Delusional clubs paying a high price for quick fixes

[Koalalill]

KL, I agree with the +ves, how about these -ves.

UntamedTiger - I am not disagreeing aboutthe negatives - the Pettifers, Fioras in particular.

But I get frustrated when people say there have been NO positives in the last 4 years. Granted there haven't been as many as most of us would like or be in some cases be satisfied with but the fact remains that in the last 4 years there have been positives.

 

[Koalalill]

1 - You say that by keeping Frawely this will give the football public the impression that we stick by our coaches and that the pool of coaches will be greater at the end of 2004. Now my question is - Do we stick with a coach because we believe he has the talent and expertise to make us a successful team or do we simply stick with the current coach to merely make an impression on the football public? IMO the only reason a club should stick by a coach is that they are confident in his abilities. If the RFC are backing him merely to create an impression then they are doing the wrong thing and sacrificing any progress.

Harry, can I first say well argued and impressive posts.

I think the point you raise about sticking with coach because they believe in his abilities is a good one. Have you considered that the reason they are backing him is because the RFC actually do believe in his abilities? That the Club believe with the right changes to list he will be a good coach?

It may not be what people want to hear or what people agree with but I would argue that this may be the case.

 

[shawry]

Tis a good debate to read. Good arguments for both sides.

 

[MC24]

Tis a good debate to read. Good arguments for both sides.

It's a good point you make shawry. How do you decide who is right and who is wrong? After all, it's just an opinion.

The thing is, there really is no right or wrong answer. So it doesn't really matter which way the Club goes.

What does matter is that, whatever the decision is, we have faith in people to do their job and that people are given the best possible chance to do their job to the best of their ability.

The results that follow will determine whether we ultimately think it was a good or bad decision.

 

[Dean3]

All good points Harry.

1. If that were the only reason for keeping Danny on, then I’d agree, it’s not enough. But my point is that Danny has been hampered by a universally acknowledged poor list, and a very very bad run with injuries to key players. A very bad combination, I’m sure you will agree. He just may be a better coach than what he is showing at the moment, and the only evidence that we have to go by is the 2001 season where our injuries were manageable. So in short, I don’t think we know about Danny yet, and it would be a pity to throw out the baby coach with the bad list bathwater.

2. Of course he’s had support, but I don’t think he’s had the kind of support that he has now, either at admin level or coaching and recruiting. As you know, Sheedy and Malthouse rely very heavily on the right support staff, assistants, recruiters etc. That’s not hand-holding for them, so why should it be seen that way for Danny?

3. It doesn’t excuse him for poor performance, but it does tend to fly in the face of the “theory” that he has no game plan, which is a criticism often levelled at him. To be honest I think Danny’s real game plan has been lost under a pile of injuries, lost confidence, dud players and mounting pressure. Doesn’t mean he hasn’t got a good basic game plan devised to be competitive in finals football. Just don’t think he’s had the cattle to execute it often enough.

 

[mightytiges]

3. Saying we have no game plan is a fair point Dean but nevertheless I'm still critical of the way we set up and play in terms of strategy and I don't consider it purely a result of us having a poor list. Here are a couple of examples:

- One of our defenders (say Chaffey) will mark the ball inside defensive 50 on a HBF. He'll look up that side of the ground and see it's congested. So he switches play to to a free teammate (say AK) on the other flank 10-15m in front of his opponent. So far pretty standard play these days.
AK once he marks the ball should be able to immediately pass the ball upfield to someone running from the centre to the logo on the wing who in turn should have runners (preferably inside him) waiting to receive the handball and to get the footy moving quickly into our forward inside 50 so that our forwards have space to run into.
However it appears our blokes are not instructed to run to the logo. So AK has to stop and prop and we are back in the same situation as when Chaffey had the ball except it's worse because the opposition has been given time to get numbers back and we are forced to either kick long to a contest or only advance the ball slowly via short passes. This results in a turnover or at the very least a congested forward line.
I couldn't help but notice the Collingwood players line up instinctively last Friday night waiting to be the link in the chain while we did none of it.

- Incidently Collingwood we able to run the ball up the ground for a goal without a Richmond player touching it 7 times after we scored a behind out of a total behind count of 9. This also happened in round 1 against the pies but no tactics appear to have been developed in 15 weeks to counter it.

- When a someone leads up the ground forward of centre and marks there are no runners waiting for the handball receive running towards our goal so they link up or can run in on goal. We do now and then dish off handballs to a SINGLE running teammate when inside our defence half but it appears forbidden to do so when forward of centre. As this runner is by himself he runs as far as he can and into trouble then either just bombs long to a contest or is forced to handball backwards to a mostly flat-footed teammate. Both "options" often resulting in a turnover to the opposition.
The players often just look totally confused about what they are meant ot be doing when they are playing. That's where the no game plan line comes from.

- How in one on one situations where the opponent has the ball, we will continuely stay 5-10m off the player trying to correl him into a mistake but in reality give him ample time to find a teammate instead of going in and tackling him and forcing him to dispose of the ball straight away under pressure. It appears once again the players are instructed to be negative and reactionary rather than be on the front foot.


You can blame the players for poor disposal, poor decision making, poor tackling, being second to the ball, not going in hard enough, etc... but poor tactics is the coaching staff's fault. Maybe and hopefully for our sake if Danny is kept on, he will do a Sheedy a la 1998-1999 when Sheeds completely changed his tactics at essendon after recruiting some hard nuts in the from of the Johnson "twins" but it would involve a complete turnaround in thinking by Danny.

 

[Harry]

Long post Mighty but I know exactly what you are talking about re our style of play. Its been obvious to me for a long while now. This is why Frawely will further bury the RFC if he is kept on.

 

[Dean3]

That's all fine MT, but where is the game plan if you have players with "poor disposal, poor decision making, poor tackling, being second to the ball, not going in hard enough"? I doubt that any coach's tactics would be discernable under that pile of negatives! It's hard to implement any sort of game plan when up to 1/3 of your side are basically dumb footballers. The smart ones, like Chaff and AK are carrying out their part, but many of the others just aren't there. Not up to the task. Looking back at our posts, I don't think we're too far apart on that.

I wonder whether Greg Beck actually speaks to players before he drafts them. I couldn't help but be impressed with Matthew Pavlich on TFS last night, but I just couldn't begin to imagine Aaron Fiora in the same seat. I believe that we have made an artform of drafting dummies, rejects and injury prone players in the past dozen years. Not just in Danny's era. I pray that that is about to stop.

I do find it difficult to believe that a coaching/football staff comprising Frawley, Crocker, Wheadon, Spargo, Brittain, Hutchison, Weightman and Miller (not to mention the collective experience of Wayne Campbell, Greg Stafford, et al) would have come up with a forward game plan that says "er, let's just handball backwards in the forward half or bomb it long to a contest". I think even the tiny tactics revealed in the Herald Sun were far more complex than even you or I had believed to be in existence. No, our execution is poor at the moment, we have lost confidence and we don't have the players on the park to carry out any game plan. Simple as that IMO. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

 

[Tigerdog]

Heres another one Dean.... You reap what you sow....

 

[Dean3]

And two wrongs don't make a right... ;D

 

[mightytiges]

I would agree totally Dean if our "game plan" only crumbled against the better to average sides. That you could argue is a result of a 1/3 of our list not having a brain and not being up to the task. However it still crumbles against the likes of Carlton and Geelong whose lists would be worse than ours. Has done so the past 2 years. Will never understand why we had to resort to negative and grinding "tactics" in these matches. Just plain dumb coaching.

Losing should never be acceptable but that's not what is really concerning. What is is the lack of a modern style of play that enables us to set up, move the ball forward and score goals in mostly a systematic fashion. Only Carlton has scored less goals than we have and when we do it's more by chance rather than via a system.

I can't see Cogs, Cambo or some of our better players delibrately not running to the opposite logo to be the link when we switch play or delibrately not tackling but instead standing 5-10m off opponents who have the ball. I don't believe they are instructed and drilled in training to do so.

 

[Dean3]

MT I think you'll find most clubs drill their players to corral rather than commit to a tackle that may set their opponent free-running. It' the percentage play.
I must say that I haven't noticed players deliberately not running to the logo to link up, in fact I see them do it a lot.

Mt, I'm not saying things are great, after 8 consecutive losses, how could I? All I'm saying is that I see more positives (by a close margin) in retaining Frawley for one more year, cleaning out the list etc etc, than the positives in sacking him now.

 

[mightytiges]

Granted it was against the bottom side who lack KP players but the most pleasing thing from tonight was seeing a modern style of footy in terms of running in numbers from behind and to the side to handball receive from the marking player and continually moving the ball forward as quickly as plausible. Tonight they did run to position and link up. That's got to be the norm Danny not the exception. Don't want to hear the word "grind" before a game again.