Thing is though that a heap of members argued passionately against me. They weren’t apathetic, they just believed what the club was feeding them… it’s worth a read for a laugh
And honestly, we all have the same priority, or at least I think we do, and that is to win games of football, then finals, and ultimately a premiership. What I don’t understand is that many fail to see that off field and on field are inextricably linked. Take for example GWS and GCS - one has built a successful culture and thus a successful football club, the other has not. Look at the change in Brisbane when they gave the club a culture overhaul. In my opinion there is little difference between the best and worst ‘best 22’ at every team. It’s what we are able to get out of them that’s different.
To be honest, after the saga years, I was certain, absolutely certain, that our members would hold the club to account off-field… that they knew and understood how important it was…and they would of course see through optics and spin as if it were polished glass…obviously I was delusional.
Why do you assume people do not see that? Why do you ignore the many posters who talk about that? There are many posts in this thread, in the X thread and other places that constantly talk about this.
The amount of work going on within the club to overhaul the culture is quite big. There are many from within who are talking about it. Why do you assume nothing is being done? Have you not seen what Richardson has been doing or what X has often talked about? Or do you not listen to what they say because you assume it is all “spin”?
Ahh no, that would be called arrogant assumption. Just because people don’t agree with what you say doesn’t mean they don’t hold the club accountable for any shortcomings in success.
The changes that have been made over this short off-season so far show that the club is not happy with how things have been travelling and are trying to make the changes necessary to get that right. You may not agree with what they are doing but that doesn’t then automatically equate to them not caring and not doing anything. They do care and they are doing quite a lot. You just don’t like what they are doing.
Yes we do, so let us not assume that we are gullible and ridiculous if we don’t agree with each other on how to get there.
This is incorrect. The AFL have effectively taken control of the saints and the club is currently run by Lethlean under direction from the AFL. It is Lethlean not Finnis who is biding his time to move back to HQ.
In many ways I agree. It is no longer my footy club and it no longer feels as though it is. My letters to the club were acknowledged but unanswered. It felt like ask us no questions and we’ll tell you no lies. After 70 years this year I’ve retired. I taken myself out of the equation. However I can’t bring myself to barrack for any other club but my Essendon is no longer the same Essendon. This club has a thumb print right in the middle of its face.
And no I am not afraid of change I would gratefully embrace it.
The club acknowledged the receipt of my letter but didn’t make comment.
I felt Management were letting down the supporters. This included several mistakes coming my way with deductions of funds which had been stopped but still continued to be deducted. It took about seven months to be fixed. Just little simple things but I felt one thing leads to another and getting someone to listen and do shouldn’t be that hard.
I love the team always will but for me there is a big plug hole in this club. Maybe part of it is a lack of attention to detail.
To all those who are saying “it is no longer my footy club”… In what way has your relationship to the club changed? What do you see are the reasons for that?
A well organised Essendon side would be a sight to behold. We’ve got a lot of work to do on the discipline of the playing group though in terms of both where and when they run before we get there though.
Richmond’s on field cohesion and discipline is fantastic. They hold their width, hold their spacing, hold their structure and don’t overcommit numbers to the loose ball or the ball carrier. It takes trust in your teammates, concentration and self discipline to achieve that. I’ve seen nothing from the present group to suggest they can. It will be an interesting preseason.
How the tigers transformed from a rabble to a powerhouse is a really interesting question. It doesn’t appear to be on the back of an awesome list built from high draft picks, as they jumped up from being a middling club for many years, as did the cats.
They found a new brand, a core group of stars, a strong team ethos, and you would think their coaching panel is a key element in their success. Having a fit team in september (except for rance) was also crucial.
And take a look at the years they won the premiership.
There were three weeks of ‘Richmond of old’ performances where they lost the unlovable games (there was one against Freo here and another against GWS).
From then on, the team galvanised together and basically said never again.
This wasn’t because of a mission statement, a presidents bold vision, etc. After those three weeks, fans had strong doubts of Hardwick and the board and thought they were on another path to failure. The players finally wanted something more and they achieved it.
Rance and Martin have claims to being the outright best players in their positions across the entire league.
Staggeringly, people seem to forget how much of an out and out superstar Riewoldt is as a forward. He’s one of the best contested marks going around as well which is like gold in today’s game.
Tom Lynch is a star. Houli is arguably the best half back in the league. Grimes and Vlastuin are both very good players. Caddy was terrorising defenders only 2 season ago before changing to a different role. There’s a good mix of superstars and gun quality players before you add in the so-called ‘role players’.
We’ve probably got the gun/quality part of the list sorted and maybe SOME of the depth.
Superstars though, now we really only have 1 who is inconsistent at best and hasn’t played for 2 years.
Do we though? I don’t think we have a midfielder in the top handful in the league. I’m not confident at all that Merrett can get back there.
Nor do we have a kp on current form and fitness in the top bracket.
We have some players who could lay claim to bring elite in their position in the future, stringer, Fanta, tippa, JD?, McKenna and saad (neither are elite interceptors though).
We haven’t had an unstoppable match winner for a long long time
Many talk about ‘culture’ as the key factor in success. How to build a strong organisational culture is not a mystery. There would be a few examples of teams/clubs with poor culture, but most clubs would have the basics in place. I’d rate teams such as pies, cats, GWS, hawks, swans, roos, WCE, lions, dogs & tiges as all having good cultures - that’s more than half of the competition - although some of these teams don’t have the list profiles to challenge. Fans tend to rubbish clubs that fall short, but there is only one winner and there aren’t 17 clubs with poor culture.
But there seems to be a leap from having a good culture plus a strong list with the experience to execute the game plan, to achieving success.
There seemed to be a moment - 1st final in 2017 when Richmond ‘learned how to win’ big matches. They’d been badly beaten a few weeks earlier by 70% of a geelong team, but since that day they have been mostly awesome.
I think after an extended period of being committed and united they learned how to win on field, and how to successfully execute their specific game plan and overwhelm the opposition, in most games.
That leap from having the necessary cogs in the right places to success is probably made on the back of strong leaders on field, and a buy in from all 28-30 players who are also committed to the same cause.
People underate the Richmond football club something chronic. As though they have fluked their success off the back of one preseasons tweaking from an assistant coach.
They have stars at the peak of their careers. Rance, houli, Cotchin, Edwards, Martin, Reiwoldt, Lynch are as good as it gets.
Fantastic leaders. President, ceo, coach and captain are great and aligned.
Built over ten years and Dimma is massively underrated. Remember they were making finals for years before it clicked.
Recruited very well. Lots of role players but they identify them really well. For instance our role players bodies usually can’t hold up or the players have to many weakness.
Richmond are the best football club at the moment. Pinching a couple of their support staff isn’t going to turn us around in one off season. Especially as I don’t think our CEO and President come close to theirs.