When did the problems start?

[Tigers of Old]

Yep, older players infect the juniors with the I don't give a stuff, selfish, being on an AFL list, collecting my paycheque is good enough for me attitude.

This filters down from generation to generation and the kids begin to think and act the same. they then pass it down to the next batch.

We haven't had a coach with big enough balls to put a stop to this. There's always been half assed attempts to rebuild the list, where a massive axe to 99% of the senior players has been required to completely kill off the cancer.

And the wheel goes round and around again.

Great post Harrison Ford.
Wallace's ego *smile*ed him in our first two years.
His ego believed he could get the most out of basically the same core playing group that Frawley had and refused to make the tough decisions on key footballers at both the trade & selection tables in favour of short term results.
Even this year we read a pre season article from Brown that Terry is some sort of new age coach namby pambying to the Gen Ys. :blah
Soft.

Many of his 'hard' calls have appear reactionary or shifting the blame once things start going pear shaped and putting him under pressure.

What he has largely lacked over his time at the RFC is foresight, leadership and proactive decision making on players that are not up to it.

Is it any coincidince that this year when Wallace finally makes seriously tough calls on 'senior' players in Bowden, Tivendale & Pettifer that results immediately improved?!?!
Yet as soon as he brought them back we've fallen away again considerably .
Coincidence? If it is it's a damn big one.

My biggest concern is if he now makes the same hard(reactionary) calls again this week that the palyers will see through it and much of the momentum will be lost that he had finally started.

As you so eloquently put we need a coach who has balls and I don't think Wallace has shown he's got any over his time at the RFC.

 

[gold1]

Never been the same since the save our skins campaign.Thought we would dominate the eighties,silly accounting mistakes led to the discovery of huge debts,engaged name presidents that only showed once,engaged feeble coaches ever since.And of course chose draft picks that really amounted to very little.Pass the razor blade please.

 

[seven]

Well, it all started back in the 80's when collingwood bought out some of our high profile players. In return we paid top dollar to buy out some of their mediocre guys

 

[TigerForce]

Micky would've been best coach for us but Eddie just had the brains and money to step over everyone and virtually poach him.

 

[Punxsutawney Phil]

I think to a degree we were victims of our own success.

We had a pretty good record with picking up other clubs' cast-offs during the 70s and 80s. 3 of the better players in the 1980 flag were Rowlings, Welsh and Malthouse who had all come from other clubs, as did many others who played at that time.

We kept going down this path, but the quality of these recruits deteriorated dramatically- guys like Martello and Sutton who were recruited post 1980 were past it by then (and cost big dollars). Fortunately we had the same nucleus that we had in 1980 and that took us to a GF in 1982.

Then the war with Collingwood started and the recruiting of cast-offs went into overdrive and nearly bankrupted the club. You look back at the money paid for some of our recruits from other clubs, and the returns they provided, and you wonder how on earth those in charge let it happen. I think this was the start of the current rot.

Hard to say this because I know how much good he did for the club and never like to speak ill of the dead, but have heard many attribute the decline to the pig headedness of GR in the early 80s. From what I have heard he wanted to destroy Collingwood for taking Cloke and Raines and in doing so, he nearly destroyed us. I think also that the quality of several of the recruits was questionable at the time (ie their attitudes etc) and this probably had an effect on the rest of the club. The rest, as they say, is history.

P.S. Much of this is from memory of a show that appeared on the old Fox Footy Channel a few years back.

 

[mexican_radio]

I believe that one of our "culture" problems relates to a pervasive negativity where we seem to behave (on field) like we don't deserve to win, or it's not really expected of us. So to answer the original question, "When did our problems start" it is MY OPINION they started when we lost to the Kangaroos in Jason McCartney's last game. That was a game that set our agenda as perennial losers. I know there are other problems too, I just blame this one event as the root cause of our current losers mentality. I wish I knew how to fix it!

 

[Freezer]

I believe that one of our "culture" problems relates to a pervasive negativity where we seem to behave (on field) like we don't deserve to win, or it's not really expected of us. So to answer the original question, "When did our problems start" it is MY OPINION they started when we lost to the Kangaroos in Jason McCartney's last game. That was a game that set our agenda as perennial losers. I know there are other problems too, I just blame this one event as the root cause of our current losers mentality. I wish I knew how to fix it!

What about the 2 decades prior to that though?

 

[TigerForce]

The true fact everybody knows is that 1983 was the start of the problems, but it's hard to understand how it lasted for 25 years (quarter of a century !!) even though we made one-off finals performances in 1995 & 2001.

It's like whichever new coach walks into the RFC building gets 'brainwashed' by some sort of spell casted in 1983.

 

[Punxsutawney Phil]

The true fact everybody knows is that 1983 was the start of the problems, but it's hard to understand how it lasted for 25 years (quarter of a century !!) even though we made one-off finals performances in 1995 & 2001.

It's like whichever new coach walks into the RFC building gets 'brainwashed' by some sort of spell casted in 1983.

Agreed....amazing it can last for so long, particularly with the introduction of the draft to even things up and the fact that a team only has to be better than half of the other teams to make the finals these days.

No matter who the coach, players, recruiting officer, president, CEO etc. etc. are, its the same old story each year. Unbelievable really.

 

[TOT70]

when did the problem start? When we won the 1980 Premiership.

This locked us in to another year of Tony Jewell and Kevin Sheedy walked to another club.

Jewell was replaced by Bourke who famously took a dislike to Malthouse who walked to another club.

While the two best coaches from our system worked at other clubs, we had a procession of Tony Jewell-esque nuff-nuffs who unwittingly dismantled the club.

 

[mb64]

1983

Spot on

 

[LeeToRainesToRoach]

"Somewhere we lost our purpose, we lost our momentum, we lost out winning formula. We became fat from our successes - and lazy!"
- Ian Wilson, 1978 members report

The financial mismanagement of the 1980's put us behind the eight ball and left us at the mercy of the likes of Alan Bond who sought to exploit us. Powerful interstate clubs like West Coast and Adelaide brought a new level of professionalism to the game, and were pouring money into staff, facilities and recruitment while we were scratching to survive.

"We were a little under-resourced and perhaps we didn't have enough money. But we can't use those excuses any more, and certainly the playing group couldn't use those excuses any more."
- Gary March, in March this year

After 11 rounds we've played 7 sides in the 8 without a win. Of the other four, we've won 3 and lost the other by 3 points. I still have hopes that 2008 can finish on a positive note, but if it doesn't, the club is obliged to live up to March's words - no more excuses.

 

[walhalla tiger]

Have been supporting RFC since 98' (year of immigration) because louis the clip told me that this club was something very special and that the players wore their badge with pride and honour. I saw that pride and honour return immediately the team played without Pettifer, Tivendale and Bowden. All of a sudden resolve, urgency and playing for your mates became the norm (even Mcmahon upped his performance).

Returning P,R and F to the fray has been an unforgivable mistake by Terry and he has proven beyond doubt that sales mgmt does not translate in to leading premier athletes.

Terry is not a natural leader. Millar is on the board to get the inside info on disgruntled board members and their power base and report that back to Terry ("Terry - they are happy again as things have gone quiet so sneak them back in").

If Terry is half the man he proclaims to be he will do what the Fosters CEO did today and resign.
He owes the members and supporters, and players, nothing less.

 

[burgin27strang28]

The trading disaster circa 1974-5 when we traded three players (two very good and one now on our recruiting staff) and cash!!! for a supposed opposition champion who played for around three years and not that many games. The arrogance of the club after the 1974 flag was not a good sign. I know we won in 1980 but I think the problems started before that (why oh why not try to keep Hafey in 1976?). Recruiting/drafting has not been a strong suit of our club overall for quite a while now (understatement). A large proportion of our best players seem to be composed of sons of past players and established players from other clubs. How many of our 1st and 2nd round picks have actually become established players? Who actually has the final say in who we recruit?

 

[Bill James]

The John Pitura trade for Brian Roberts (heart and soul of the club), Graham Teasdale, (went on to win a brownlow) and Francis Jackson (played 100 games for South Melbourne)

Pitura played 40 games for the tiges and was a dud.