BF if you can find someone who is quicker over 10m but slower over 100m than someone who runs sub-11 then I will give you a billion dollars.
About 95% of a sprinter’s training load is focused on the first 10m so of course they’re going to be quick.
So you disagree it was a bad idea to take a guy who’d proven to be…
- A good assistant coach
- A crap senior coach
…and basically make him our senior coach? That’s not trying something different it’s the definition of insanity.
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Craig was appointed to the new position of head of coaching development and strategy in October 2013. Little fanfare in the press.
A year later, 2014, he became General Manager of Football Performance, his previous role appears to have vanished into clean air.
Neeld landed at Tulla in October 2014, no doubt Craig orchestrated the coup.
Looks dodgy, Fitzpatrick probably spewed up at Essendon’s recovery and made sure Melbourne losers would ■■■■ us up.
Who ever said he was “puppet master”?
The structure that they evidently had was that advice from assistant coaches, senior players, boot studders and others was to be filtered through Neeld, who would discard the rubbish and pass on the good stuff to Worsfold, who would then make the decisions.
That’s not being a puppet master, but it is a position on which a lot depends. If it’s done well, the good stuff gets through and the rubbish doesn’t. If it’s done badly, the reverse happens.
Apparently the club thought that Neeld was not doing the filtering job well, and he’s gone as a result. He hasn’t been replaced so presumably more people will get their ideas through to Worsfold. Whether that’s a good thing or not remains to be seen.
Personally, the one person I’d like to see beside Worsfold on match day is Kevin Sheedy. Whatever his shortcomings (and there were quite a few), he was a great game-day coach, able to spot a strength and a weakness very early and do something about it. And that is Worsfold’s weak point.
Unfortunately that’s not going to happen, but I reckon it would work. And Sheedy’s at the stage where he’d probably be quite happy to leave the rest of the coaching game to others.
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So what was it?
Not at all.
I’m saying that if you sack people who are responsible for trying new things that end up being failures, you end up with an organisation full of people who won’t put forth any new ideas about anything for fear of losing their jobs.
Haul them over the coals, sure, but don’t sack them.
I actually rate the setups of the midfield group as an improvement. We don’t have the same inside grunt but I think we’ve been more competitive in the middle because of better positioning. Even if we send him back to the forwards coach, there’s good evidence to suggest Skippy is a capable coach. I don’t really care if we had a full clean out, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a review found he had value.
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Going by the club’s recent form can we assume Skipworth is going to slot straight into Neeld’s role?
I get that. But I still don’t agree putting someone in a position of failure when they’re a proven failure in that position is some cunning risk/strategy, it’s plain crazy.
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Unfortunately that strategy is far too logical, and transparent, for our current coaching panel.
It’s obviously not “the way we want to play.”
And once we work out what that looks like, don’t get ahead of yourselves as supporters 'cause if we’re keeping our players in the dark we’re hardly gunna let you guys in on it.
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I watched bloke named Ray Rigby beat top sprinters over 20 metres at Sandringham back a long time ago.
Rigby was an Olympic shot putter and weightlifter.
You owe me a billion
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It’s the Peter Principle - that people get promoted to the point of incompetence. Malthouse was offered the Demons job, said no, but said Neeld was the most impressive player developer he’d seen. Other players have issued similar praise. He gets promoted till he’s out of his depth, bombs, and we are smart enough to snaffle him and return him to where he’s theoretically best-in-industry - player development. Then our gas pipes start leaking again and a bout of the Tullamarine genius sets in and we decide to again promote him to a level he’s ostensibly incapable of performing at, AND in a position/role which he’s seemingly not well suited to.
I don’t buy into the notion that anyone on Blitz can really assess an assistant coach’s performance but on the face of it, particularly in light of these comments in the press, it’d be mind boggling if it wasn’t so believably “us”.
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I’ve never worked in an organisation that did anything to actively stifle communication and creativity. In fact the opposite. Promote open and honest communication up, down and across the organisation. Encourage and empower everyone to be creative thinkers and share their ideas.
Clearly, the coaches box is a high pressure environment and it requires strategies to ensure the communication is effective and not a distraction. I’m just staggered the strategy agreed on was to mute at least 50% of the people in the room and make one person the arbiter for what communications were worthwhile and what was a good idea and what wasn’t.
I can’t accept that Mark Neeld conceived of and implemented that strategy completely on his own. So right now, to me now he looks like an incredibly convenient scape goat.
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Training methods have changed a bit since the depression
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Fwiw, I don’t wish Neeld any ill will.
But when you see and hear how poor he was at Melbourne tactically and management wise, and then you see a frighteningly similar outcome developing in front of your eyes (and ears depending on who you listen to) - just a few months after he assumes a position that could impact on such things - then I’m erring on the side of caution. Get him out. It’s that simple.
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My big concern with the structure of having a senior assistant to ‘filter’ information from the other assistants (who have defined areas of responsibility as it is) shows a lack of confidence in the abilities of those assistants. What sort of senior coach doesn’t want his assistants providing information and recommendations? A good senior coach should have the confidence that the people he has surrounded himself with will provide the right info at the right time, as well as being confident to be able to then make good decisions regardless.
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Are poor ■■■■■■■
We don’t really know to what extent he designed the game plan, to what extent he filtered feedback to Worsfold, we don’t know what the players think of him, we don’t know what the line coaches think of him.
No doubt Xav and Dan canvassed opinion amongst stakeholders inside the club. They came to a decision, and cut the ground out from under him, by “making his position redundant”, popped some no disparagement clauses in with a nice sweetener and now its fait accompli.
Its done and dusted, lets see whats next, and we have 3 weeks to see more fallout if we keep playing badly.