From my memory which is not great, Hird as Coach round 17 we were top 4, when our lost our place was given to Carlton who then made up the eight and many of our players went onto be banned and the team was full of top up players.
I don’t know how anyone can say Hird was NOT a good coach because we’ll never know whether he was or wasn’t. Hird was also banned for 12 months.
None of the things being said about Bomber and drugs are proven, they are nothing but allegations, at this point in time. Let’s not go via the way of the media he is entitled to the presumption of innocence until proven guilty.
In regards to coaching why didn’t Woosha notice or change what was happening in the ruck (Zac C tapping it forward and Aliir roving for seven kicks forward)? This lack of awareness is staggering.
TIM MICHELL
Essendon coach John Worsfold says the club wants to become the AFL’s flag favourite, declaring he is not content with simply ending the club’s finals drought.
The Bombers last won a final in 2004, when Worsfold was in his third season as West Coast coach.
Worsfold said on Saturday after his side’s victory over Sydney that the Bombers needed to become an “awesome team that can challenge the whole competition”.
On Monday, he added: “In terms of being premiership favourites, we are a fair way off that. We’re not touted as that team yet,” he said on AFL 360.
“That’s what you would like to get to. Whether it’s before the season starts based on the depth of your squad, the age of your squad, the experience in it the way you have been performing, usually over a year or two.
“You get rated as one of the real fancies for a premiership. We’re not there yet. We have got to work towards getting that and that’s our big focus.
“I understand it’s been a long time since Essendon have won a final and there’s a lot of frustration. I don’t want to just satisfy people on that and say ‘job’s done’.”
Ninth-placed Essendon takes on 10th-placed North Melbourne this weekend in a game certain to shape the finals prospects of both clubs.
Might add to that too that Collingwood have probably 9 of their 22 out at the moment and completely out of form. I would love to be playing Collingwood right now
speaking of lack of awareness… there was only one centre bounce in the 3rd qtr where Allir didn’t contest and roved Clarke’s hitout. The only other stoppage that he didn’t contest was a throw against McKernan, when McKernan clearly tried to hit the ball to space to avoid Allir who wasn’t contesting but Allir was good enough to read it and rove the clearance. The one time Allir didn’t contest in the last quarter, Clarke did the right thing a belted the ball forward to space but again our mids missed the memo.
Reality is that they did change what they were doing with their hitouts (trying to hit wide to space rather down to Allir) but Allir did a very good job of changing up his tactics to keep both Clarke and Mckernan off balance (not hard to be honest) and followed up well at ground level as you’d expect from a hybrid ruck rover. You should be directing your questions to the midfield group who continually got beaten by a Swans midfield who were content to rove to our hitouts pretty well every time. And if you think that’s a coaching problem, which it probably is in part, then that criticism should be directed to their line coaches in Skipworth and Kelly.
Clarke is a spud and was probably always going to have a tough time of it against the far more agile Allir who had a clear instruction to rove to him and create an extra number at ground level. He’s gonna play again this week and as limited as he is it’s a far better match up against another genuine ruck in Goldy. Mids are going to need to look at plenty of footage of Goldstein’s ruck work this week.
Woosh is doing ok under the circumstances… injuries, relatively inexperienced list. Yeah, skills are ordinary but the issue is league wide at the moment so I’m not putting that solely on the coaches. I think fatigue, tactics/zones + all ground pressure are huge factors. The bloke is methodical (boring as), deliberate and process driven. Mind you, I like what I’m seeing game day currently… engaged, animated, communicating with players directly. 4 wins from 5 is good. Hawks, GWS and Swans were significant. Smashing the Blues was satisfying. North, Crows, Suns and Port provide Essendon with an opportunity. 7 more home and away games. Win 5, they’ll play finals. 4… unlikely with a inferior percentage? With the wins, once again it feels like there’s progress in how the team play BUT consistency remains the biggest hurdle. Winning more than 2 consecutive games tells the story although like earlier in the year North could be their third win in succession?
I think “a bit too slow to react” is very much a valid criticism of the current snr coach, assistant coaches and leadership group
They seem to get to the right point, when it seems like they could’ve recognised and made the adjustment earlier. Tightening that up will go a long way.
The danger is jumping into a “discussion” half way through and not knowing what the hell is being argued about and who is on what side of the issue. That’s fun and frustrating.
