Braithy wrote:
Blue Laguna wrote:
Perhaps the most improved coach since round 10, but not for the season. If he was coaching like he is now in the first half of the season we wouldn't be relying on Richmond-like permutations to make the finals. He went backwards before picking up the pace.
imo,
It's another massive expectation -- read; unreal expectation -- to think Ratten will get served a plethora of injuries to key positional and midfield players and come up with answers, structures and a tailored gameplan to the personnel available, overnight. It took ratten weeks to adjust where it might take some coaches a season or not at all.
I'd love to see a stat of previous seasons, where teams had a similar injury count to key personnel and see where they ended up on the ladder.
I remember Clarkson in 09 didn't even make the 8 with a defending premiership list after injuries derailed him and the hawk's season. The first time in AFL history a team didn't even make the finals to defend its crown.
Yet ... here at TC there are guys championing Clarkson as far superior to Ratten. Interesting.
What??
Of course it's a massive expectation to do that AFTER injuries hit.
The expectation is that a senior coach has already done that BEFORE injuries hit.
A senior coach who knows what he's doing has his team drilled and structured so the players are performing roles. So if one goes down, another can come up to play that role. Most likely not as effectively, but it certainly won't leave a gaping hole in the team.
Ratten's Carlton relies almost solely on key individuals standing up. "Kick it to the champ" (that's straight from Ratt's mouth).
When Carrots went down, we had no-one able to fill in, because we only had one Carrots. The squad wasn't drilled well enough for others to fill in and play a role, as they can do at say Collingwood.
Ratten was exposed this year. Injuries to key players, rather than be used as an excuse for the catastrophic way the team collapsed, should be seen for what they were: they shone a light on the fact that Ratten's built a Carlton side that is almost totally reliant on key players standing up.
Look, give the guy 3 more years and he'll probably have that side of coaching nailed by then. I'm just not sure why he should be serving his coaching apprenticeship as our senior coach. It's really quite damning.