Worst Coach your club has ever had?

[Purple7x08_24]

He handled that interview poorly. Got smoked

 

[Catsace]

Probably, but the great Polly Farmer is also vying for this title.

Polly was Geelong coach from 73 to 75 inclusive. Had the nucleus of a team on the rise with names such as David Clarke, Ken Newland, Rod Blake, Jack Hawkins, Rex Hunt, the Nankervis brothers, Sam Newman, Mick Turner etc and yet could only manage 24 wins out of 66 including only 7 wins in his last season as coach in 75. Anecdotal evidence suggests he was a distracted coach whose priority was betting on the horses.

Rod Olsen took over in 76 and Geelong finished 4th.

In one sense it shows how good Geelong has been since the spoon years of '57-58 that Farmer's record is looked upon in this light. I was only 3-4 y/o in Bill McMaster's time, but after Peter Pianto left the job in 1970 when Geelong finished 5th with a 12-10 record, under McMaster the Cats won just 12 of 44, with '71 being 5 and 17. Indeed up to Rd 10 1972 his record as coach was 5 wins and 27 losses, and this is with players like Wade, Ainsworth, Andrews, Closter, Newland, J.Scarlett, Bill Ryan and Ian Nankervis. Despite winning 7 of the last dozen games, he was replaced by Farmer.

Losing Wade to North in '73, Ryan to retirement probably didn't help, but the Cats had two very poor seasons under farmer, with '74 being an 11-11 split. Could the very short lived tenures of Hunt and Snake Baker in Cats colours have had something to do with Farmer's coaching I wonder?

I'd rate Ayers worse than Devine, mainly because the Cats would drop home games to at that point an ordinary Hawthorn four out of five seasons, and Geelong's record at K.P in general under Ayers in '98-99 was awful.

 

[Trent the flight Steward]

Where does Gerard Neesham rank for Freo?

Needham was a gun, freo were worth watching, probably the most exciting team to ever play

 

[Seeds]

Are richmond supporters saying kevin bartlett. If not they should be saying kevin bartlett.

 

[Cudi_420]

Mark Neeld. Dean Bailey (RIP) a close second.

With Neeld, he was brought in clearly to bring the playing group in line after they protested against the administration. It backfired and I've never seen a playing group more miserable. We were bad in the first year vs Roos but we at least looked to be trying. Under Neeld we got progressively worse. It was shocking.

Bailey has zero defensive nuance to his coaching. He coached two consecutive wooden spoons to absolutely zero scrutiny despite a team filled with experienced finals experienced players. When we started playing half decent football in 2010 and 2011, we either won by 10 goals or lost by 10 goals. He definitely should have had one more chance in 2012 to turn it around but it didn't look good for me. That said in his defense I think a lot of his list changes were forced by Connolly and Schwab.

 

[Anja_Nees]

He wasn't great, but I'm pretty sure Bevo gave him some credit for the 2016 flag.

McCartney really had the group focusing on contested footy. When Bevo arrived he knew the group was already pretty strong in that area as a result, so the attention switched to fast ball movement.

Won a flag within 2 years.

Dogs fans might be able to correct me, but I swear that's how it played out.

The thing is, we had been a very good contested ball side for most of the Eade era too. McCartney kept talking about it so everyone assumed he came up with it but the side he took over was already strong in that era.

Coupled with that, we couldn’t score and couldn’t defend for the whole three years. His relationships with players were disastrous to the point the captain quit to get away from him (which ironically got him sacked and inadvertently won us a flag).

He wasn’t as bad as Peter Rhode, but he was bad. If he hadn’t been sacked it would have turned out very badly for the club.