hollywood43 wrote:
How anyone can be talking up Malthouse is beyond me.
He has done nothing yet in his two seasons. 9th and 13th in his first two seasons
Hes the best deflector in the AFL.
Regardless of whether you are pro/anti Mick,
people are going to have to start getting used to the fact that premierships are going to get harder and harder to win under the current league format.
The assistance given to the new teams (on top of the obvious fact there are now 2 new competitors), along with free agency, will make flags harder to come by, and will entrench certain 'Organisations' in the top of the ladder for the long term.
It's not just simple footy anymore, it's more like an American or European league where successful corporations win more often than not.
We need to get the WHOLE organisation humming, not just the coach.
In the future there may be coaches who achieve miracles by getting their team to 8th, and then they will get poached to a good club, where the superior organisational environment means the coach's skills are put to best use in order to win a flag.
Things have changed.
If we were an awesome modern club (ala Geelong or Hawthorn) and Mick came along and got us to 8th or 13th, then we would be in our rights to sack him Manchester United style.
The problem is we were (and in some ways still are) a basketcase, at possibly (almost) the worst time in the history of the game to be a basketcase, and we are only improving at a marginal rate.
So in the context of our organisation, we are a bottom 10 organisation.
Until we are a top 8 or top 4 organisation, then there's no way you can isolate Mick as the cause of our underperformance.
So blaming Mick in isolation is useless. Getting Ratts back, or Vossy or Ling or Goodwin or whoever is trendy flavour of the month will not work in isolation.
Certain broken records on here keep talking about Hinkley - Take Koshie out of the equation, along with the bailouts from the AFL/SANFL/whoever else helped them, along with a major organisational reshuffle, then Port would be a rabble. They were very close to heading the same way as Melbourne.
Put Hinkley into a Mark Neeld type situation, and I bet he wouldn't be getting the hype he currently is.
He had a good opportunity at the perfect time which utilised his skills.
He was a good fit for a quickly improving organisation.
We need a President, board and staff that know what they are doing.
The last bunch clearly did not.
The new bunch are only half new - half recycled. Hopefully the tide is turning.
I'm happy that MLG is actively trying to poach people.
That will be the modern way - top tier clubs poaching talent from bottom tier clubs.
At some point money will become absolutely make or break too.
Teams like the Western Bulldogs may never win another flag.
We have to wake up and take a broader view than just the head coach.
The whole club needs to work well, every staff member needs to be under as much scrutiny as the head coach.
Sadly we aren't at that point.