John Worsfold

I am more concerned what they might look like when they are over 25 given our stellar development.

I think he has but would like to spend some time with his family first. Think he’s got a job at Ch 7 lined up for next year so he if he were to go into coaching it will be in 2019.

…and Silver.

Yeah but theres about 6 good ones, the rest are about average at best. And we don’t have alot of faith that the current recruiting team will get the next 2-3 drafts right

As I see it, there are a few very strong camps. All are very convincing. So much so, I do believe they may all be correct.

1/ Worsfold is not the coach for us. Non-tactical. Doesn’t instruct well. Leaves it up to the players. Last flag was won with a team of sky-high coke-heads. Deadpan. Does not inspire. Game plan will not hold up in finals.

2/ Worsfold is ok, but assistants need to go. Neeld is a ‘worm’. All are failed coaches. Rejects. Too many old Essondonians. Boys club. Has beens. Not up to today’s cutting edge plans. Too long from the playing scene. Selection Committee is a joke, and everyone can see it. We allow our secret stash of sensitive family photos to get in the wrong hands.

3/ The coaching team is fine - it’s development. We bring 'em in, and fark 'em up. We imprint a stamp of failure on them. It’s infectious. Highly contagious. We stuff their kicking accuracy. We infect them with lethargy. And we hang on to them far too long. We rookie instead of clean out and refresh.

4/ Development and coaching would be fine, if we had the cattle. Which we do not. We have a soft team. One that is unwilling to ‘go the hard yards’. To commit fully and unconditionally. They lack backbone. A certain edge. We have a team of average Joes, surrounded by a small sprinkling of young super-stars who will soon be corrupted anyway. We need to bring in serious players. Ones with nice sensible hair, and that don’t smell because of their dreads. And they get paid too much. Or we get paid too little, take your pick.

5/ It’s not the players’ fault. The structure is wrong. The ‘build’ is shiit, and has been for 17 years. We cannot, will not recruit the right people. We pick up cast-off spuds from other teams, and we draft HBF to become mids. Our list management is abysmal and has been that way since…1980’s? There is an evil menace lurking in the background - one of many jackets…working his way slowly, inexorably, insidiously, white-anting the team…a cunning fox …that speaks Italian.

6/ Forget all that rubbish. It’s the board. The fish rots at the head. A weak and ineffectual board and management. One that apologises if they upset someone. Who are either unwilling to see the issues, or are complicit and lack the moral fiber to belly-slash themselves, so to speak, and give the reins over to someone with a steel rod for a backbone. Someone hard. Exciting. Glistening. Throbbing, even. Spill this farked up board. It’s long overdue.

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cough
You’ve forgotten 7.

Very good, though.

hahaha trust you to notice :wink:

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The Swans didn’t spend 2016 on a boat in Croatia?

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Hahahaha!

Essendon has said that every year since 2001’s “getting jet midfielders is our #1 priority”.

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Hard to believe isn’t it.

Not getting my hopes up I expect us to come away with nothing during the trade/FA period just like every other year.

If all the bad is the head coaches fault, all the good is too.

I think you’re going to be very very …very…surprised, this draft period…:wink: :wink:

(nah, just kidding ya)

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Ahh yes that old chesnut. Let’s blame it all on the saga… forever.

Reality check: Saga affected players yesterday were:
Watson (last legs, wasn’t in our worst),
Hurley (reckon it was the calf injury that hurt more than his time off last year - AA this year leads me to think the time in Crotia didn’t kill him too much)
TBell - Had a mare… might have been the saga or maybe he is just a bog average player that tends to go missing a lot especially in big games.
Heppell - Arguably our most ‘saga effected’ player all year… either that or the game has moved past him or maybe he doesn’t suit the game plan… or maybe this rumoured hip is to blame… I don’t know but I sure as hell reckon there are about ten things that would come before the ‘saga’ when thinking about his performance.
Myers - Was crap before the ban, is still crap. Blame the saga or blame the muppets who keep selecting him. They have had a full season to assess that he is crap and yet there he was… but yeah saga saga
Colyer - See Myers… had a brief patch of form in 2015 but lets face it… was scratchy for most of his career. no doubt the injuries and ban have hurt him… but we knew about that LONG before the finals and yet he got picked.

I’m not suggesting the saga is unimportant but give me a break… our performance yesterday had SFA to do with the saga. The glaring issues have been there all season and we have done nothing to address them. I’m not going to suggest the saga didn’t fark with their careers… but ffs it is time to move on. How long are we going to blame the saga for being unprepared??

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You’ve listed 6 out of 22 players. That’s a fair chunk. It’s hardly an old chestnut. You are delusional if you think just because the club labels this season a comeback story that the past is behind us.

I brought the saga up because of the line re: players preparation. Given many of the players have suggested the shock at the increase in pace of the game since they were out and the impact of returning to weekly football on their bodies, I’d guess it’s what Woosha was talking about.

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Righto… then if that was going to be such an issue maybe we shouldn’t have selected them then… If they weren’t right then they shouldn’t have been picked.

If they are that mentally scarred then sack the lot of them and move on. The only saga-effected players I reckon you would bother keeping/close to best 22 are Heppell, Hooker and Hurley… if we could find any kind of ruck replacement I would trade Tbell in a heartbeat.

But if you are suggesting that those four will be ever unable to overcome the bans… then by all means trade the lot of them and start again… At this point the excuses have to stop… that is my main issue. Stop allowing crappy performances to be hidden under excuses. Every club has excuses… buddy got a cork, rampe broke his arm, mcveigh was injured, we lost naismith to richmond, tippett is out of form, the AFL didn’t let us trade, AFL took away our COLA…

The decision we, as a collective club, need to make is to stop making excuses, get ruthless and change our approach. Saga is done. Dusted. Time to move on. Start with finding the moron who signed Myers to 3 years, go to the group that kept selecting the spud and we are instantly a better team. Go to whoever was responsible for deciding we would abandon the hard man on man defensive web we spent six year perfecting in favour of a wait and see, hold back coralling web… that would help us not leak 10 goals in a 7 minutes. Go to the midfield genius that decided to instruct the ruck to tap to the hip str8 into the waiting hands of kennedy and parker all day… perhaps then we wouldn’t lose the clearance 0-7 in a row.

The stuff that killed us yesterday was not inspired, it was not unknown… these are issues that most of us have been talking about all season. The fact that we adjusted nothing tells me we were unprepared.

They have already shown that this ‘need finals experience’ BS is just that… BS. If you are good enough… you are good enough. Take a look at Richmond… they at least recognised they needed to CHANGE their game style to win a final and they have played that way all season. Surprise to no one that they spanked Geelong. Geelong has plenty of finals experience… didn’t mean they were ‘better prepared’. Last year the Dogs took down WCE at home, Hawks and GWS at home to find their way to the big dance… preparation is not linked to how many finals you have played… it is linked to a coach understanding the playing group, the tactics and being the right man for the job.

We were not prepared for the game… but yeah blame the saga.

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Fair enough… but if the head coach thinks any player is unprepared… then he should encourage the match selection panel (which he is part of) to not select the player.

I respect your view and all those who want to interpret his words another way… but our coach admitted that our opposition was better prepared. Maybe someone will have the chance to qualify that with Woosha at some point but those were his words and I reckon, for once, they were pretty spot on. Sydney have a lot of younger players… but they were better prepared. They had a plan, they stuck to the plan, they absorbed our pressure early and then made the necessary adjustments at quarter time. From there it was all over and the rest was just time filler.

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They are clearly best 22. I think of it like a player back from a knee reco, or a player off a limited preseason. I’d be shocked if the returning players weren’t suffering physically by seasons end.

I reckon a squad with 3xAAs in Zerrett (22), Hurley (26) and Daniher (23), one on the cusp in Fantasia (22), the rising star McGrath (18), Parish, Gleeson, McKenna, Stewart and Walla is in pretty good nick. If I was an opposing coach I’d be quite jealous of the young talent we have.

If a couple of Francis, Langford, Laverde, Begley, Mutch, Draper et al turn into players we are going to be in really good shape.

I ■■■■■■■ hated losing yesterday and I hated the way we lost even more, but 2016 was a necessary last hurrah for a few blokes that we owe a lot to.

B: Baguley Ambrose Gleeson
HB: McKenna Hurley Francis
C: Zaharakis Heppell Colyer
HF: Stewart Daniher Begley
F: Walla Hooker Fantasia
R: Bellchambers Parish Merrett

The future looks bright.

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Everyone is amazed with what Worsfold has achieved with the team except for Blitz. Was a good first year.

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