You call what has happened at the club in the last 5 years breathing space?
2 Likes
haha…all that stuff would have been a blip on the radar compared to what ended up happening
2 Likes
I thought Knights could coach. He was given no support in terms of staff, recruiting and facilities. And our list was full of washed up stars and list cloggers. He even had to put up with a petulant captain who undermined his authority.
When Hird came in they opened the cheque book and gave him all the support he could hope for. I wonder how Knights would have gone given the same opportunities. Also, perhaps because of the conditioning staff we had, Knights typically had half a list to choose from.
Knights is harshly judged, in my opinion, because he wasn’t an Essendon man. He had a game plan that was innovative (can we say the same about Hird and Woosha?), we regularly beat teams who had better players, and he made finals with a mediocre list.
Putting all that aside, to say we are better off post-Knights is kinda ridiculous for obvious reasons that don’t need to be mentioned.
12 Likes
You mean Knights was given a present of two years’ salary just so that the Board bludgers would keep their seats ?
Nah. Leading up to the final loss against the Bulldogs, the board was copping heat for extending Knights instead of waiting.
Attendance figures also weren’t too pleasing.
being in the crowd for Knights last game of coach, i have never heard a crowd so dead(. The whole club was just going through the motions at that point.
Knights was a awful coach, plain and simple. Just sucks that we wasted 3 years under him. People saying people didnt take to him because he wasn’t an Essendon person, pls
7 Likes
Hard to believe he couldn’t do better with stars like Rhys Magic, Dean ■■■■ and Danny Chartres getting a game. In his last game as coach, every available player got selected. That’s the closest I’ve ever seen a side get to not having enough fit players to field a full team.
3 Likes
When was it said only for 3 months?
you dont think he had proved he was an awful coach before that.
Would have to agree to disagree on Knights. I think he was a one dimensional coach. He hasn’t coached at senior level since being sacked no has he been reported as being in interviews. He was a VFL coach until a few years ago when they elevated him to an assistant coach at Geelong.
Upon reading your post, I misread it. We aren’t in a better place post Knights but I don’t attribute it to the change of coach. If Bomba wasn’t involved, would we have gone through the saga? If we gave Hird the flick and kept Bomba as coach for 2015, would it have changed the outcome for the better?
At the time, we had to sack Knights. He clearly wasn’t getting the players to perform. Whether we had a good list or not, Hird got us playing a more accountable style with pretty much the same list. He was having the same problems as Knights though bevause he couldn’t get players to run out a season well.
Bomba and Worsfold are the only coaches who got us playing more consistently across an entire season without hitting the wall at round 16.
2 Likes
I think the thing with Knights is he was unable to get the senior players onside with the way he coached/interacted.
The stamping of authority he tried to undertake simply didn’t work. Much like Mark Neeld.
There are so many elements to being able to effectively be a senior coach and you can have all the football knowledge in the world but if you can’t manage / motivate a broad range of players personalities and ages it’s not going to work
That reflects poorly on the senior players of the time also.
1 Like
Does it?
I would expect they were all open to buying in on his game plan, giving him time to establish himself as coach etc
But in the end if it all wasn’t working they aren’t going to stay onside when losing games and unhappiness with the group as a result of his methods.
Wasn’t about them acting like petulant teenagers, we are talking very very experienced senior players like Fletch who’d likely have been one of the more coachable players ever.
1 Like
For a club to be successful then a lot has to go right.
I don’t think the structures that we had in place at the time would allow for any coach to be successful.
I’m with Windy Dill on this one.
Difficult to be too critical of a coach that was surrounded by terrible infrastructure.
Technically, if we thrash the Tigers, Bulldogs, and Hawks- that word CAN be applied 
He was definitely up against it as a post Sheedy untried coach without much in the way of football department spending & experience around him
1 Like
Fkg concur
He may have been a bad coach but the club was in a bad way at the time so I can’t judge him either way.
We only started making inroads with our spend when Hurd arrived and now we are starting to see the results of it.
There is a direct correlation with innovation off the field and success in field.
The only outlier would be what the bulldogs achieved. They are truely the Leicester City of the AFL.
Why, in your story, did he start and finish doing this in 2013? Is it maybe that he was coaching the same all the way through - but that year (above others) he had a cohesive, settled 22, and good senior leaders, and everyone all on the same page that year??
FWIW I didn’t think he was that flash as a game day coach. Too often he started with a defensive and conservative side and mindset, I don’t think he was prepared to back our 6 forwards to kick scores against 6 defenders - and that hurt us. Lots.
1 Like
Good post.
2 Likes