It’s because 99.9% of us don’t know a single thing about who’s actually any good or not. Wouldn’t know Rob Harding or Craig Jennings if they stood up in their soup.
The 3 imports fresh from other clubs have all improved, but I would have to ask why so many existing young players, under 25, have gone backwards. For me that’s the key question, and its either injury/soreness, or coaching philosophy.
It looks like the current coaching philosophy to train players to play all over the park, any position, in any role they are given. You know, “a soldier goes down, another comes in”. In addition, any player who can run is being phased through the midfield at times, so out of 22 players around 12 might have some time in the midfield.
What we are getting is confused players, who are not playing to their strengths, but an emphasis on versatility is taking the edge off them.
Which other clubs have this “each player can do it all” appraoch, and which ones have a specialisation strategy ?
Which ones are doing well in the comp?
I’d like to see ambitious coaches in the box. When you hear Skipworth has been at the club for 11 years you have to ask why he hasn’t moved on to other clubs to broaden his coaching chops. Look at Caracella, successfully been involved with Brisbane, Collingwood Geelong and now Richmonds programs. Each club bringing its own unique challenges, adding numerous strings to his bow, learning from 100’s of personalities, dozens of mentors, filling his head with knowledge of the game.
We had a good one with Nathan Bassett, but he was ambitious and moved on, thats a good thing, Adelaide is now the beneficiary of his services. Why the club would hold onto a assistant coach for 10 years, and why that coach wouldn’t want to learn more from as many clubs as he can says a lot about where we are at the minute. Just happy collecting paycheques. Some may say loyalty, I see a comfortable laziness in it.
They all do, you can see that when you watch other games and see players moving all over the field, sometimes in the forward 50, sometimes in defence, sometimes in the middle.
Ben Brown is a classic forward, North also use him up the ground during games and sometimes down back, just as an example.
Most clubs want players to be versatile because injuries happen in games or players get shut down, so they move them to free them up, or sometimes the balance isn’t right and they have to shuffle the deck. It also helps players to have an overall feel of the different positions on the field and how it all works.
Sometimes, there’s always that bloke in the office that does the bare minimum because the pay cheque is good and just has no interest in anything better. And just never ■■■■■■■ leaves. Bit like you on this forum. zing!
Sure, players “play all over the ground” but I would suggest Richmond don’ have players moving from the backline in particular ( swingmen). They have a back 6 that is pretty much locked in stone. They have a group of forwards that maybe rotate through the midfield to some extent,
I am trying to figure out why so many of our our under 25 players have gone backwards this year. ( with the exception of the SSS who have improved as the year has gone on). Stewart, Tippa, Zerret, Fantasia , Parish, McGrath have not improved on last year and arguably most have regressed significantly.
Re Skipworth normally if the coach is any good they will be poached to a more senior role at another team who can offer them more responsibility/pay, the team they are at normally cannot match this as they have someone in that senior position so they bring in someone to a lower spot and the coaching renewal merry go round goes on.
One of the more futile threads on the forum. None of us have any idea. All we can do is hope Dan Richardson has a good understanding of what it required to be successful.
Let’s be honest - the whole forum is futile. The season is futile, in fact the Essendon Futile has a bit of a ring to it - could make a great nbl or lacrosse team for 2019.
Wasn’t Harvey an assistant under Sheeds for 10 years? During which time he also knocked back the head job at the Doggies? And now he’s been back for another 3 & 1/2?
Stewart hasn’t regressed from last year. His start to the season was very good. But as Joe went down, Green and Raz in and out and Hooker moved down back, it has impacted on his game through a loss of the main support and being the focal point of the opposition.
Raz has been injured quite a bit, he hasn’t regressed at all.
Zerrett has been struggling with concussion apparently but has improved over the last few weeks, it is not a regression of his playing ability.
Tippa is still working hard, but again the structure of the side has changed and this has impacted on what he is doing verses what he could do last year, that mixed with some sort of injury restricting him.
Parish certainly has not had a good year but this can happen to all players at some point, it is not so much regression as struggling as more focus is put on him to restrict his impact.
McGrath changed roles, this is always going to cause an issue to a second year player.
I think the issue is that a lot of people do not pay enough attention to what is going on and just respond with emotion to wins/losses.
Well there is no-one in my office like that and most have worked with me for 20 years since I started my business. Maybe there isn’t anything better than working for me. You will never know.