Don’t worry I didn’t take your comment to be at all. It’s just hilarious looking back now that considering the many odd stories surrounding Bomber before and during that year, we gave him the job, and he performed half decent
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Ummm do you remember the Geelong list that Bomber was in charge of?
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Bomber was on the drugs when he was coaching Geelong remember when he mentioned frozen water business on the couch
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I see a different reasoning to yours based on the same things. It looks more to me that there is a period of letting the playing list “play on instinct/talent” for wins to get confidence up followed by an acknowledgment that losing CP will not get us to winning finals and working on the defensive side of our game, which the players don’t value and see their instinct/talent based games wins as the indication of where the direction needs to be. They then sulk it up and drop their heads, probably even leak against the coach to get their way.
I totally agree you need the cattle and we don’t have it, but as the coach you can’t just throw your hands up in the air and say “We’ll worry about it when we have the right players” because you’ll have a team of players that are used to not being held accountable on that front. It doesn’t require BBM’s to make an effort.
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I remember him nearly getting the sack in what was in 03 before he turned it around and got them top 4 the year after I think
Nothing surer than Rutten, Mahoney and potentially some of the assistants getting the ■■■■ now that Campbell has re-signed for 2 years.
Make sure the CEO job isn’t up for debate, then admit to yet another mistake by sacking the coach.
Nothing surer.
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Understand where you are coming from.
But I don’t see how imposing a new game plan every on a group of players that don’t have the attributes to understand/execute it actually helps…history shows it doesn’t and Rutten’s attempt at anew game plan this year has made us worse in just about every statistical category that you can name. It’s simply not viable.
Naturally, no game plan can work if players don’t put in the effort. But the effort can also be drawn out by giving the players a game plan they can execute. That gives them belief. Belief gives them confidence and confidence sees effort, and often additional discretionary effort, brought to the fore.
But ultimately, contested ball trumps all. And we have been poor in contests, regardless of game plan, for 20+ years because of the type of player Dodoro keeps recruiting with some recent exceptions like Snelling, Waterman and Perkins. Cox is terrible in contests. Reid, still too early to tell but the early signs look good.
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Everybody’s on notice”: Essendon great says Rutten must change
By Seb Mottram
Essendon great Tim Watson has spoken passionately about his former club, saying it’s not too late to turn its season around.
The Bombers’ 2022 season needs no introduction, their 2-7 record falling well short of the pre-season expectations placed on the club.
Their year appeared as though it couldn’t get much worse, however a 10-goal loss to Sydney and the Luke Parker/Dylan Shiel taunting incident have plunged the Bombers to new a new low.
Watson says Essendon has to be willing to change in order to revive their campaign.
“It can happen, you’ve got to look at what’s not going right, you’ve got to look what your players are capable of, you’ve got to cut your cloth accordingly, you’ve got to get them to play in a way that suits the list that you have at your disposal at that time,” Watson told SEN Breakfast .
“And then you’ve got to fix it. That’s what coaching is all about, it’s not about saying, ‘This is my system, through whatever happens we’re going to keep playing this system’.
“If that system is broken, if it’s not communicated well enough, if the players don’t understand it well enough and they’re putting out an effort that’s subpar, you’ve got to change that.”
SEN Breakfast co-host Garry Lyon then asked: “Do you think they’re too unyielding, that Ben Rutten is uncompromising and saying, ‘This is my way and this is the way we will play irrespective of what’s going on’?”
“That looks like it is the way,” Watson responded.
“Everybody’s on notice. When you’re the coach and the performances are subpar and you’re not getting the effort, you are on notice if you’re not winning enough games. You have to change that.
“It doesn’t matter which club we’re talking about, you have to affect that change, that’s what your job is as a coach, you have to take responsibility.
Rutten is in his second season of senior coaching after taking the Bombers to a surprise finals series last year.
He has a contract to lead Essendon until the end of 2023, but with the club currently so dysfunctional, there will be questions raised over whether he is the right man to take the Bombers forward.
With the AFL season nearing the halfway point, Lyon speculated whether Rutten only has until the end of the year to turn the Bombers around.
“Is there 11 weeks for him to be able to implement change?” the Melbourne great asked.
“There has to be. You have to be able to find the answer. It’s fundamental to the way Essendon are playing, it appears there’s a disconnect, they can’t defend the ground,” Watson responded.
“If you’re playing this non-man-on-man type of defence and it’s right across the ground and somebody’s not doing their job then they’ve got to be held accountable and you’ve got to fix it.
“If they can’t play that way you’ve got to find another way that they can play to put out a better effort.”
Things don’t get any easier for Essendon in the coming weeks, playing three top-eight opponents - Richmond, Carlton and St Kilda - in the next four weeks.
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Just trying to wrap my head around what’s gone wrong and looking at past reports of 2021 vs 2022 and from what I’ve gathered it comes down to two things, fundamentals and motivation.
Rutten believed he was a fundamentals coach and had good support with Cara and Gia. The development and training was focussed on fundamentals; kicking, handballing, marking, tackling, ball handling… all acts within the game. Exceptional results as last year with ball in hand we were top 2 and we were middle of the road with tackling and pressure. We were also the most accurate team in front of goal and the likes of Merrett and Parish rarely fumbled and were one touch players.
Our fundamentals this year has dropped off a cliff, you just need to watch a herbatron video of how poor our skills are, fumble, can’t hit a target by foot or hand and last in tackle count.
The reason? From what I can gather our development and training shifted its focus to improve our deficiencies that summed up our 2nd half collapse in the final. My experience in my career and development has always been about improving on your strengths and that should be prioritised over you weaknesses. You can probably find arguments against that but I think the general consensus is to prioritise your strengths.
The other factor was motivation. We were driven last year about what Essendon was and that was blue collar. The driver was focussed on the short term, week to week, session by session we’ll work hard and who knows what we can achieve. This year wasn’t a drastic shift but the motivation was no longer short term and was about everything we do is in preparation of grand final day. I think we lost the drive and intensity to climb the hill to get to grand final day and it was just a given that we were going to get there. We’ve gone from a team that went hard from the get go and see how resilient our opposition is to go with us. This year we’re a team that’s focussed on the finish line and keep a steady pace. We’ve lost the competitiveness to see whether a team can go with us and falter if they challenge us.
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Yes, we’ve tried it 3+ times, but how many of those times did we actually go through a proper process to appoint the right coach?
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As many times as we have finals lately……
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I agree with a bit of your post here.
I’m not convinced it is a different game plan. Particularly when it comes to defence.
I don’t know about you guys but I’m not really feeling it.
THE ‘MORTAL ENEMY’
The Essendon situation is fascinating, considering the John Worsfold- Ben Rutten handover in 2020 was, as Whateley pointed out on AFL 360 , “acutely their plan”. The Fox Footy host said: “The industry wasn’t saying Ben Rutten is the next great coach (at the time). This was very specifically their plan and they own it, so do you let it run its full course or do you reflect on your own judgment? But I don’t think (the Bombers are at that latter stage yet).”
Rutten is now nine games into the second season of a three-year contract in charge of a team that’s had a tough start to the season fixture-wise, with matches against Geelong, Brisbane, Melbourne, Fremantle, Western Bulldogs and Sydney across the first nine rounds. The idea he’d be in strife so early in his tenure seems totally farfetched.
But it’s the way the 16th-placed Bombers – success-starved for two decades – have lost many of their games this season that has left AFL pundits and Dons fans frustrated.
They were thumped by the Cats (66 points) and Swans (58), while losses to the Dockers (48), Bulldogs (32) and Swans (58) felt worse than what the final margins reflected. They’ve conceded at least 93 points in all seven of their losses so far, while they’ve laid 40 or less tackles in five of those games (the AFL average is 54 per match).
Essendon has a young, developing list, yet one that’s well into its journey and one that made finals last year. But Rutten and the Bombers can’t afford more losses like they’ve had in recent rounds over the next six weeks.
Would Clarkson entertain the Bombers? He wouldn’t have to move interstate, he’d be taking over a team that’s well into its build and has the potential to return to September in 2023 and beyond.
Whateley told AFL 360 on Tuesday night the prospect of Clarkson coaching Essendon was “miles ahead of the game” considering the club’s investment in Rutten, but added: “If you let the imagination run: (Clarkson was) tipped out by Hawthorn, goes to the mortal enemy (Essendon). A big Melbourne club – Clarkson has spoken about that before. The ‘Messiah’ complex – which I can imagine Essendon having a bit of a feel for that. He’d solve a few problems because this administration owns the current decisions, so what would be the way out of it.”
The thing for Essendon – as well as Port Adelaide – to consider is the impact moving on a contracted senior coach earlier than scheduled would have on the soft cap.
Like the Suns and Dew, the pressure has somewhat eased on the Power and Ken Hinkley over the past month, conjuring four straight wins after beginning the season with five consecutive losses.
The Power seem to have found their groove over the past month, albeit three of their four wins have come against bottom-10 sides. We’ll find out a bit more about Hinkley’s troops over their next six games – they face four top-eight sides, including the Cats, Tigers and Dockers interstate – but if the wins keep accumulating, Hinkley surely remains at the club next season.
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Fried FC
Pretty interesting to see the rumor about Cara pop up and then Matthew Little and the club part ways.
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If Ben Rutten falters big time and cannot recover the troops, then where do we go?
People have come on here absolutely ruling out Ross the Boss … and I have up to now done the same. But he’s experienced, known for his defensive bent and tough culture he instils. His record isn’t too bad btw. He’s not a long term option but then again …
He’s up for a job we know that from the FC bollocks when Teague was sacked. Sounds an option for us … and one he’d likely relish. And we need a kick.
More articles like this please.
Hopefully we get absolutely flogged in the next 3 matches and Rutten gets the sack.
I’m going to say…Clarkson is our only way out of this mess. He will fundamentally shape the club to be ruthless and competitive again.
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The problem with both Lyon and Clarkson is that neither would want to go through any sort of process to get the job. Imagine the fans disdain if the Essendon administration once again goes out and sacks a coach which they put in place and then appointed yet another coach without a process. I’m not sure they can do that again based on their previous success rate.
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Also, we know we are still building our list, the club has acknowledged it.
Clarkson has basically said he would return to a team that is ready to contend (not us).
Lyon hasn’t shown a great desire to perform list builds in the past, I can’t imagine that has changed, more likely to have gotten worse.
Suggesting either of these guys is just grabbing at a messiah, neither would suit where we are at one bit.
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