Football Department Review

[Baggers]

The whole team is confused EB. 

I don’t accept that our list is rubbish or that there’s a cultural problem.  We’re not challenging for the eight because our selectors are influenced more by what’s good for boosting membership numbers and protecting reputations than winning games.  How else does Jack Martin get games?

The coach needs to lift his game at pressers, admit that his gameplan isn’t working, tweak it where possible, and insist that team selection is based on merit.

The coach deserves nothing more than what he and his assistants put into the team and I think that Teague has a way to go before he can expect his team to match it with the better sides.

Take last week’s game; our best player was subjected to a hard tag and had no influence at all until he was moved to the wing for the last quarter.  It’s not the players’ fault that the coaches haven’t anticipated the hard tag and come up with tactics to defeat it.

The coach gets what he deserves and he needs to lift his game.

Yep.

The question I ask myself is how come The TT is only now throwing around the word 'passion'? How come we're only now playing with vigour, commitment, defensive intent and passion? Where was this round 1 to kick off the season with? Where was this round 2 when we were coming off a loss and playing a traditional rival? Where was this against a decimated Weagles, a struggling GWS? How come only now are we waking up to the truism of probably the number 1 attitude you want your blokes to play with - passion, ruthless intent, etc? The best strategies in the world won't work without these inner fires burning and motivating blokes. How come only now are we beginning to be not so nice? These are the things I suspect the review will answer.

Until only recently we've not played with enough passion or respect for the defensive side of the game. The Pussycats will sure test how fair-dinkum our passion is this weekend.