Yes. There’s a few - Draper, Redman, Smith. But no way are they are ready or capable of captaincy. Most have been “Heppelled”. I used to think Hurley would “kill” someone one day with his attack on the ball. Oh…what might have been!!!
Board CEO demanding success and making people And holding themselves accountable for it
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How about how Redman has regressed!?
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If there is one positive at all to take at the moment it’s that our inside 50 numbers are still ok and sometimes better than opposition even when we lose badly (Bris & Saints) which is unusual
Making far better use of those entries /trapping ball in our fwd line far better the keys to work on
Some of that is:
- Players taking pride/care in their disposal — should be happening by default, isn’t.
- Making smarter decisions with entries/when have ball in fwd line — composure
- Better personnel in fwd line — can’t be helped at present
- Better understanding/cohesion/application of our fwd group movement patterns and overall fwd half defensive structures — part personnel, part attitude, part learnings!
…
Even off a 4 day break & fatigued.
Even with so many players out of our best 22
We still beat Saints for inside 50’s.
There is something at least to work with but most of it is on the players both ball in hand and without. They need to take responsibility. Losing ain’t fun for anyone.
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Yep. And supposed to be the “risk management | governance expert. If it wasn’t so laughable it would be funny!
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Is he injured or is it a mental health issue?
We are unquestionably ■■■■, but I have seen little differences this year - amongst the ■■■■ - that give me some hope. The problem is, I really don’t care that much any more. A minute after the game was over on Sunday, I had let it go. Same with the week before. Same with the week before. The fact that I can’t recall when the shift happened, is more concerning than anything. I wasn’t overly happy when we won, and once I’m not watching the bullshit unfold, I’m not wasting my energy on being upset, either. If there are more like me, then the EFC has a problem on its hands - coz I never thought I’d feel this apathetic about the club.
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Nice little pump up for my boy Langford.
The leadership group should be picked by the coach and administration. The current process is like allowing your staff to interview for who their manager should be. Most will pick the nice guy who knows their stuff and they can manipulate easily and not the person that will demand excellence from them and hold them accountable.
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He and Francis have both gone backwards. It’s an indictment on the clubs player “development”.
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I feel pretty much the same way. Which is probably a good thing at present.
I know no-one wants to hear it, and I absolutely agree there are other issues, but injuries have crippled any chance we had this year. No team in the competition would be chalking up wins with 8-10 best 22 players out. But the manner of our losses says to me that either the players aren’t suited to the game plan or the messaging from the coaches isn’t getting through. That’s on the coaches, as is the poor and ultra-conservative team selections.
The list is obviously not perfect (and never will be), but in my opinion we’re only missing a couple of things: a bigger, goal-scoring midfielder, a good defensive midfielder and a couple more good talls. Draper, BZT, Jones and Bryan are all good prospects and could fulfill that second need. The first one is tougher, but we should go to the draft to fix areas of need. The following players have all showed, in decent sample sizes, that they can play quality football at AFL level: McGrath, Parish, Langford, Smith, Daniher, Merrett, Gleeson, Shiel, Francis, Zaharakis, Fantasia, Ridley, Hurley, Heppell, Stringer, Hooker, Redman, Ambrose, Saad, McTipungwuti and McKenna. We have a decent foundation.
Things can change very quickly in footy. The Bulldogs were garbage in 2012-14, won 15 games in 2015 and the flag in '16. Richmond were terrible in 2016, won the flag in '17 and again last year. Collingwood fans wanted Buckley sacked at the end of 2017, they were a kick away from a premiership in '18. What we really need is the right people in place to make the right off-field decisions. This is the biggest challenge, I reckon. On-field performance will flow from there.
Fear of the rebuild . Where does it come from . Not from members who are sick of this ■■■■ . From the very top . Fear to admit they have f#cked up . Fear of losing sponsors ? They will be losing a lot of supporters if they don’t go for a rebuild . The top up the list approach has worn thin after 20 years . It was with a shot to build around JD . This hasn’t worked obviously . New recruitment team and gut and rebuild .
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We are 5/6th in the list of games missed by best 22 players.
I don’t think the Club is afraid of the rebuild, it just chose to chase a flag.
I think that at the end of 2017 the decision was made to go hard for a flag in the following years. One last push for Hurely, Hooker, Heppell, Zaka, Myers, TBC etc.
At the end of 2017 we had a core group of senior players (some of whom were AA):
Hurley
Hooker
Heppell
Zaka
Goddard
TBC
We had stars of the future in Merrett and Daniher (a superstar forward to build the team around).
We had some young guys who were expected to come on in Gleeson, Parish, Francis, Langford, Laverde, McKenna and Fantasia.
We’d just uncovered an excitement machine in Walla.
Andrew McGrath had just won the Rising Star.
We had another group of ‘useful contributors’ and depth in Gleeson, Ambrose, Brown, Baguley, Hartley et al.
It’s not hard to see why the Club thought they had a pretty solid core of players. Bring in a few more ready made players like Saad, Stringer and Smith (and then Shiel) to complete the side.
The problem was:
- Daniher got broken
- Parish, Francis, Langford and Laverde didn’t come on as expected
- Goddard lost form quickly
- Gleeson lost a year thru injury
- Young players were constantly injured and/or didn’t develop
- Smith lost a year in 2019
- Heppell got injured and was next to useless 2019, as too Fantasia
- Age has now caught up with Hurley, Hooker and TBC
- We had a conservative coach that didn’t coach the team to push for a flag but rather coached to learn and develop.
I have no problem with the decision back then. But it is time to rebuild now.
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I doubt this is accurate. Anyway, when we had more players available earlier in the season, we were winning (not playing well, sure), and our only loss was by 1pt on the back of the McKenna thing.
Who did we beat and by how much?
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Good post I think that’s exactly right.
I agree with most of what you are saying in principal, but I still believe our biggest issue is a lack of leadership and a clear plan.
The fact that we continued to tinker with coaching structures and gameplans throughout shows that we didn’t have a solid foundation or vision. We can complain all we like about injuries, development or rewarding senior saga players but if you don’t have a club that is unified then you will never win anything.
Our foundations are rotten and that’s what needs to be fixed before we even consider anything else.
Sides like Geelong, Eagles and the Hawks aren’t continually up the top by chance.
They are getting a whole lot of the important stuff right and putting themselves in a position where luck can get them the remainder of the way.
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Yep, weaker opposition and not by much. But the performances and results have clearly fallen away in recent weeks in line with the more injuries we’ve had.
Has our performances fallen away or have they simply been masked by an easy early draw?
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