How many George apologists are there?
He’s done nothing to demonstrate he’s any more than an average to poor coach over his coaching tenure
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Great football coaches who e built and been involved in successful teams both talk of the need to prioritise culture and stability over a sustained period. Sacking coaches every 3-5 years restarts the virtuos Cullen of failure so endemic and both Carlton and Essendon.
This is why they extended Brad Scott’s contract and the President is so committed to allowing Vozzo and Scott to rebuild the clubs culture and ensure stability. This takes precedence over weekly selection or game day moves (!).
From today’s HS and the experiences of Malthouse / Pagan whilst at Carlton. Similarities are evident with Essendon.
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You’d never fire anyone with that approach?
Yes you would. But in the case of Carlton and Essendon, stability and culture need to take priority for a period of time.
How long you giving George….end of next year or end of 2027
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I think there’s more to it than ‘can he coach’.
Both Pagan and Malthouse were incredibly great coaches during their time there.
More comes down to where the club think they are when appointing coaches, where they think they can get and what are the reasons why they didn’t get there when sacking the coach.
Pagan in particular didn’t have a list to get the best out of his coaching style. And he’s also not the type of coach for a developing rebuild. Whilst he was good at it previously, he had time on his side and someone else had spent the time getting games into younger players. He was also appointed coach before they lost their picks due to issues out of his control which meant he needed more time than normal. Personally, I think the club at the time had unrealistic expectations and weren’t willing to sit through another three years of Pagan and wanted something different.
With Malthouse, again, they had high expectations of him after Ratten got them close in one of his years. But the timing was a tad late for someone like him. Ideally, you have Ratten coaching a developing team and either Pagan or Malthouse taking the next step and bringing them through the failure of finals footy. They did it the other way around. And when that didn’t work, they doubled down on the expectations and the path with Malthouse and then got rid of him when it didn’t work.
I have no troubles with clubs having high expectations. You need it in such a competitive environment. But where they fail (which lets face it, only 1 of 18 clubs succeed every year) is the path to those expectations, what the measures are that they are still on the path and what they do when they inevitably get off the path or it gets bumpy. When that occurs and you have emotional fans, coteries and media all targeting the club, it’s tough to pull back and make good decisions.
I look at Port Adelaide earlier this century and wonder if that same situation were at Carlton (or us) whether we’d sit through being so good in 2001, 2 and 3 with such a dominant record and still believe the 2004 premiership is still a chance. I don’t think we’d get through that failure and stay stable enough (with the list, the coaches, etc) to see it out. Especially when one of the major sponsors doesn’t even think the coach is good enough. I also look at the Richmond board challenge before their period of success. And Melbourne’s. And wonder whether clubs like Carlton or Essendon would push through all of that to see what comes next (good or bad).
That doesn’t mean Brad Scott’s the guy. That also doesn’t mean Voss shouldn’t be sacked. To me, it’s more about when you identify that what you tried to achieve is no longer working, how much time is the club willing to take to see if it can be fixed and what is the backup plan. I think there are more things wrong with Carlton than just coaching. Their injuries have hurt them and they are playing their depth players who just aren’t capable of matching the better teams. They went through pre-season with Curnow and McKay restricted and that has continued through the season. The game has changed on them where volume of inside 50s no longer matter because teams can take that pressure and rebound on you now. That wasn’t the cast three years ago. Should they be losing by 50 points to Port? No. Should they play as poorly as they did on Thursday? No. Voss should be getting more out of that team.
And I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re at a similar spot next season. For me, the true test of the club will come when whatever they are planning is no longer working, the fans/members either drop off or become an emotional rabble like Carlton fans/members and there’s media pressure for change. We’re not there yet because of the injuries. That won’t be case again next year. Even with another poor injury list, this year is our baseline and we must improve off this season. And I think that is a low bar to set for this club.
The reality of the situation is when you aren’t going as planned and you sack your coach, you buy yourself another 3 years to complete the plan. And usually, this is the plan’s ‘last chance’ before blowing it up and starting again. If you keep ‘doubling down’ you probably buy yourself 1 year to complete the plan. And in that time, you still think you can achieve the plan so you don’t go into a ‘rebuild’ mode, but more of a ‘re-work’ mode. So you’re more likely than not delaying the inevitable just by sacking the coach. It’s just easier to sack the coach and go through the cycle.
There’s no right answer. Just a whole lot of wrong ones.
Two more years. That gets us to end of 2027 and that’s a good period of time to measure success of this regimes program.
That would give a good number of years to know if the rebuilding of a footy club is progressing well. Culture rebuilt and establishing itself, list turnover with success in development, recruiting, conditioning, leadership and this paying dividends with progression up the ladder.
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My point is simpler though. Clubs like Carlton and Essendon are caught in a cycle of failure primarily driven by broken cultures and instability. That’s the point.
The discussion around Voss future, or should I say the external campaign to sack him asap, cripples weak clubs like Essendon and Carlton who repeat the same mistake over and over. This results in a bad culture and instability and these clubs can’t get out of it until they address culture and achieve stability. Unfortunately this comes with frustration, bad on field results and requires patience. These clubs can’t withstand the outside pressure.
Is Brian cook going to end up down at Tassie or is he retiring?
Retiring I think.
Collingwood.
Essendon needs to stop getting Collingwoods scraps and instead the other way around.
When have we beaten them for the signature of a bloke? They always get their man.
Carlton used to be able to do that, I think Judd was the last time they could.
I think we’ve got ‘the man’ for the moment that Essendon needs now.
The biggest mistake Carlton ever made was sacking Ratten. He was beloved by the players, a great club man and very solid coach. Carlton wanted the sugar hit of an experienced coach to take them to a flag, but instead were handed a tired, and curmudgeonly Malthouse. They’ve never truly recovered from that mess, and thankfully so.
We have mirrored these mistakes somewhat, but our coach merrigoround is a symptom of the supplement saga. I’m of the belief that we should atleast let Scott see out his tenure and then make a move on him. I am encouraged that we finally have a list manager who knows the role, and isn’t a nepitimistic C***t. I would love to see an overhaul of our high performance team. Our long standing inability to physically condition, and develop players is completely unacceptable.
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Ratten was improving. And they did react rather harshly to him after a late season loss to a bottom of the ladder team that ended their finals chances. They would have been better off having the same coach and the same players grow through that failure together. But that never got tested, so it could very well have collapsed spectacularly like Buckley did at Collingwood after their grand final push. Only one solution was tested. There is no right answer. There’s just gambling on a decision and riding it until you get to the next time you have to make a decision.
Looking back now, I’d have no problems if they held Ratten for another year and see what the response was like before going in another coaching direction. But understand that 5 years is longer than the average time given to a coach.
The bugger with the way clubs act is they are less willing to sit through that one year correction after multiple years of improvement.
I don’t think our coaching merri-go-round is a symptom of the saga. We weren’t willing to sit through Matthew Knights before that period. He got the job on the back of not having to scrap the list and start again only to realise that the list wasn’t good enough to get past 8th. Hird and the ‘royal board’ had the same task at hand. That era between 2014 and 2017 is a lost era. You can not plan around that time where players are always distracted week to week, some players banned for a full season, then players integrated back in, etc. It was never going to work. We just extended the pain over multiple years. Worsfold was a failure because after his first two years, he had two wildly different teams which again ate in to the time needed to build the team during his coaching career. Then the Shiel, Smith, Stringer trades tried to plug gaps that could have been filled with the players already on our list. And then covid hit and again a team that needed a lot of overseeing (and wasn’t getting it under Worsfold) was left to their own devices in 2020. And they didn’t have the inbuilt habits to work through the situation. Rutten took over and was doomed from the beginning again because the results pattern was the same as every other coach before him. Play well in one year and reach finals, then tweak after that and capitulate. There was a lot of change after Rutten. Through multiple departments. And the odds are some of those changes haven’t worked as well to suit our plan. So departments need adjustments to try and improve the overall results.
We’re yet to be pushed along by outside expectations. Internally we’ve stuck to ‘get the best out of the list’ and ‘week-to-week focus on winning every single game’ but I’m not sure they are willing to divulge where they think this list can get to and whether there has been a shift in thought from this time last year. The heat will come next season. Especially if there is some difference of opinion internally with the path we’re taking. That’s where media will intervene and do their thing.
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