If you could now.... would you?




(an oldie but a goodie )

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Love Cricket? Love me

Yep, I've had enough.

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1945 - End of round 3 Carlton was last.

Last round Carlton made the final four for the first time.

Eventual premiers.

That's what I'm talking about!

Surely, any other club, with the money at hand, would have sacked him last year. 2 wooden spoons in a row would usually demand that.

I'd sack him now, hopefully he'll be gone before next season, then we can close the book on Pagan's crap legacy.

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!@#$ off Essendon**** Just !@#$ right off. SCUM.

If we don't show any improvement and lose our next 6-7 matches then I'd sack Pagan and replace him with Ratts. This would give Ratts enough time to show his wares as a senior coach until seasons end when a full review could be undertaken.

Saying this, I'd also like Pagan to coach us to another PP....Bit of a dilemma!

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There is no footy god

Give it to Ratts now. Frustrated with the lack of a plan B from Pagan.

If Ratts was appointed now he would have the chance to show us what he's got for the remainder of the year as an interim. I'm not sure they would appoint him as the head coach with no experience under media pressure, but atleast if he has a chance for the rest of the year he could win a few people over.

Although Pratt was quoted in the paper as saying that Pagan has his support I think it was very important that Pratt restated the 10-11 win goal for the season (as fans, we finally have a club stated 'KPI' on the senior coach).

Therefore the big question will be at what point in the year does Pratt concede that 10-11 wins is no longer possible. At that point in time, one would expect a move on Pagan given that 10-11 wins was the target set early in the year.

Atm we are on 2/7 - That means we actually need to win at least 8 of the remaining 15 games to reach Pratts target

8/15 - need to win remaining 53% of games for pagan to retain his job

If we look at the upcoming games and the probable wins based on opponents current form (and taking an optimistic blues outlook)

Roos @goldcoast - Roos playing well, likely loss
Crows@Dome - Crows playing well, likely loss
Dogs@G - Dogs inconsistent, 50/50 game
Port@Dome - Port Playing well, likely loss
Hawks@Dome - Hawks playing well, likely loss
Freo@Subi - tough away game, likely loss
Dees@G - Dees struggling, likely win
Swans@SCG - tough away game, likely loss
Lions@gabba - tough away game, likely loss
Saints@Dome - saints injury plagued, 50/50
Pies@G - always competitve - 50/50
Port@AAMI - tough away game, likely loss
Dons@G - always competitive - 50/50
Roos@Dome - Roos playing well, likely loss
Dees@G - Dees struggling, likely win

Where it becomes interesting though is if we assess the upcoming games in 2 game blocks

Roos @goldcoast - Roos playing well, likely loss
Crows@Dome - Crows playing well, likely loss

That would mean by the end of round 9, we are likely to be 2/9 and needing to win 8/13 (61.5% of remaining matches) to reach the Pratt target. Possible but its starting to become unlikely. I'd imagine Pratt would give Pagan some leeway, and thus be unlikely to make a move at this point in time. So onto the next 2 game block

Dogs@G - Dogs inconsistent, 50/50 game
Port@Dome - Port Playing well, likely loss

Being optimistic, we would be a chance to win 1/2 in this stretch - that would take us to 3/11 games and needing to win 7/11 (63.6%) of the remaining games. Not much change compared to last block of games so again unlikely to be any movement on the coaching front although there would be a chance if we are 0/2 from this stretch - that would take us to 2/11 and needing 8/11 to hit KPI (72.7%). Looking forward...

Hawks@Dome - Hawks playing well, likely loss
Freo@Subi - tough away game, likely loss

2 Probable losses taking us to 3/13 and needing 7/9 (77.8%) to reach the 10 win target. A significant point in time as all of a sudden we would need to win 80% of our remaining matches to reach our performance target (which is now, highly unlikely). If Pratt is to make a move on Pagan then I would expect this to be the time (end of round 12/13). Finals now highly unlikely though mathematically probable. Assuming Pagan survives though...

Dees@G - Dees struggling, likely win
Swans@SCG - tough away game, likely loss

Assuming we win against the Dees, that puts us at 4/15, needing 6/7 (85.7%) to win to 10 games. Given that 12 wins are generally needed for finals would be officially out of reach as the best we could hope to achieve would be 11 wins (and that would require winning every remaining game). Therefore the year is offically written off and player development mode kicks in. If Pratt is to make a move on Pagan mid year (as opposed to end of year) then Pagan wont see past the end of this batch of games. Much better to put in plans for the following year by instilling a new or care taker coach.


As much as I'd like the blues to do well, I'm really looking forward to seeing what happens with the coaching around round 10/11. Particularly if we go 0/4 over the next 4 games which is quite probable. Even in a 'best case' scenario, we are looking at 2/6 over the next 6 rounds which would put us on 4/13 and needing 6/9 (66.7%) and seriously approaching crunchtime re:coaching.

In terms of when to start reassessing pagan/coaching we can perhaps look at coaching winning %s - Once we start needing to win 60+% of our remaining games to hit the 10game KPI then it starts becoming a concern (from the clubs perspective). Once the need to win % is above 70-75% then I think the club should make a move. Why the 70-75%? - well just look at the winning %'s of the top 4 teams over the past several seasons. Unless a team is in really good form, 70+% winning %s just arent likly to occur for a team sitting near to bottom of the ladder.

ie 2006
Weagles 17w/5l - 77.3%
Crows 16w/6l - 72.7%
Freo 15w/7l - 68.2%
Swans 14w/8l - 63.6%
Average win% of the top 4 teams 70.5%

2005
Crows 17w/5l - 77.3%
Weagles 17w/5l - 77.3%
Swans 15w/7l - 68.2%
Saints 14w/8l - 63.6%
Average win% of the top 4 teams 71.6%

2004
Port 17w/5l - 77.3%
Lions 16w/6l - 72.7%
Saints 16w/6l - 72.7%
Cats 15w/7l - 68.2%
Average win% of the top 4 teams 72.7%

Btw, should have added - I'd be an advocate of a midseason change in the coaching position even if that resulted in an upswing in form and the loss of the PP (4 wins or less).

From the games ledger above and assuming best case scenario for the remainder of the year (ie winning both games against melbourne and the 4 50/50 games) we would finish with 8 wins. Whilst we would miss out on the PP the pick we do get should still nab us a very good player

If we used historicals as precendents - ignoring the PPs priot to the first round of course given that no team outside of the blues would qualify for one this year (Essendon* will win more than 4)

2006 - pick 5
2005 - pick 4
2004 - pick 5
2003 - pick 5
2002 - pick 3
2001 - pick 3
2000 - pick 5

Essentially we would be looking at pick 4

The only games I think we are a 50/50 or greater chance of winning this year is against Richmond, Essendon* and maybe Melbourne. We SHOULD also be a good chance against the Kangas this weekend as they are without Wells and Thompson.

If Ratten takes over the players will probably lift and there is a good chance we may win a couple more.

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There is no footy god

As soon as we end up last he must get the sack straight away. If we don't get the wooden spoon then sack him at the end of the year.

Dear Dick,

Please get rid of Pagan, he is a cancer. If i was with you face to face i would be on my hands and knees begging you.

We need to move forward, the only way to do that is to give the young guys enough time on the ground. Let them make mistakes, they are allowed and let them learn. The development of these talented kids is being held back. I dont want us to be at the end of the season and have 5 talented kids wanting to leave. It will happen, nearly happened last year.

Please Dick show him the door. Lets not be afraid of putting our balls on the line, you do everyday, thats how you succeeded in your business.

kind regards,

The Hulk
Green Monster

hasty decisions are going to get us nowhere
we just need to be patient and allow the squad to mature another 2-3 years...pagan can handle the pressure.. if we have another bad year under rattan...dont think he deserves the spew that pagan gets.

I like the part on 3aw yesterday when Pratt said regarding Pagan / Mitchell:

"I don't know why the media make a mountain out of this, they just don't like each other"......

Classic

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Supporting the Blues No Matter What

DONT SACK DENNIS... if we do the players will rally and give us an extra 2 wins or so that will push us past the holy land.. PP!

(ALthough all jokes aside I do have to say that he is killing our kids with the way they are being played - Look at Swallow, Smith, Selwood, Pendulbry etc. who get thrown in the deep end to get experience.. arent made to tag a player or play a negative role on the ground)...

PP!

yeah we were hasty in giving Smorgon the arse too ...he would've eventually delivered, wouldn't he?

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There's so much I could say...

I dont like how it would work if we sacked him now.

I'd prefer to have a comprehensive review at the end of the season and actually interview the best possible candidate's.

If we appoint Ratten caretaker coach now it certainly makes it, at the very best, difficult to retain him as an assistant for next season if he's not successful in getting the job full-time and perhaps isn't a great show of faith if we interview others as well at the end of the season before re-appointing him.

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"The ability to speak doesn't make you intelligent." Qui-Gon Jinn 15-05-2005

"there’s more chance of me becoming the full forward for the [Western Bulldogs] than there is of any change in the Labor Party." Julia Gillard 18-05-2010

We should have sacked him at the end of 2003.

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"We used to sit around and talk about how bad the game plan was." Anthony Koutoufides

It seems that everyone likes reading tea leaves to divine the future. Fact is, though, Pratt's comments are deliberately ambiguous. They can't be used to predict the future with precision.

All he's said for sure is that if we win only 2 games for the year, there may have to be a review. And he's said that if we win 10-11 games, that fulfils his expectations. There is a massive grey area in between.

Clearly, he isn't giving any unqualified support to Pagan. But then again, unqualified support tends to mean the axe is about to fall, so Pagan's probably happy about that.

There wouldn't be too many who would seriously think that Pratt will be bound greatly by his comments. If he is able to bring an elite coach to the club next year, I'm sure he won't feel constrained by his own comments or win/loss ratios. If he believes that it isn't worth changing horses for whatever reason, he won't.

I was going to write a similar letter.

HES GOT TO GO

roll till your eyes hit the back of your head if sticks and elliot didnt step up to the plate to bring pratt back to the club who the hell knows what sort of c grade leaders would be leading the club now.

spot on

as for pagan destroying the kids

oh yeah.. walker is destroyed
setanta too
bentick and carrazzo as well
simmo has been demolished
etc etc