Bit hard to judge after 11 games don’t you think? We might get 7 great years out of Shiel or 12 out of someone we wanted to pick up between pick 11 and 37.
However, with our history of 1st round picks, I’m glad we traded it for Shiel.
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So I need to have a crystal ball and put forward some names of kids in the last draft and next who havent proven a thing, (instead of citing Rd 1 picks who make up the majority of our current best players), to have a rational argument about Rd 1 being important? Sorry, don’t agree with the logic there
Trying to work out whether this is tongue in cheek or the poster has an IQ in low single figures.
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I think the argument that every game we’ve had 1, 2 or more of our best 10 and structural players missing nearly every game this year will save him.
The constant ins and outs of important players has resulted in the lack of synergy and consistency. Look at Richmond perfect example, I even heard the media giving west coast an out with the loss to Sydney because Yeo and Hurn were out.
Most likely… excuses can always be found and I do think that a complete overhaul of our fitness department is also needed and that is not 100% on woosha. The mismanagement of injuries, the volume of injuries despite supposedly our ‘conservative’ approach has been horrendous.
It also actually concerned me when (I think it was him) Shiel basically said that our training was less running but more skills… which I know he was saying as a positive but in this era where it requires manic pressure for the whole game etc etc… it just worried me that we might be going against the trend regarding fitness and it kinda seems to have played out that way… being outrun by the better teams and then when we tried to ‘step up’ we just had a semi-predictable run of injuries.
So partly I see that as attributable to the blame I put on woosha for us being, in my view, completely unprepared for the season yet again. Then you add the woeful tactical nous, the fact that his family lives elsewhere so he is back to Perth every chance he gets and the reality that he is now 20 years removed from coaching ‘success’ and even further removed from the game and modern trends and I really think the excuses have to end.
Finals was the pass mark and that is what he should be held to. Every team has injuries, every team has tough parts of the draw and every team can lay out excuses for failure (and they routinely do to keep the punters coming back) but win/loss has to be a measure of success at some point and for waaaaaay too long it hasn’t been at EFC and that has to change.
We have also seen repeated example of swift turns in fortune for clubs who get the right coach on the job. No, it probably won’t be overnight success but our list is still in good shape… the right person at the helm could make a tremendous difference.
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Ricky O…LOL
Nup… I’m all the way up at 12 thanks very much.
Although it does always make me proud to see the classic ‘attack the poster because I have no counter argument’ tactic… a true sign of real intelligence. Truly awe-inspiring stuff.
Good luck waiting for woosha to turn it around… and you can hate on me all you like… it really doesn’t bother me… but our list should be performing better. Our club should be performing better. The time for excuses must eventually come to and end and we have to start delivering results. We all still like to take pot shots at other clubs… blessed is the life of a supporter… but the reality is that we are one of, if not the most, unsuccessful club of the modern era. Just let that sink in for a moment while you take your pot shots. We are the most unsuccessful club onfield (excluding expansion teams) over the last 18 years. 0 Preliminary finals in 17 seasons, 0 Grand final appearances. Less than 5 finals wins. 2002 (yep almost 17 years ago) was the last time we finished in the TOP 6… these aren’t just ‘bad’ numbers… they are horrific. They are shocking and depressing and should be causing every supporter, member, barracker to be standing up and demanding better. Demanding change. Demanding improvement and not just sitting back and waiting for the ‘learnings’.
Only when this club gets ruthless, demands excellence, establishes a brand of hard, finals worthy footy and then gets 100% ‘buy in’ from the playing group to fight for EVERY inch, loose ball, mark, kick, smother for every single second of every single game… will we actually return to the top of the pecking order.
Right now we are seemingly content to rock up when we feel like it, play hard when it suits us and then laugh about it afterwards.
Oh and for every post that has digs at other posters for not knowing as much as coaches or the club… Blitz has been PLEADING for Parish to go into the midfield for a long, long time… and the result is clear. Blitz has been observing, asking and seeing the glaring issues for a long time… just because someone didn’t choose to be an AFL footballer or pursue a career in coaching… doesn’t automatically make them less able to analyse what they see.
I just hope we can find the right coach soon to help this very promising list deliver some success for our proud footy club.
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Fitness is an interesting point. We look like we’ve gone down an endurance plan to last 4 qtrs. Other teams have gone down the path of explosive from the get go. We’ve been blown away early in majority of our losses. Tactically I think the latter is a better option, if the opposition doesn’t go with you the games over at half time and you back off. If they go with you it’s even money in the second half and if you’re not efficient and are wasteful you were probably going to lose anyway no matter your fitness strategy. It’s an uneducated opinion but if that may be the case and it was based on the new rules of starting positions and no runner than it was a horrible mistake.
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Actually that is interesting… potentially that was the tactic. There is also no doubt that our ‘game plan’ (for want of a better word for that hot mess of a system we try to play) is a very taxing one. So it requires that endurance and last year we did run over the top of a few teams, particularly in the back half of the season, so I wonder if that also encouraged them to go that way?
However we seem to have again ‘missed the boat’ with the rest of the comp moving to (as you picked) a more explosive style and then countering the lack of endurance with an increased emphasis on ball control. So most of the good teams have gone back to that real tempo game to control the clock.
So on both points it looks like we have fallen further behind the competition.
What does that have to do with anything? Wasn’t Scott still coaching for the Dogs win?
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Look its cool but the stats and analysis has been done by many, including ‘experts’ who have more validity than me… but North has completely changed its game style.
Yes the win against the dogs was under Scott and there is no doubt the players liked him… (and I do think most of our players like Woosha) and wanted to send him out on a good note… but even during that game they changed their structure and ball movement.
In the past two matches they have absolutely gone back to be a hard ‘inside first’ team and there has been a noticeable increase in their physicality. Their ball movement has also changed slightly, as well as their initial defensive starting positions.
So what that ‘has to do with anything’… is that by CHANGING what wasn’t working, the message that wasn’t working or the game style that wasn’t working or whatever it was… they have potentially now got the opportunity to salvage something from their season.
Right now we are just repeating the same mistakes as last year with the same results. I have no doubt we will have a few near misses in the back half of the season, 1-2 ‘against the odd’ victories and then fall short. That is how we prepared for the season, that is how we train and that is just how we play.
The point being that North decided to be be proactive and do something about the down spiral and it has, thus far, already paid dividends. Yet EFC sits on its hands and waits.
I think missing the finals in 2019 is a failure.
I’m not happy with how the club is going. I still don’t think the Shiel trade was about this year and this year alone.
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Why not just stick with him then if it was that easy?
I agree with that to a certain degree but then I look at sides like Hawks, Geelong and Sydney that have been able to maintain a very high standard of football over a very long time and whilst consistently turning over players.
The reality is that we lose when everything tells us we shouldn’t.
Woosha will most likely get a reprieve this year but serious questions need to asked about how we weren’t prepared for round 1 this year after our Jekyll and Hyde year last year.
If you put aside our injuries and even whether the game plans any good the question still remains can Woosha get the most out of this squad of players?
The fact the players admit that they aren’t putting in 100% tells me something ain’t right.
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because I actually don’t think Scott is a very good coach and I don’t think his tactics were on the right track.
In that last game there is the natural ‘emotion’ high and also (from reports) they were playing on instinct and that has flowed on.
So I don’t think they would have won the last 3 had they not sacked Scott and that is the point…
Despite what you may think… I would be more than happy to be wrong about woosha… I would prefer to have egg all over my face and do the walk of shame etc etc… if that meant that EFC were winning finals and having success. I truly want nothing BUT for our club to have success. I just don’t see Woosha being the man to deliver it… I don’t agree with how our players are prepared mentally for the games, i don’t like our game style, I don’t like our tactics on game day, I don’t like our skill level, I don’t like some of our positioning (although several of my real bug bears have got better in the last few weeks). I just don’t see Woosha being the kind of person who will actually change his approach and I can’t see his current approach working… so it just seems like we are stuck.
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I don’t think this is the thread for laconic types.
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I’m going with the latter
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Nice contribution.
This place is like a school yard sometimes.
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Hahahahahaha
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Year 12 remedial finger painting?
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