What's gone wrong

Neeld - what the hell is he doing there? The centreline disaster has his fingerprints all over it. His hiring must be one of the most disastrously stupid coaching team decisions in modern times.

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No, I didn’t get a reply

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It might be coming with your membership card…

all jokes aside that’s very poor, that at least someone didn’t get back to you

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In all seriousness just have a look at the recent threads to see what’s gone wrong.

It’s 2018 and we are discussing:

  • Hooker back or forward
  • Lack of gun midfielders
  • Development, young players not coming on as we would like
  • The Saga
  • Coaches, including who has what responsibility
  • Being mentally weak
  • Lack of game plan

I disappeared for years and it is literally the same topics we were discussing 2, 5, 10 years ago.

Absolutely none of the issues have been addressed for a decade and there is not a plan in place to address any of them. What we get is an e-sports team, a women’s football team, a basketball team and a chatbot tweeting “we have to be better” after every loss. After 10 years of the SAME issues, we know we have to be better… how does the club plan to get us there?

I’m in the position where I’ll click on player threads and the last post I read was 2015/2016, so I see what we were saying then and what we are saying now. It’s either exactly the same, or it’s full of hope that was not delivered on. The development of players is fundamentally flawed and we are not only not developing them, we are sending them backwards. This issue is 15 years old yet what’s the plan to change it?

There are minor adjustments we can make to maybe improve and win enough games to sneak into the 8. We will lose first round, have a good off-season, rinse and repeat; we’ve done it for so long now I honestly don’t know what year it is.

The problem is so much deeper than simply plugging gaps and spot fixing current issues because it runs so deep in the culture of our club. We need strong leadership to step up and change, be ruthless, set standards, make hard calls and stick firm. We need external viewpoints, we need to research other clubs, we need to have an actual plan in place to fix the core problems or in another ten years it will be “James Stewart - Forward or Back?”.

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Aside from my normal rants, I asked some pretty legitimate questions, and made basically the points any rational person has been making all year

Oh well. I hope people put pressure on the club with emails demanding answers, demanding improvement. The more people who do it, the louder the message

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exactly. If you were ranting and raving and abusing him. It would be fine to ignore it. But you asked some good questions and showed respect while doing it. “sigh” this club can sometimes make it really hard to love them

Not if they have no one to kick it to down field.

One of the earliest things that the club got wrong was the interpretation of “we need to defend better”. Instead of teaching players individually how to defend we put a plan in place to play extra men behind the ball and put numbers around the stoppage.

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Yep, so much discussion thats just p8ssing into the wind. It’s a bit of fun, pretending we have a clue and that we’re gun coaches… but you’re right YT, some deep seated cultural issues at this club that need addressing whilst we p8ssfart around with our Hooker back or fwd chats and movie gifs. Few would lose sleep at night over it but still, we want our kids and their kids to choose the red and black and there needs to be change at the cultural level for that to be guaranteed.

I agree that’s a huge issue also but they’re related.

At the ground on Saturday I ranting about our forward movement but watching the replay there were also times when players were in a reasonable spot. I’d get sick of leading if it was never honoured.

I also think a few of those players could do more to spread from the contest, it’s not just the forwards

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The difference is in how they kick. Hurley, and BJ for that matter, kick a higher, slower ball. Half of Gleeson’s value for distributing of half back is the sharp, hard, flat kick that gets to it’s target very quickly. It’s a skill we a really missing.

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in a similar vein, it seems hurley heppell zaka and a few others are always leaning back into kicks. but players like gleeson/mcniece/especially conor all lean into the kick which leads to a bullet making it harder to intercept.

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Zaka getting tagged

Colyer Green Raz injured

No goals from Joe and Hooker. 100 plus last year

Has anyone else noticed that when we have the ball in the back half. Opposition press us and just don’t man Goddard or Hurley up, their opponents often form part of the press. Outnumbering us.

When we press there are 2 of our defensive forwards farking chasing their defenders behind the press and then when the ball goes into the press they are farkin outnumbering us with someone like JD friggin chasing them up the corridor.

What the fark.

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Absolutely spot on and was quoted so everyone can read it again.

It is absolutely clear as day to me that a full club rebuild is required. Each day we put it off, we are further away from any success.

We are fundamentally so flawed, that it is an impossible feat to try to pin point the issues. They are everywhere and nothing but a complete hosing down will fix it.

8th. Not even a successful season - what happened to the Essendon of old?

For once (outside of Bomber for 15 minutes) we need to start again, actually get the best out there (not just available) and dont get Knights this time.

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remember when richmond belted us in the jlt and everyon was like yea nah just a pre season game

LOL

(loling coz i was one of those people)

  • nothing has changed since
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Espicaly how the club preached all summer that they need to get better defensivly and at winning the contested ball all i saw was that nothing changed.

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Comes down to tackle count for mine.
Devon Smith had 7 tackles.
9 players had 0 or 1 tackle the total sum being the same as Smith.

This is a basic marker for how much the team wants to apply themselves.
BJ had 0 tackles and he is a leader.

then next question is why won’t they apply themselves. the coach?

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Indeed we are a joke. But its not funny.

BOMBERS TACKLING EFFORT A JOKE: WALLACE
BY SEN 3 HOURS AGO

Three-time premiership player Terry Wallace has slammed Essendon’s tackling performance in the weekend’s loss to Hawthorn.

The Bombers slumped to 2-5 after the 23-point defeat, and managed to lay just 45 tackles for the game, a stat Wallace couldn’t believe.

“The Essendon football club, what a joke,” he told SEN’s KB and The Doc.

“Last week, they went and said, bring out the mouth guards, we are going to have a physical training session. We are going to show everyone what we are made of.

“Do you know the Essendon footy club on Saturday afternoon ended up being the 17th side for tackling over the weekend, after saying bring out the mouth guards.

“It’s ok to bring out the mouth guards and compete against yourselves, but when there is an opposition there who might actually come and whack you back, they didn’t want to have a bar of it.

“Fifteen players had two tackles or less. Nine players had one tackle or less and five players did not lay a tackle.”

Tom Bellchambers, Joe Daniher, Brendon Goddard, Cale Hooker and James Stewart finished the game on zero tackles, while Kobe Mutch, Darcy Parish, Adam Saad and Jake Stringer all had just one.

On the flipside, Devon Smith led the way seven tackles, which made Wallace wonder how he would feel when looking at the numbers.

“He had seven tackles for the game himself, and nine of his teammates had four between them,” Wallace said.

“He had three more tackles than nine of his teammates.

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While I don’t rate Terry Wallace, on this issue he has a point.

We are a soft team.

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