Analysis Why are we s**t?

[Lore]

Does the club need to spend more money, maybe it does however if I read you right about the women's program operating on about half a million dollars then money alone isn't going to fix Essendon's men's program.

The AFLW program is part time and small in scale — they do a lot more work than they’re paid for and many of the people employed in AFLW roles also wear other hats at the club.

E.g. Georgia Harvey predominantly works with the AFL list management but she also did our list build for AFLW (with Harmit Singh, who is our AFLW recruiting manager and also JHA and community programs person). Ditto everyone else, from the boot studder to the physios.

And then you have people that are automatically covering both teams, like Josh Mahoney is paid under the existing cap but also oversees the people who oversee the women’s program, so you don’t need to duplicate his role and pay it twice.

Plus I don’t think AFLW has a lot of funding going into things like analytics or player development atm, and the players themselves are paid in a tiered system funded from the AFL I believe.

In terms of money we seem to be pretty much paying the full 6.9m that we are allowed to pay under the soft cap, with Rutten apparently one of the cheapest senior coaches in the place but that saving is then redistributed to the highly credentialed panel of assistants.

Then you have health and fitness, welfare, list management and recruiting, player development and the VFL program, analytics, strategists, statisticians, and the rest.

Apparently the situation is so dire that the league is haemorrhaging good people to other sports because we can’t pay market rates, and clubs are having to choose what to spend money on. So with an inexperienced playing list they might prioritise player development rather than analytics and strategists if you’re like Geelong or something.

There’s an age article I posted somewhere that goes into detail about all of it but lots of clubs are struggling with it (though not all can afford to raise it).

There’s also the fascinating comment from Rohan Connolly that our VFL program has been left to hang in the breeze since 2020 when it fell apart and then no one was in charge of it for a while and all the players left for security and opportunities elsewhere.

 

[yodellinhank]

Last week I got email and text from the club, trying to cash in on winning a match. It's funny in a way that at the start of the year I think I made some comment about how they should pick their mark better, but then they do try to pick their mark and I'd still criticise it.

The result last night was obvious. We were world beaters in the middle of a one game winning streak heading over to Perth to play a second rate Eagles. Of course we got ahead of ourselves and didn't show up. Culture still ****ed. But "we always bounce back bigger and better" from a setback.

Winners are grinners. It can turn quickly and someday it will. Until then supporters will tear their hair out and everything the club does will be open to criticism.

 

[MiguelM]

Calling anyone who regularly attends training, do we allocate time to goal kicking practice?

Asking for a friend!

 

[MarkJohnson#1]

Culture, mojo, heart, soul, whatever you want to call it, we’ve lost it over the years. Was it the move to the Hangar? The sacking of Sheedy? The saga which ripped the club apart and tarnished the legacy of our biggest club legend? Something else? How do we recover from it..?

 

[NAB777]

Definitely the grey clash jerseys from a few years back.

 

[Burzum]

Culture, mojo, heart, soul, whatever you want to call it, we’ve lost it over the years. Was it the move to the Hangar? The sacking of Sheedy? The saga which ripped the club apart and tarnished the legacy of our biggest club legend? Something else? How do we recover from it..?

It was the move to Docklands and I say that as a fan of that stadium.

 

[windyhill]

Culture, mojo, heart, soul, whatever you want to call it, we’ve lost it over the years. Was it the move to the Hangar? The sacking of Sheedy? The saga which ripped the club apart and tarnished the legacy of our biggest club legend? Something else? How do we recover from it..?

 

[MattyB3150]

Culture, mojo, heart, soul, whatever you want to call it, we’ve lost it over the years. Was it the move to the Hangar? The sacking of Sheedy? The saga which ripped the club apart and tarnished the legacy of our biggest club legend? Something else? How do we recover from it..?

A bit of everything. They can move on and change this mindset but they just have to find out how. You look at the best teams like Geelong and losing isn’t an option for them. You would never see them giving less then 100 percent.

 

[Vindicater]

Would Alistair Clarkson be interested in running a review?

I don't want him as a coach but I think he would be the one to come in and lay out the home truths our club needs

 

[84859300]

Would Alistair Clarkson be interested in running a review?

I don't want him as a coach but I think he would be the one to come in and lay out the home truths our club needs

I was really behind this idea earlier in the year.

But now as we getpast 1/2 way in the season, I think we'd end up giving away a lot of our I.P. to a coach who will potentially be teamed against us in 2023.

 

[Alberto_Magnifico]

I was really behind this idea earlier in the year.

But now as we getpast 1/2 way in the season, I think we'd end up giving away a lot of our I.P. to a coach who will potentially be teamed against us in 2023.

I'm imagining a giant whiteboard marked "Top Secret"
1. Kick on top of 2MPs head
2. Don't run the other way
3. ???????
4. Profit

 

[84859300]

I'm imagining a giant whiteboard marked "Top Secret"
1. Kick on top of 2MPs head
2. Don't run the other way
3. ???????
4. Profit

Pretty much - I didn't say we'd be giving away a great deal

 

[yodellinhank]

Would Alistair Clarkson be interested in running a review?

I don't want him as a coach but I think he would be the one to come in and lay out the home truths our club needs

I'd get these guys

 

[citizen-erased]

I'd get these guys
View attachment 1433272

Brasher and sheeds? I thought they were already running it

 

[Bunk Moreland]

External reviews are mostly bullshit. We’re not an internally focused club. Mahoney, Rutten, Caracella, Giansiracusa, Tapping and Tudor are the senior football people. None of them are Essendon people, they’re all external people who’ve been brought in. We don’t need external people telling us how things need to be done - we’ve already hired a whole bunch of them to do the job.

If they fail so be it, but not ready to call that yet.

 

[kelvin_sheedy]

Need better players.

Too many recycled. Haven't nailed enough top end talent.

It's that simple.

 

[brutus76]

Maybe bringing back the red shorts might make us better?

 

[citizen-erased]

Credit to Titus

The Bombers are the Jacques Cousteau of the AFL, always discovering new depths

 

[ant555]

Calling anyone who regularly attends training, do we allocate time to goal kicking practice?

Asking for a friend!

Can give you are picture of the last 15 years. No they do not put enough time into it.
Lloyd used to a lot. I did injury rehab at the WH fitness center and used to see Lloyd having at least 100 shots from various angles while I was walking laps.
Used to get to a bit of training and my view was they did not do near enough goal kicking .
Do not get to training much now but I know a couple of people that do and their view is we do not do enough goal kicking.
I will say this and that is someone has done some work with Baldwin as his set shot routine / system is much better than it was early in the year to the point where he has gone from not looking like kicking a goal to very reliable.

 

[ant555]

External reviews are mostly bullshit. We’re not an internally focused club. Mahoney, Rutten, Caracella, Giansiracusa, Tapping and Tudor are the senior football people. None of them are Essendon people, they’re all external people who’ve been brought in. We don’t need external people telling us how things need to be done - we’ve already hired a whole bunch of them to do the job.

If they fail so be it, but not ready to call that yet.

I agree. I know lots do not. Would be different if we had a coaching panel full of ex Essendon players but as you say it is a vastly experienced coaching group that have only been at the club for 4 years and under and all of them have worked in systems that where top 4 sides. I suppose people are really questioning the board asking the questions.
The variety of experienced assistants is the main reason why I think there is more a flaw in the type of players we have recruited more than it being the coach.

 

[carloss]

 

[Megabattimus]

Our players are just young and inexperienced. Plus we overachieved by playing finals last year when we absolutely shouldn't have.

We'll be fine. Just gonna take some time and probably an old guy like Mark Williams to get legit good like Melbourne are.

On SM-G920I using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[brutus76]

Choco seems to have a great rapport and development skills with younger players. I'd love to see him back

 

[ant555]

Choco seems to have a great rapport and development skills with younger players. I'd love to see him back

Will not come back to us after we duped him when we hired Worsfold.

 

[Alberto_Magnifico]

Credit to Titus

The Bombers are the Jacques Cousteau of the AFL, always discovering new depths

They could also swap the red shorts idea for red caps