Mark Robinson: How X marks the spot in Bombers’ controversial review into football department
Essendon has launched a review of its underachieving football department yet the kingpin responsible for building it isn’t under scrutiny. Something doesn’t add up, writes Mark Robinson.
Essendon is reviewing every aspect of its failing football department.
Yet, it isn’t reviewing the person who put the failing football department together.
His name is Xavier Campbell.
He’s the boss and the buck always stops with the boss.
The review — which they were never going to have — was finally announced by president Paul Brasher on Monday night, and not before time.
The football department is in crisis.
The review — to be completed by directors Sean Wellman, Kevin Sheedy and Simon Madden — needs to bring about significant change because why have a review in the first place?
Brasher said he didn’t anticipate blood being spilt. It’s more about “adding rather than deleting’’.
That’s a baffling comment. It would seem everyone’s job is safe despite the review not even being started.
The club says the review — which will focus on player development, coaching and list management — will be exhaustive.
Here’s the review in a nutshell:
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The game style is broken and the players won’t or can’t defend. Why?
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There is confusion on the field. Why?
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There is fluctuating effort from week to week and often from quarter to quarter. Why?
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There’ a coach who seems to smile — maybe nervously — on the bench when they are 40 points down. Why? The optics are bad.
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Players walk from the club: Daniher, Saad, Fantasia, McKenna, Tipungwuti, and before them Ryder, Houli, Hibberd and Melksham. Why? Go ask them.
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The team is 2-9? Is it the coach? Is it the culture? How much fault lies with the chief executive?
The Bombers conducted a review 18 months ago, led by Brasher, there was little change and this review can’t be so accommodating.
If the Carlton review of last year is the model, then heads need to roll. The coach and chief executive at the Blues were replaced and the footy boss hung on by a thread.
Clearly, the Essendon review should be conducted by external people, because assessing yourself has its challenges. Like, friendships and favourites come into play.
Sheedy is 74-years-old, but he should be handed the keys to the review.
If Sheedy is not infuriated by the goings on at a club he transformed from snowflake to powerhouse 40 years ago, he should be.
His critics will say he is too old, but the smart ones say Sheedy knows people, knows football and knows success.
Jargon has changed in football, but not the fundamentals.
He laid down the uncompromising culture. He gave Essendon an identity. People hated him at times for it, but he made the club successful.
It’s about putting the right people in the right positions. You pick the players to play, the coaches to coach and managers to manager to create the required environment.
The chief executive is a curious player in all this.
He’s a good man Campbell, and good at marketing and numbers. The same can’t be said of his football acumen. Maybe Brasher got it right when he said Campbell was the “best commercial CEO in the competition”.
Brasher apologised for not informing members about Campbell’s contract extension. That’s also bizarre. There’s no way a club should have the luxury of reappointing its CEO without telling their members, and certainly not when its football program — his football program — is a basket case.
Campbell is at the centre of all the major football decisions.
He hired Rob Kerr as football boss and Kerr moved on. He hired Dan Richardson and sacked Richardson. He hired Josh Mahoney — who worked with Wellman at Melbourne — and the jury is out on Mahoney.
Noted, Richardson and Mahoney were all moved sideways at their previous football clubs before joining the Bombers.
Campbell also oversaw the hiring of Mark Neeld, Neil Craig and Craig Jennings at the football club — and they are all gone.
He extended John Worsfold’s contract and put in place, with Richardson, the succession plan from Worsfold to Rutten.
There was no due process.
Campbell and Richardson, the latter who worked with Rutten at Richmond, decided Rutten was the coach.
Why wasn’t Michael Voss interviewed for the job, or Craig McRae, or Ross Lyon, or Dean Solomon?
Who’s the Mark Williams-type in the footy department? Or Neil Balme? Why not ask Lyon if he’s interested in a role? We know he’s a hard bastard.
Also, Dale Tapping was Brisbane’s midfield coach and he comes to Essendon and is not in charge of the midfield. Again, putting people in the right places.
Essendon fans are disillusioned and its bordering on upheaval. They want to have faith in Rutten and Co, yet their faith is being railed.
Meanwhile, three heart and soul Bombers — James Hird, Mark McVeigh and Dean Solomon — are sitting in a coaches box in Western Sydney.
Hird would love to coach Essendon again, and he may yet be appointed the Giants coach. It’s a strange world.
How Campbell can escape scrutiny in this latest review for the decisions he’s made in the football department is bewildering to say the least.
And how Brasher can guarantee Rutten’s position before the review has even started is equally bewildering.
Rutten might become a great coach, but he cannot get his team to defend and be consistently competitive.
Is that coaching or is that culture?
If it’s coaching, Rutten must fix it or be replaced. If it’s culture well, that’s Campbell’s portfolio, as is his appointments to the football program.
Not for the first time, it’s over to you Sheeds.
