Something seriously wrong with the club (Part 1, May 2019)

[SMJ]

Im not one to quote past posts but this is something i posted after round 2 (I think) last year. I still believe every word of it.

@SMJ

• Stop talking like we are a mighty and successful club. We’re not. We’re a joke. Stop talking about our history, stop teaching the players about it. Just stop. Our history is one premiership in the last TWENTY FIVE YEARS. That is it. We’re nothing. As I’ve said a hundred times before, take all the premiership cups out of the fkn lobby and sink them to the bottom of the ocean because they are completely worthless and utterly irrelevant in 2019. Talking about past success only breeds present complacency and I find it amazing that the club cannot see this.
• Take all older, broken, Essingtoned players for who we can get a trade, any trade, and ship them off. Zak, Hurley, Heppell, Hooker, Bellcho, Myers if anyone will have him, hell even Daniher, Merrett, etc. Trade them all for picks. Pick only U18 players with those picks.
• Recast our leadership with players who aren’t broken - aka players from other clubs. Shiel, Smith, Stringer, Saad for instance. Players who actually look like they give a fark and haven’t been full Essingtoned yet. Put a few good young kids in that leadership group too.
• New coaching panel. Brand new. Zero Essendon influence. First time senior coach with a successful playing record (not a good player, a player from a successful team). Surround him with recently retired successful players as assistants. All newbies. Sign the coach on a 6 year contract with massive payout clauses. Make it impossible for a future board to sack him no matter how dire the rebuild gets or how long it takes.
• Anyone on the board or senior leadership teams who was involved at all with the club during the Saga goes. No baggage. Get rid of all of it.
• New logo. It sounds dumb but these things can be important with total restructures like this. The old logo is a symbol of failure and of the Saga. No more. Gone.
• New recruiters, conditioning staff, everybody. No more old thinking. No more chips on shoulders. Only new thinking and new people.
• Accept that the rebuild will be long, like really long, and that things will get much much much worse before they get better. Expect 4-5 wins first year. Probably only 2/3 wins second and third years. 6-8 wins fourth year, 10ish wins fifth year, spot in 8 sixth year, contending for flag seventh and eighth years.