John Worsfold

In Worsfolds first year as coach he had half his side leave.
This year he had to take on a number of guys in the back end of their careers who hadn’t played any meaningful footy for 2 years (Watson, hocking, Myers, Belly) and 1 year.
For me, these guys were thrust upon him. He wouldn’t have had a choice.
How could someone call for his head when he has not had 1 preseason to make his own list decisions?
It’s simply stupidity to make a call on his time at essendon and think you can assess his coaching of our club to date.

Myers, hocking, Stanton and howlett are all in the 2s. Watson is being treated with respect in possibly his final year. Hooker and Hurley are elite.
Hepp is not on top of his game but it will come, and Belly shows more than any ruck at our club and is improving every week… Worsfold has it spot on with these guys IMV.

We should’ve beaten Brisbane (I was there) and yes the loss was predictable. The apathy, lack of response to a mundane performance throughout made my skin crawl. I’m still willing to be patient with the side as I believe we have a young group that are teachable and hungry for success and a coach that has been great for our club and has been there before and can take them there.

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27 points up in the last and we lose.
Coaches fault or players?
Or heaven forbid both?
You judge a good coach on consistency of reaction to unacceptable performance
You want all over the shop reactive coaching you get Rodney Eade.
If Woosha doesn’t move on some significant changes to our playing list at the end of the year then tear him a new one.
He can’t draft players mid game when they suddenly revert to crap soft form. But he can mark their cards.
That’s why this year is a learning one - we are playing better, but still have huge holes.
Better to have this shown AND do something about it in the medium / long term than paper over the cracks on game day.
Eg Parish has desperation and hates to lose - Langford, Colyer and others go missing

I recall he and list management group said the players returning from bans will need to really want to be part of what we’re building towards. Finals this year wasn’t out of the question but I didn’t expect it. I’m not sure if next year is going to be any different.

It’s been found that Hocking, Stanton and Howlett are barely playing senior footy and are list cloggers.
By the end of next year Goddard and Watson are candidates to join them as list cloggers should they stay on.

Tough list decisions must be made. Worsfold is a part of that decision making process as would Dodoro. The decisions must be made for the betterment of the club not the betterment of the individual.

Worsfold doesn’t need to be sacked at the end of the year, but criticism is required when warranted just like praise is required when warranted.

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Yep. The players and their attitude is the problem here. Coaching wasn’t great, but bullshite attitude from the players was the main culprit. They were arrogant and insipid. And it’s not the first time. Every time this happens, they acknowledge it, swear to do something about it, and then just repeat it next time.

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Which players Reboot?

Raz, Tippa, JD, McKenna, Zach, Conor, McGrath, Parish?

Somewhere earlier in this thread, i posted that i thought Worsfolds biggest task was to fix the clubs mental state. Far more than the actual skills and tactics. Its not just the playing group, the entire organisation freezes in the spotlight for matches like yesterday. Its a circle where we fear/expect exactly what we then dish up. Target fixation in motorcycle terms.

But , on the coaching, i have little confidence in Neeld being good for anything other than player development away from gameday. Should not have a tactical or motivation role at all.

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God, Brisbane were rubbish…

Morning, all.

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Spot on. Dale in administration was rubbish all week. Didn’t step up when picking up coffees for the 11:30 meeting. Arragontly used font size 14 for his internal memo.

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You can be pithy about it, but clubs take on distinct ‘personalities’ in entirety that can be very tough to shake.

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**[quote=“saladin, post:3400, topic:2976, full:true”]
Its not just the playing group, the entire organisation freezes in the spotlight for matches like yesterday.

[/quote]

Sorry Sal, but that is just wrong. I can’t unfortunately repeat them, but if you had of heard some of the conversations I did yesterday you would realise how far off the mark you are.

I think it’s easy to blame Woosha because if we did a big deeper into the Essington issue where going to discover who’s really to blame for this culture and it’s not going to be nice.

Watson…Hooker…Hurley…Bellchambers…Colyer…Zaharakis…Myers…Hocking…Howlett…

All long serving, loyal Essendon people and the very essence of Essington. I’m not sure how or who infected those guys but they’re infected. Move them on.

Say what you want but we’re not going anywhere with any of those blokes in the team. Hurley and Bellchambers maybe stay. And Hooker if he’s played back.

And make Parish captain.

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Maybe we need to hear these conversations, then.

No, I don’t mean from you. Obv.

It’s possible the loss to Sydney played a part in yesterday’s listless performance and combine that with taking the bottom team for granted (players and coaches alike) was a always going to be a recipe for disaster.

That’s why I blame the coaches. Poor preparation, not having the players primed for the contest. People within the club can be piss_d all they like but it’s a serious indictment on coaches that they can have the boys playing really intense footy against top 4 teams and not have them equally ferocious against teams out of the 8.

Another season of less than 10 wins is not good enough. Worsfold is safe this year but his assistants should be under the spotlight. Time for change

I probably didnt explain it well. Im sure that some straight talking is going on. But collectively, as “Essendon”, we dished up what many of us feared -and dare i say, expected- through experience over the last decade.

Im a believer in the idea of organisations effectively being a collective living entity with its own traits and mannerisms. Thats players, admin, members, fans, the whole lot. We have invariably tripped over ourselves for a decade or more. Actually, in my time Essendon have always been a bit prone to that, but the balance has shifted too far to that end irrespective of playing and coaching personel.

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Seems pretty clear that we have absolutely no idea how to negate teams that bring a strong defensive mindset to the game - Carlton, Brisbane, Sydney (for three quarters), Richmond etc. have all beaten us more or less the same way, which is simply throwing an extra or two in defence and/or blocking the corridor. Conversely, we’ve carved up teams that haven’t bothered playing defence or have gifted us use of the corridor, like Port and WC.

Pretty embarrassing that we’re so easily beaten by one simple strategy. Don’t know whether it’s a coaching issue or player mentality/‘cultural’ issue, but it’s embarrassing all the same.

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I don’t think we have much tactical nouse on game day.

Everyone knows my distaste for skip worth but his game day coaching in the vfl was decidedly underwhelming.

Harv’s is a failed senior coach.

Same with McKenna.

I wanted Egan to be groomed for the head role so bad.

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Do you think the players are not feeling the consequences of this by basically going ‘yep we were arrogant won’t happen again’ and none of the worst offenders are getting dropped?

Sorry, sick of this cliche.
Port & Weagles didn’t gift us the corridor - we sliced through it.
Collingwood - congested corridor
Sydney - BS - they beat us through contested ball at stoppages when on a roll.
Bears - Oh look - they went from 27 down by beating us at contested stoppages when on a roll!

Richmond & Carlton - beat us by clogging corridor - 2 examples doesn’t make it a truism.

We are losing largely because of contested ball stoppage work shortcomings. And the inability to stop a team on a roll driving forward.
And some other issues - see above posts for a range of suggestions.

Please don’t take game analysis cliches from King & Ling

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That’s 2 possibilities that cropped up for me, but also, Brisbane are building a pretty good side…

Many good kids there, and they can play when they get switched on, and after coming from a long way back against us & getting very close,… in fact heading us in the last IIRC, just 10 or so weeks ago, it was clear they turned up with a firm belief in themselves to be able to match us, … and if we headed them, … to catch us.

They were right, and they & their coaches used that last recent good effort to feed a lot of confidence.

They, along with Neeld, were considered good enough assistant coaches to get a go at being a head coach. That doesn’t make them bad assistant coaches. It just means they got too far.

I think AFL discards far too many coaches.

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