John Worsfold - will not get a new contract in 2021

Oh god.

Jam

Robinhood - netflix new one., Bluey +1 best kids show an free to air.

50% Player / 50% fitness & conditioning staff + we also had lots of injuries so less depth and more players rolling the dice.

Essendon has confirmed John Worsfold will coach the club for 2020 season, but club great Matthew Lloyd believes the Bombers are looking at a potential succession plan for the future.

Sep 13 2019

7:50PM

Essendon has confirmed John Worsfold will coach the club in 2020. Photo: Michael Dodge/AAP Image.Source: AAP

Essendon CEO Xavier Campbell told Channel 7 on Sunday, Worsfold would definitely be the coach for next season, as the club attempt to find improvement and put in place the best support for Worsfold and the entire coaching group.

The Bombers were bundled out in the opening week of finals, smashed by 55-points in their clash against reigning premiers West Coast.

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Tributes flow for Frawley

4:01

Lloyd, a 270-game player with the Bombers, believed the club was looking at season 2021 for a potential change in coach, allowing for a highly regarded assistant to take over, following reports the club were considering handing the full-time role to Ben Rutten.

“I believe that [Ben] Rutten or possibly [Dean] Soloman if he joins the club, will be the coach in two years time,” he said on Channel 9’s Footy Classified .

“I believe John will coach next year and then handover to a coach the following season. [He’s] just not quiet ready yet.”

Worsfold will be boosted by highly regarded assistant coach Blake Caracella, with the current Richmond assistant to join the club following the Tigers’ finals campaign.

Ben Rutten (right) is set to be considered to take over after John Worsfold finishes at the club. Photo: Daniel Pockett/Getty Images.Source: Getty Images

Essendon’s decision to only firmly back Worsfold in for 2020 on Sunday, puzzled former player Brendon Goddard, with the defender questioning why it took so long for a commitment to the 2006 premiership winning coach.

“The club hadn’t come out til now, why has it taken so long?” he said on 3AW .

“Had they done their due-diligence, looked into it and no-one they think is better to replace Woosha at the minute? Why has it taken so long to commit to Woosha?”

Good old Lloyd, coming up with something others have already said.

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Yep. He pilfered @fogdog ‘s mail re: Solly.

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With the Solomon talk and also Caracella already on the way you have to wonder where they fit

Do we lose another line coach?

Or does Caracella just take up Harding’s role but also have a broader scope around ball movement of the team. If he’s going to be the highest paid assistant in league it must be a pretty involved role.

And that’s leaves Solomon in charge of the fwds?

Solomon 2021? or 2020?
Wouldnt be upset to see Harvey go.

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1 Well BJ, the coach does have a contract until the end of 2020. So on the one hand there’s a contract to honour. So why say anything.

2 but sure, footy being footy there is at times a need to say stuff for the media who were after a head. In that case let’s go for “the season had just finished for the AFL side, so waiting for that to occur is the best time to make an announcement to the media”

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Blake is so versatile that he could fill a number of roles. Ideally, you would think that he assumes Harding’s role (game strategy, etc). He was a forwards coach at Richmond. He can also work with the mids.

Blake - Game strategy.
Rutten - Defence.
Solly - Forwards.
? - Mids. Think we need to bring a top level mids assistant in.

What was the mail? Just sounding out solly for 2021?

Fog posted something the other day along the lines of “Dean Solomon - don’t make any plans” or something like that.

I imagine getting him to leave Richmond and come to us would have been a well structured offer about what he gets to do. What we want him to do.

I’m optimistic (excited and hopeful) that he will bring something that’s currently missing in our coaching set up.

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Yep. Our ball movement has been terrible this season and that was his title at Richmond.

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For ball movement/structures, I hope he or someone can set the bar to the elite level for our training. There has to be a non-negotiable standard for what they must achieve on the track.

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Non-negotiable and high standard.

Upgrade Kelly’s role with midfield?

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Get farked, Matthew.

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Somebody else posted it earlier in the year. Something about getting him as an assistant with a view to him being a potential senior coach.

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Sweet. I missed it.

Our ball movement has looked terrible often and led us to being the “turnover kings” of the AFL.

I even saw it, on stark display, in the VFL game on the weekend when Werribee took something like 23 intercept marks - nearly all in our forward half of the ground - and would have hung on and won if they had not dropped the 24th.

Worsfold’s game plan has this insane desire to push our forwards up the ground in the hope that the opposition defenders follow them and then our forwards can somehow lose them in transition as they run back into our F50.

It is the easiest thing to coach against - you just get your HB line to let the forwards race up to wing and stay positioned just inside Essendon’s F50. As long as a bit of pressure is applied on the Essendon players coming out of defence to force them to kick long, then you can mop up all day long. Which is what (the better) teams in the AFL have been doing against us for two years. It’s what Werribee defenders were doing on the weekend.

The only times it works are when McKenna and/or Saad can break free and use great speed and skill to race up the ground, find space and deliver the ball to advantage by foot to someone forward of centre. Most of our best plays this have involved either or both of McKenna & Saad or Walla (playing in similar vein) in the midfield.

It is what I detest most about Worsfold’s coaching - it doesn’t work hardly at all against the best sides (hence we keep finishing 8-10) as our W-L ratio against the top sides shows.

A close second is Worsfold’s desire to pick mediocre and/or injured/unfit senior players because they are “experienced” ahead of promising juniors who look ready to take the step into AFL until it’s too late e.g. Zac Clarke over Draper. That hardly ever works - it didn’t work in our first game of the year in Round 1 and didn’t work in our last game of the year in the EF. In those bookend games we looked unfit, were out-worked, slaughtered at contested ball, turned the ball over and were duly thrashed.

If anyone thinks we have improved over the course of the year, they are kidding themselves. We ended the year woefully short of the best teams like we started it. Comparing the bookend games - and the similarities between both - is an indictment on the coach.

Nothing was learned from Round 1; or, if it was, not applied. Worsfold keeps talking about learnings yet seems to learn nothing himself. That tells me he has no room for improvement as a coach, so why is he staying on? He has proven he can’t improve.

Yes, we have a much younger list than 3 years ago, yes there was a big gap in experience against the Eagles in the EF. But, as senior coach, Worsfold is accountable for game plan and team selection and he has shown to be poor at both over the past 2 seasons in my view.

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