Just on that...I've wondered for some time that it seems odd that whilst there have been 8 Carlton premierships in my lifetime there's never really been a great modern coach who was a former player of the club. Or even a really good one.

I look at the legacy of former Hawthorn players who became coaches and envy them partly because of the strength of debate that must still exist around that club and on its fringes due to the extraordinary number of former players who've made the transition to being a long term coach.

Why don't ours?

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“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace turns into a circus.”
Turkish Proverb

As well as every club wanting Ratts to be their coach.. he continues to show what a professional coach he is by cheering and laughing in the box ...... i wonder what happened to the bunker idea...

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If he manages to eeks out 13 wins with a smashed up injury list he is going to be very hard to replace. 2 big wins over the Pies plus close losses against Geelong and West Coast with injury smashed teams, a good, if unspectacular, run of wins, until yesterday (specactular!), as well makes the decision tougher than a few weeks ago.

Hahaha. Synners getting more desperate with every victory.

Bomber eating burgers in the box, MM having a fainting spell in the box, the Scott brothers having a laugh in the box.

Life goes on, even in the rarefied confines of the coaches box.

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I hope Essendon* folds.

Collingwood twice!

Synners is in severe pain after yesterday. That sphincter you were talking about the other day is really twitching big time now .

Is that really bad, though? tbh, I'd rather have a human in the box over some unemotional half twit- half cyborg. I love the scott brother hindsight here too. They were so well regarded, that when they applied for the brisbane job, the powers that be gave the job to Voss.

at times I get the distinct impression it wouldn't matter how good the victories were, there's the few who want ratten gone at all costs. Never mind any progression, or learning or improvement he might show.

It smells of the very boys club pushing their own agendas you're trying to oppose.

Irony.

laughing isnt a good look after shitting himself in the bunker eating snakes for the majority of the season.

Terrible look for an AFL coach....

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It's good enough for me, bro!

Truly awful.

Big ears as well.

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I hope Essendon* folds.

Maybe when i saw Ratts it just brought back the scene with the banjo duet....
dunno...

anyway... i found it disturbing.

Credit to him though... we won good.. and i was satisfied even if the Dons are shit...

Probably the most satisfying game for the season for me.

Doesnt mean id look at this in isolation as a reason he should be coach and bugger the side up next year.

This is our window... an average coach should not be handicapping us

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The club states via its president that it's aim is to win 2 premierships in (now) the next 3 years.

The coach is, by your admission, still learning on the job, after 5 years.

And you're still happy to sponsor his development.

That's just amazing.

Oh. And what progression, exactly? Our coaching staff made an absolute hash of the middle of the season, very likely costing us a finals berth (you think injuries caused us to lose our shit to the point of getting flogged by port Adelaide?)

By your timeframe, Ratten will be as good as, say Clarkson, by about his 9th season.

Aside from a single anomaly in Bomber Thompson, tell me how many coaches were mediocre for 5 years and then suddenly became excellent at the job?

How many? And who?

You need to supply lots of examples, because that's the exact thing you're thinking will happen wi Ratten.

Low standards if you're happy with Ratten's performance over 5 years. Very low standards.

If we make the finals the Board wont sack him.

Ideally I would like a better coach to maximise our chances for a flag. But we have to be bloody sure its a much better coach. One thing we need to take into account is that most teams take one season to adapt to a new system. So introducing a new system would probably mean a poor first half of next year, i.e. we would have to look at 2014 for a flag.

Well, it is not up to us and it will be interesting. My gut feel is that the Board is very reluctant towards change and Ratts will see his contract out. The improvement late in the season might just have saved his skin.

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TC suffers from the social media illness - the death of respect and constructive discourse by keyboard.

Clarkson maybe another. Plenty of talk about him prior to 2008.

Actually Ratt's winning percentage since the start of 2008 is 53%, higher than MM's before the flag, and definitely higher than Bomber's before the flag. Wallsy gave those stats a few weeks ago on SEN. Given where we were prior to 2008, irrespective of what people think, if you think it's low standards then it's you with the problem, not Ratts. He picked us up from the pits. People's 10 sec memory span will have forgotten that. We've gradually got better every year until this year and we might still even pinch 13 wins still with an injury smashed list.

I can go either way of coaching change as I see some flaws too but I will give credit where it's due too unlike many of the non-thinkers on here.

Another great performance by Ratten. Players are clearly playing for him. Well done Brett.

.... And ... well done Brock McLean ... another great game ... excellent recruitment.

Back Luck Tricky Micky ...

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I am as mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more!!!

I wonder if Ratts knows the outcome already. He seems more relaxed in the coaches box from the few times I have seen on the TV.
He may know that he is safe for next year or gone no matter what.

Wronggggg. You've picked top teams we've performed poorly against this season at the very depth of the worst slump in Ratts' reign. But you have a short memory.
Hawthorn have had the wood over us, everyone knows that. But our record from 09-today against the others is roughly even, and until this season the record was trending upwards.
Moreover, now that the slump has been arrested do you really think we wouldn't be in with a good chance against Adelaide or Geelong if we came up against them again this season? Are you tipping Stk to knock us off in rd 23?
Hawthorn and Sydney you'd expect to win comfortably against us a second time around. But they'll finish 1st & 2nd, and will probably play off for the premiership. No shame in that.

I'd hazard a guess that every single, current AFL coach is developing, learning and fine tuning. Making mistakes getting some things right, some things wrong.

The important thing is Ratten is improving. Like has already been said, he has a greater winning percentage than alotta successful flag winning coaches had at the same point in their career.




Ah yes. The middle of the season. Missing Henderson, Laidler, Murphy, Waite, Carrazzo, Robinson, Warnock, Hampson, Kreuzer (for 1 game), and Judd. There's more too.

You tell me John. What AFL teams that can miss 6 or 7 of their best 10 for 4+ weeks, and still win games, make the 8?

Even yesterday, anyway you cut it, we were missing our 3 best defenders. Geelong without Scarlett fell to 9th place for back-to-back weeks and lost 3 from 4, and everyone said they were shot. Imagine if Geelong also lost Harry Taylor and Lonegran or Enright as well as Scarlett. And lost them for the season too. Screwed and out of the 8, is where I reckon they'd be based on the test sample of just missing Scarlett, but I'm happy to hear why you think they're different and Ratten is shot.




Lets look at the best coaches of the AFL of the last 3 decades. winning flags is the measurable yardstick we'll use.

Leigh Matthews
Bomber
Parkin
Malthouse
Sheedy
Choc Williams

What were their records after 5 years? How many of them took over a team which'd won 2 of the previous 3 spoons?

Ratten fairs well. He's no Matthew Knights, or Primus or Laidley.

Don't take it personally, because it's not meant to be personal, but I think the biggest shortcoming of you and Synners is patience. As a club we've come from the depths of hell, and to think in 5 years with an improving coach you guys would be throwing your toys out of the pram because we haven't won a flag ... it's indicative of your impatience. It's indicative of the club we are trying to remove ourselves from. The club where we bought all of our talent. A club that sacked the coach after 2 years of perceived failure.

CFC's biggest flaw has been its impatience. No surprises we haven't -- until SR -- embraced the concept of the AFL since the draft. A system where you have to be patient because you can no longer spend what you want and buy a flag.

Where I sit, we're on the way up. Injuries have derailed this season. Just like they did to the Hawks in 09 and the cats in 06. It's football. It happens. I can live with it, and I can live with Ratten serving out his current contract. Win or lose. It costs the club less, we can eat into our debt and ultimately be stronger for it.




My standards are low? I reckon your are unrealistically high. As a club from the front office down, we've failed to develop our kids -- ie have the required patience it takes to nurture them -- we've failed to recruit (under WH) to a gameplan and on field structure to play to.

Every time we've lost a game we've demoted the kids, played with their confidence, destabilised the coach and his assistants. It's no freaking wonder we're a headcase of club who finds winning elusive.

Where is the guarantee that Malthouse is going to lead us to a flag? Where is there guarantee, where MM would even be able to do what Ratten has done this season? How can you be so sure?



... I think there's a case to be mounted where (possibly) 13 wins with the list we have had due to injury and chicken wings is every bit as good as finishing top 4 with a full list.

Braithy, I don't have the time to pick apart your post piece by piece.

I asked you to find me a bunch of coaches who were mediocre in their first five seasons, and went on to win premierships... and you gave me Leigh Matthews... who inherited a basketcase in Collingwood and won the flag in his fourth season as coach.

So yeah... Ratts is on track to be the next Leigh Matthews.

Maybe that's the only howler in your post. Doubt it though.

So who is picking the team if the kids are apparently being dropped against Ratten's wishes as your post implies?

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