Yeah like look at all the success they’ve had as team with all of his AA and Brownlow medals.
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Yep, they definitely would have had much more success without him. Probably multiple flags, in fact.
Don’t be ridiculous. GWS has done it perfectly. New club, top draft picks, blooding your own youngsters and filling in the gaps with blokes like Callan Ward, Heath Shaw and Mumford. That’s how it’s done. Not by pinning all your hopes on one player (who has achieved everything he wanted to already) and then wasting time with Campbell fking Brown.
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It’s very easy in hindsight, isn’t it. I seem to remember the commentary surrounding GWS wasn’t quite as glowing in 2013 after they won a single game while GC won 8.
The original comment that i found ridiculous was the suggestion that GAJ was, literally, the worst choice for GC. It’s a patently idiotic comment, even in hindsight and even as measured by the standards of Blitz. Nothing will change my view on that.
Hope the club folds.
CJC-1295 kings.
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I could not agree more. It’s worse though. Eade was not great with that coaching style anyway. He has never been successful anywhere yet has managed to have 2 extra and lengthy stints post Sydney. He must interview well.
Meanwhile it was not long ago that GC said they had made a mistake hiring Mckenna despite the fact that the team was more successful under him. I’m glad they did their sacking this week rather than before we play them.
Look, any team would love to have a player the calibre of Ablett on board, but he really needed more around him. They needed a core of experienced low-key disciplined hardarses to set example and establish culture - brilliance secondary behind commitment. Instead they had a bunch of mercenaries and flakes. Brennan, Hunt and Brown FFS. In hindsight, Ward is probably the single most important guy in GWS history because he set the tone and culture so emphatically.
Everyone at GC knew that Ablett is a bit of an unusual guy for a footy player with his religious beliefs etc, and they knew he’d be spending a lot if time in melb. Which is fine, Ablett can believe what he likes, and it takes all sorts to make a footy club, but with him not being around a lot and not having much in common with lots of his teammates when he was, it was a recipe for leadership vacuum. And that seems to have been a vacuum that Karmichael ‘pingaz’ Hunt seems to have stepped into. Aside from the obvious problem there, how are 18yos meant to learn about professional footy from someone who’s never played it?
But simply saying that GWS did everything right and GC stuffed everything up is unfair. GWS had significantly more concessions than GC (minidraft picks, bigger list size, higher salary cap…) and they got their pick of the underage crop in a much stronger draft year. And GC had their share of bad luck with frequent injuries to blokes like Swallow and Prestia in their early years. But in the end, it looks a lot to me like Ward vs Ablett was emblematic of the difference in approach between the two teams. GWS built from the bottom up, GC tried to build from the top down.
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You can’t infer that a ‘stronger draft year’ is a concession.
GCS went the galactico way with building their list, going talent over leadership with their headhunting and getting some proper dickheads. GWS wasn’t infallible and did make some bad recruitment decisions, but they set a culture first whereas with gcs they wanted a culture to happen.
Ablett the player is good for teams, ablett the person seems to alienate anyone that isn’t a bible thumper like him.
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I am curious if you have evidence for that rather than the usual innuendo I have seen?
you got evidence the players are leaning when they have to decide everything on gameday for themselves?
I’ll take that as a no and just biased comments about a Christian.
Depends if he’s the evangelical type or if he just gets on with it and answers questions about his faith if asked. I’ve known a few people in the former category and have found them hard yakka to get along with.
Abletts Christianity is not the issue. Piles of committed Christians have successfully captained clubs. The issue was his inability to establish a culture in the club. And there’s a bunch of reasons that happened. It’s been many times reported that the playing list split between the guys who went to church with Ablett and those who went out and hit the clubs, and Ablett (who is by all reports quite an introverted guy in person) wasn’t able to bridge the gap. It didn’t help that the captain who needs to set the example is buggering off back home to Melb half the time. And ALL of this is magnified when he has no leadership group around him who might be able to relate to the kids that don’t respond to his style, and who could be around the club when he was in Melb or injured. Ablett was simply asked to do too much in a position that required a skillset he wasn’t the strongest on.
Every club has blokes who differ in opinion & lifestyle, whether it’s religion, politics, taste in music and hobbies, or whatever. All of these differences are potential fracture points, which is why clubs have leadership GROUPS, so that there’s multiple layers of people and relationships holding the whole thing together. GC didn’t have that. They just had Ablett. And he couldn’t, or didn’t, do it.
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And that is a better answer. Those at Geelong have said that Ablett is actually a great bloke but he lacks a strong leadership style due to being an introvert. Ling has mentioned it a coupel of times in some of the games I have watched. It worked okay at the Cats because of those around him, a very strong team, but it didn’t at GC because there was no one else of decent quality. GC had banked heavily on JOM but his injuries caused a vacuum alongside the crap senior blokes they had brought in.
That was the problem, not Ablett in isolation and not his religious beliefs in isolation.
ling would tongue polpots balls if he played for geelong. also finish off with ‘hes a great larrikin and a lad’
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GCS got Ablett
GWS got Sheeds
/end
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I’d also add that getting Scully in (he was sub-par for many years when he got there considering his salary but he has really cracked on in the last two seasons and became a leader through his on-field performances) along with Ward were two very shrewd signings.
Mumford was the other big win they had of course - he was priceless for them in his first couple of years.
I stand by what I said. If they had got him as a player and not as a captain/leader it could of worked out ok.
But he is not a leader, doesn’t seem to want to play with even a bit of pain. Seems from the outside a very selfish footballer. I will never forget him missing out on a brownlow (think he was with geelong) and looking like he was going to cry
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If they are smart (a big if, going by their past practice, as has been discussed), then they will get Brett Ratten.
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