Braithy wrote:
JohnM wrote:
Actually, that list is a bit damning on Ratten.
Within 5 years, Matthews had a premiership. Sheedy had two premierships. Parkin won a flag in his second season. Malthouse had a Prelim in his second year at Footscray. Williams had Port Adelaide finish 1st in the H&A season 3 times (and won the flag in his sixth season).
It's actually a great list to show how ordinary Ratts has been really.
I think this is where your argument is flawed. You see this list of the best coaches, and use the data --based on no premierships -- to boost your sack ratten campaign.
OK, so we have a situation where throughout AFL/VFL history, the only coach who has had a mediocre first hundred games and then gone on to turn it around to premiership success is seemingly Bomber Thompson (none of your other examples were right, there may be others but none of us can think of them). The pattern that keeps repeating is that the most successful coaches are those who show definite signs of their coaching prowess early on in their careers.
So there's a lot of history to suggest that Ratten won't succeed. One anomaly in Bomber Thompson is what people keep clinging to (If I had a buck for every time I've heard "Geelong wanted to sack Thompson and look what happened there...").
Ultimately, you're saying that Ratten has had such incredibly extenuating circumstances, that he'll defy history and do it where so many others have failed.
I don't buy that myself. I understand that he took on a club at the bottom, but it wasn't anywhere near as bad as when Pagan got it. Ratten got the club just as it was primed to rise... he'd tanked his way to our 3rd No.1 pick and got Judd...
You make it sound like Ratten got the poisoned chalice. It wasn't that bad.
5 years in, and the guy is still 'learning'. We had injuries this year, sure. But he also made the call to play 3 ruckmen in an era where every other club realised that was crazy. By his own admission, guys like Casboult wouldn't have got near the senior team if we hadn't had injuries. People like Robert Walls are defending him, saying he's better now than he was in March.
Seriously, Ratten's development bell curve is shaped more like a pancake than a bell. At this rate, it'll be a decade before you'd be confident enough to say he'd finally got his shit together as a senior coach.
Ultimately, you think he'll defy history and come good. I don't. I doubt we'll ever agree, which is fair enough.