skeptic wrote: ↑Thu 06 Sep 2018 8:19pm
Yes it’s all doom and gloom here at the moment - I myself have posted more than my fair share of criticism as of late...
Serious question... it looks like Richo will lead us into 2019, how can he turn this around?
The club must see something in him... what is it?
Obviously 2017 looked a lot better, surely he was doing something right? What was it?
Richo supporters, I’m looking at you. What are his strengths, what should he do that he’s capable of doing?
This below is my thoughts back in May (updated from my end of season review last year)
Whilst stagnation was predictable, few predicted a fall from grace as great as this.
Many forumites here like myself were unsold on Richo even before this season... Bluthy comes to mind, Con G too and I’m sure many others.
For me personally my concerns have centred around Richo’s:
- Conservative nature both in terms of persisting with injured/struggling players but also in terms of how he lines plays the selected players. Acres is still yet to find his way into the centre, Minch has been on a HFF for 5 years etc etc
- Problem solving. 3 years ago the ruck dilemma was Hickey is a decent around the ground utility that can get slaughtered in the centre and Longer is a beast in the middle then goes invisible. 3 years later it’s essentially the same exact dilemma. We have yet to find a way to get 2 rucks in the team and have persevered in destroying Bruce and Acres games by playing them as rucks
- Psychology. Enough has been made of our goal kicking yips. Everybody always looks as the North game this year and the Melb + Ess game last season as examples of when we didn’t turn up... what many forget is that on all 3 occasions the opposition didn’t turn up at the bounce either and that the games were all on the line at 1/2 time. The difference was after 1/2 the opposition got their stuff together and blew us out of the water. I guess m point is I don’t remember a time more recently... pbly since the Bulldogs game where we bounced back.
To me the question is do we have the system to get the job done? Is the system sound enough? Pressure when good gets us around the mark but execution regularly fails. Reasons for that failure maybe as simple as players dont or cant complete their roles competnetly or simply we have the wrong balance of youth and experience to carry out the system.
What if the system is OK? I would say that lacking game time leadership for impact is a major problem. We said goodbye to Roo and Joey and lost valuable experience. It was quoted mid year that the team had no players with over 200 games. That doesnt make a strong leadership group. What caused this? Lack of thought to recruitment with intent to move on our Leadership from th last 10 years or so. This was serious to me and possibly worst than failure to match the system created by the coaching staff.
The other fault is reputation. We were envied in 2004-2010. We had routine success to various levels but always was around the mark. Reminds you of Geelong maybe? It does to me only they got the ultimate success a few times and we fnished second or third or made up finals numbers. Now we have lost the respect recruitment is impacted severely and we need change. We need to recruit for change. The easy part on coaches has essentially been done (some may argue its not completed).
If the system is not totally knackered we will see a vast improvement in performance (maybe not finals yet). There are caveats. One we need to reinstall leadership across most lines in the playing team. We need to not run our youth into the ground and injure them trying for development. We cant succeed in development until we know the system is reasonable and the team recruitment is changed to get back leadership and have sufficient elites or at least A graders to deliver.
I personally think its a 2 part game to get the playing group to a competitive place. With that the confidence and belief will return. By this I don't mean youth providing happiness because they get selected. I mean confidence that we deliver on conversion, deliver in key contested footy stats and deliver in sufficient skills to enable execution without butchering the ball s much that the team don't hang their heads after huge workloads to see games slip away.
The truth will be seen when we can comeback against other sides and when we don't get thrashed annually by bigger bodied teams who indulge on their percentage increase from playing us,
Richo might be able to move forward a lot if enough change in the club and team occurs and this impacts leadership and capability. Condition and form are greatly associated with the system. That includes medicos, physios, understanding of the plan and execution standards for their roles in game time.
Midfield clearances and clear winners are needed to make an effective forward line.
You need to protect the ball handler to increase posession efficiency