“Scott bluntly told president David Barham and his board that if they believed they were close to a turnaround in on-field results, they shouldn’t hire him.”
Yes Dave said “more out of the list” one time, but that was just spin to cover for the way Truck was treated.
The most frustrating thing about this long dark period of our clubs history, following on from many others, is the seemingly random development of players, Brad style.
I’d be a bit on board if there was some form of rudimentary development pathway or template. Something like games in the VFL, finding form and then getting promoted to play this role in the AFL. Some form of consistency, so we can see improvement in players.
At the moment it’s just random series of events, playing blokes out of position, destroying confidence and playing favourites, or in some cases not rewarding form and then scapegoating.
My observation from the cafe at Dubbo while sipping a turmeric and matcha latte is that strength and conditioning has improved, recruiting seems on the up, but development, gamestyle and coaching is the weak link.
It’s not the losses that worry me, it is the complete lack of structure, game plan and selection integrity. If these don’t improve, then we destroy the next generation of players that we have picked up with high draft picks and we are set back a decade or more. I am more pessimistic about our future now than at any point before, because our coach has shown no intent to fix any of these, and our board are too spineless to show him the door.
I would say those metrics didnt just come up in the last week
I would say they have been on the table since the start of the season…only diference is that Welsh mentioned, in public, that Brad would stay unless metrics werent met.
I heard something after round 3 about if things dont get better by June he is done
You are absolutely spot on… in that very special way where a person can be both spot on and completely wrong at the same time.
BB loves to trot out the usual lines:
“No selection integrity!”
“Random choices!”
“Favourites being played!”
“Unexplainable things happening!”
It’s like listening to someone narrate a mystery novel where the only clue is “vibes”.
But honestly, most of it is just unsupported speculation, someone trying to reverse‑engineer decisions they have zero insight into. It’s the footy‑forum equivalent of a bloke confidently explaining how planes fly because he once sat near the wing.
Sure, not every decision is perfect. People make mistakes. Coaches aren’t omnipotent beings with a direct fibre‑optic link to the truth.
But some of the sweeping characterisations that get thrown around here somehow morph into folklore, repeated so often they magically upgrade from “guess” to “gospel”.
All because someone said, “I reckon this is what’s happening,” and a few others nodded along like it was carved into stone tablets.
I agree - well, they kinda went half and half…McKay, gresh, Goldie and Duursma all came without losing draft capital, and their inclusion was meant to lift the “middle” of the list, while cutting some deadwood and bringing in youngsters…
Obviously even half and half is at odds with Brad’s list assessment at the start of his tenure, though. (Which ultimately makes it hard to swallow the apparent club line that we should only judge Brad for the last two years, not his four years..)
However the only thing that remains as a possible explanation in his favour: there was no point dramatically cuttinga and rebuilding in years 1 and 2 when our training/S&C/drafting all needed radical improvement first. Otherwise we’d be tainting the crop of youth. So getting the most out of the list at that time might’ve been sensible to keep the place happy and attractive enough while that heavy lifting was done ahead of the rebuild proper. (Devil’s advocate, don’t shoot me.)
Why do you think the educated footy fan can’t see when a player is out of form? Can’t analyse statistic pointing to defensive intent? Can’t spot a team that is too tall and doesn’t have enough run?
The average blitzer is incredibly well educated on the game of footy and while they can’t know what is in the coaches heads they can definitely have an opinion based on the information available to them which is quite a lot of information.
And if you truly believe that none of us have any insight to offer - what are you doing here?