What does our club stand for?

[Thryleon]

We need a very simple and basic indoctrination (written everywhere and shouted together), all for one and one for all. It's not complicated and it is a proven winner over many, many years. It was our motto on one of the war ships I served on in the 70s and once ingrained you found yourself looking out for your mates and knowing that they were 'covering your back'. A few blokes let the crew down and let's just say that after being dealt with, they never did it again (OH&S HR would have not been happy with us!!!).

I captained a soccer team once.

I reinforced the message each and every game that once the whistle blows, we only have ourselves to rely on out there.  We play for each other, we go in for each other, we run hard for each other, we cover each other's mistakes, and most importantly if you are passing the ball, or clearing the ball you put it in an area where one of your mates can actually do something with it, rather than giving them a hospital pass, under pressure where they have to do something mercurial to achieve anything.  Sometimes this can't be helped, but one bad pass, leads to pressure, which leads to another bad pass, and more pressure, and at some point, the turnover will come.  So give your teamates a chance.

A coach once told me, if you want to look like a good player, all you have to do, is be the sort of player that makes his teamates look good.  The better they all look, the better you will look.  Put the ball to their advantage don't give them over hit passes, under hit passes, passes metres out of their reach so they have to change direction to get it, because odds are they will only have one way to go once they get it, putting the defender on their hammer in a position of advantage because he knows where his opponent is likely to go next.

Then apply that to our team. 

We frequently have players having to stand under the ball and wait for its arrival because it's moving too slowly.
Our handpasses are not always drilled into someone's chest, but a metres left or right requiring another change in direction.
Forwards are often trying to pick the ball up off their boot laces even on the lead, as the kick falls short.

We have not hit targets all season.  It's a fundamental skill we are not getting right.  It has more to do with why we are not playing well than anything other thing, and its not new.

Does anyone recall we used to have a thread called "skills and disposal"?

We get that right, we will start playing much better footy.

I want our boys to believe.
I want them to believe that they could be good enough.
I want them to believe that they will go out there and actually compete hard.
I want them to believe that they can win.
I want them to believe, that they could conceivably go out there and win the rest of their games, and win a forking flag.
It's 21 vs 21 with a sub each.  A bit of luck and we can win most weeks provided the team plays with the requisite ability to hit targets, and play football for each other.

We have only lost 4 games for the year.

Premiership teams have lost more for the year and still won the flag.

It would take a change of attitude and execution of 180 degrees to achieve it, but we all can agree that 90% of that appears to be in the players minds and our club collectively having given up on season 2015 is not what I want to see from any level of our leadership which is Mark Lo Giudice's first major stuff up as president of our footy club, and Stephen Trigg's too.

The only good thing about it, is that the players now have the ability to play with absolutely no pressure on them.  Which should yield better results, but on this occasion is not, which does mean that they care about being written off and might not be happy about it.

This is what I want to see from now on from our playing group.