GWS wrote:
jimmae wrote:
What aging list? We're 7th on average...
Let's all pluck things from the sky and see how it reads according to our own bias...
Jimmae you seem to be unapologetically pro Malthouse.
I was okay with the appointment just as I was with Ratten and Pagan and Brittain. Coaches need time to work out what it is that they're doing at a new club and setting up change takes time. I've been happy to give Mick that time.
But it's not an open ended invitation to @#$%&! around and achieve nothing.
I've watched you post consistently pro Malthouse stuff for a while now whilst our team has clearly got worse.
I've seen positives but I'm seeing an increasing number of negatives and at the moment I'm seeing a coach flailing around trying to secure his fortress which is unedifying for a 50 game coach but truly sad for one who's coached over 700 games.
Could you outline what it is you think Malthouse is trying to do, has achieved, is close to achieving and will achieve so I might have a hope of seeing what it is that you're seeing but I'm missing?
Cheers,
GWS
...
I'm not an MM supporter; I'm a Carlton supporter. I'm seeing negatives too, but I'm seeing a whirlwind of media bullshit around every action because they think there's a vulnerability that they can make a story out of. That's the sad truth of the AFL media in 2015: scrutiny is one thing, but actively pushing the agenda of several parties for column inches is ridiculous.
Do they realise they're the puppets in this drama?
Anyway, I'm not a fan of the way we structure defensively (i.e. man on man in midfield), I'm not a fan of how often we go down the wings and do so without much effort towards creating space for each other, and I'm not a fan of how much effort it seemingly requires for us to generate a mark inside 50.
What I am a fan of is the players who have been @#$%&! around on company time are running out of options when it comes to protesting anything that doesn't expressly suit them, that we're changing the playing style of the list to suit a pacier game, and the agreement in place at the match-committee level that players truly earn their spot in the team by working hard on the field, with an eye to the structure in place.
You can have the best kick around, the fastest speed in the AFL, jump the highest, pluck it clean off the deck, but at the end of the day if you don't nail those skills perfectly every time - and you never will - you need to have a plan in place that gives your team mates a rough idea of what is going to happen so they can anticipate and adapt.
For over a decade, we've been @#$%&! that up, and that's what I think Mick is painstakingly trying to improve upon. He's stripped the tactics right down to basics and he's moved on players who don't acknowledge that their decision making is - without cause - selfish under pressure, and it's no longer good for either party that they remain. There's been some other losses along the way (Betts & Waite), but on the whole we're OK for such a departure from the status quo.
What I want to see from here on out this year, is us building upon this into a deeper game plan. For a professional outfit that has the right resources, including line coaches, equipment and other forms of man power, that's something you do in the pre-season. I think the wheel is finally turning within the playing group, and once guys like Buckley, Boekhorst, Whiley, DVR, Cripps and Smith start making solid contributions within the team we'll see the blueprint for the future.
Hopefully this weekend we see Buckley, Boekhorst, Whiley and Cripps on the bench, and the excitement and skill that will come with that.
Come the off-season, we'll need to invest time and resources into ensuring we're closer to, or at the forefront when it comes to all facets of sports science, nutrition and medicine and sports data analytics. I think inserting some skilled people at board level is a great way to start there, and then leveraging their resources to better train people who are interested in such work.
In terms of personnel I see no harm in a review of the football department: McKay would need a once over but it's easy to see he has a variety of valuable skills and the mindset that drove him to acquire them all. You don't get to be a vet by being a fumbling idiot from a scientific or medical point of view; you just weren't studying the human body. You don't get to be involved with AFL rules and regs without picking up quite a bit of knowledge along the way, as well as crafting personal relationships for the future.
In addition, we need to get some real tactical minds involved in midfield and forward coaching, and hopefully within that someone who can better address the individual coaching techniques for zone defending. It's the now and it's the future and we do it very poorly from a player perspective. They don't read and react in a manner befitting such a structure, and it's not getting enough attention.
I don't think Wiley, Barker, Green, Capuano or Webster help with that. Osborne is the only coach on our staff with playing experience in such a system in a midfield or defence role, and Malthouse is the only guy with coaching experience in it. Laidley has a lot to offer in many areas and I think he's sharp enough to adapt to such a change.
Finally, we of course need to continue turning over the playing list, and I've made my thoughts on that very clear currently and in the past in numerous threads. Thankfully, with some time spent investigating and re-purposing the methodologies of Sabermetrics, it might start becoming a whole lot easier for us to acquire the talent we seek.