was keen to bring Goody back as a Head Coach.....
Like all, I love Roo however if he is to stay in a Board role he needs to be as ruthless off the field as he was on the field.
Player Leadership
This is a biggy for me....... Walshy use to talk about Nan-Conversations however over the past 2 years I've heard Tex say on numerous occassions that he would never ever question the players effort, which in itself is disturbing!
How can you be an elite program that reviews thoroughly however your not prepared to question effort when effort has a major contribution to the outcome of a game?
Lets also go back to the famous camp of two pre-seasons ago, my info is the players had a sook about not having mobile phones for 2 days however there were protocols put in place for family to reach players if an immediate or urgent issue was to arise......….. this grievance by the players (about the phones) went on for too long and demonstrates to me the culture of the playing group.
Interesting that the two playing groups that have complained about pre-seanson camps (Adelaide / Melbourne) are now struggling to be tough enough for long enough on the field.
Now I hear that with Gibbs, JJ, Douglas and Betts all being dropped this year that their are members of the playing group don't like playing with the fear of the selection axe over their head!!! Honestly have I missed something here? Hasn't football always been a performance based sport, if your in good form you play, if your in poor form you risk the chance of losing your spot
Team Selection
Let me start of by saying that I am a supporter of Pyke however my support is starting to dissolve and my biggest concern is his selection policy, Pyke's selection policy doesn't reward form, lacks courage to change his preferred structure and its 100% focus on winning next week.
The lack of having an eye on the future creates a selection behaviour to keep going back to the likes of DMac, Gibbs, Douglas and Otten in the hope that thier experience will help us get the 4 points but in doing so we lose the opportunity to play players who will hopefully be our future.
We are not going to win the flag this year, finishing 8th or 10th makes minimal difference to me so lets take the Clarkson approach and play players who wil be part of your next premiership challenge
There is a lot that needs to be fixed to get us back challenging and playing consistent footy
Last edited:
