Post Game Passion; AFL Rd 19: Carlton vs North Melbourne

[Macca37]

Quite apart from the physical and skill development, which is on the coaches and conditioning folks....

I think there are few periods in our last twenty years where we've essentially 'lost our leaders'.
The most dramatic one was probably in the early-mid Pagan years.
As the older players of the nineties retired or were moved on...
A young Marc Murphy came into a side where the leaders were guys like an aging Kouta (great player, arguably not a great leader) Lance Whitnall, Nick Stevens...and Fev

The Judd years were moderately successful but Patrick Cripps only caught the tail of that.
This was his initial leadership group in his first season 2014...

Marc Murphy ©; Andrew Carrazzo, Kade Simpson (vc), Michael Jamison (dvc), Bryce Gibbs, Lachlan Henderson, Brock McLean, Andrew Walker.

Some good, average footballers, but in terms of leadership probably only one or two had the necessary qualities.

So to the rebuild... and we look and see that only one of our 2014 leadership group remains at the club...and he is struggling to get a game.

Now with players like Weitering and Walsh we may have the nucleus of a strong leadership group, but the results of those guys influencing younger players and have them joining them in leadership positions is probably still a season or two away.

Contrast that with some of the successful clubs, where young players undergo an initiation under the guidance of strong, experienced leaders and you see another reason why we struggle.

It's a sad state that a club that once prided itself on the quality of its 'player leaders' has this more recent history of mediocrity, which has been passed down through each new generation of leaders.

Thanks Lods, you have set out very clearly the problems we now face with leadership issues.  When combined with all the other issues that we know about, and others at Board level which we know nothing about but can make an educated guess, it is indeed a depressing picture.

To use an old saying, "We have more problems than you can poke a stick at."

Six years ago I bought into the whole rebuild idea as being the solution to our problems.  Instead, we seem to have dug ourselves into a very deep hole with no obvious way out. 

Maybe the covid lockdown is affecting my judgement, but I just see more years of mediocrity and bottom six positions ahead.