Round 8 Preview - Carlton v Geelong

[Baggers]

Long time reader, first time poster, reserved seat member since early 90’s, I go to 14-16 games per year. I feel compelled to post because of some of the rubbish I am hearing in the media. Everyone is getting blamed for our current predicament, from the coach to the leaders to the list managers to the Board. Not easy to determine what the truth is. So I thought back to a glorious night on September 8 2013 at the G where I sat in a massive crowd and watched us come back and win an Elimination Final against Richmond. We played exhilarating football in the second half, and with some exciting young players we looked forward to good times over the next few years. In the car on the 90 minute trip home we actually discussed what we need to press for top 4 in the next year or two. How have we got from there to where we are now?
So I searched today and found the team from that night, just 16 months ago. Of the 22, we still have 15 on our list (D Armfield, T Bell, E Curnow, B Gibbs, L Henderson, M Jamison, C Judd, M Kreuzer, T Menzel, M Murphy, K Simpson, Z Tuohy, A Walker, R Warnock, C Yarran). While Tom Bell has clearly improved, and possibly Ed Curnow, it is hard to make an argument that any of the others have improved since 2013 (apologies to Juddy – hard to improve from the level he started at!). This is a blight on our player development.
Of the 7 players no longer on the list, we as a club decided to delist 3 of them (J Garlett, A McInnes and M Robinson), 2 have retired (N Duigan, H Scotland), and two were lost to free agency (E Betts, J Waite). Any half decent club would be able to cover the retirements, which are beyond our control. Scotland was an excellent player for us, but I think the recruitment of Docherty was very good, and he has shown that he is stepping up to that role. Duigan was a bit player, and his retirement can hardly be regarded as the cause of our demise. The delistings of Garlett and Robinson haven’t helped us, but I can understand where the club was coming from, although we seem to handle such incidents worse than every other club (in terms of the outcomes for the club).
The loss of Betts and Waite to free agency is a clear result of investing a massive component of our salary cap on Dale Thomas. This was a club decision, reportedly driven hard by M Malthouse.
If we try to remove emotion and look at the facts, I can’t understand how anybody can say M Malthouse doesn’t have to shoulder the blame for this. To those that say it’s not his fault because the list is so bad, we still have 15 players who won a final 16 months ago (most of which he should have improved between then and now), and have lost 2 players to bring in his pet player, who has given us nothing, and 2 others who annoyed him but have gone on to make significant contributions at other clubs. And don’t get me started on Jeremy Laidler…

Gee you raise some good points. The highlighted above is what I'd like to talk about a little more.

After that important and character filled win (though probably assisted a little by the softness of the Tiggers), we were all entitled to go into 2014 full of hope and enthusiasm, I know I couldn't wait to get my membership and be there for the continued climb. But I had a nagging concern, a worry, that went right back to the first game we played under MM. That was fuelled by info that 22 blokes were going into 2014 after surgery, hampering their form and lowering our expectations of 2014.

Simply and maybe crudely put, I was worried that when we played the highly defensive style that our new Senior Coach had built a very successful career upon, we just looked hopeless, clueless. Then, during games, when this defensiveness/ negativity was obviously released (due to trailing badly), the players seemed to play with more freedom, confidence and positivity and amazing 'comebacks' happened. We saw this in the very first game MM coached us, against the Tiggers. And again in that final you write about. Our culture, right or wrong, could not accommodate his style. Why? I got nothin'.

Ratts' coaching style allowed for and even encouraged offensiveness... and gee this worked really well on a number of occasions and had the players feeling good about themselves, and just like that final against the Tiggers, we were good to watch. But this style collapsed under very good sides applying significant pressure... too often we were embarrassed, too often we were beaten by good sides in good form, to often C. Judd carried the side. As an aside, the one thing that Ratts did which MM has not been able to do, is to get us up for those really big games against our traditional rivals. But, I understand you don't build premiership sides on beating arch rivals, but failing elsewhere... we lost too often under Ratts to sides we should have beaten.

I guess this missive is about hoping that MM releases the shackles for this Friday night - experiment with giving this group a creative and offensive direction. Try to understand that in the words of Bertrand Russell, '“In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.” MM, this group is playing frightened and safe under you, and that reflects on you.

When we witness the playing group going about their business without confidence, I think 'coaching'. And right now I can hear MM saying that if a player needs motivating... etc, then there's something up with him. Nuh. I've been a young man and I know I looked to my elders/leaders, at times, for inspiration. I think Ratts understood this.

I know this post has probably wondered all over the place but I cannot help but think that our list is not 'bad', ordinary, maybe. But first and foremost to me is that our blokes do not seem to take the field 'inspired', pumped, enthusiastic... they seem to take the field burdened by duty rather than love of the game and playing with mates. And, to me, that's coaching. In fact, that's a failure of coaching leadership.

(when you go too defensive, you get Lyon (with amazing list) and no Premierships and when you go too offensive you get Grant (who had a phenomenal list) no Premierships. Pr1ck (Clarkson), Roos, Horse (in recent history), understand this.

Just thoughts.