david31 wrote:
Three things I’d like to see (in order of priority) this off season and pre season:
(1) Teague and leaders setting genuine standards and non-negotiables that must be complied with.
Let’s start with going when it’s your time to go, sticking tackles, 100% commitment. The time for being mates and accepting crap has to end. Teague must hold McGovern, Murph and Eddie to the same standards as everyone else. If McGovern isn’t putting in effort and JSOS is busting his arse, then play JSOS. If Murphy won’t tackle, don’t play him. Cripps, Doc, Weiters and Walsh need to get in the face of their mates and demand more. If we continue to accept crap, we won’t be going anywhere quickly. Teague was tough as nails as a player and I reckon he’s fed up with the fade outs so hopefully he really puts it to the group over summer.
(2) Recruit and develop quality mids.
We’re severely lacking in the midfield where games are won and lost. Look at Williams for a midfield role. Get creative to pry an A grader from another club. Develop our young mids to actually play midfield next season. The talent is there but they must be developed. If we retain our first round pick, get the best available midfielder.
(3) Fill our holes on the list.
Small forward. Back up key defender. Another small defender. Try for Saad. Look at a Lonie type as a small forward. Go to the state leagues to find talent in these areas.
There's a fair bit of recycled stuff in that post but the highlighted bit is exactly what we really need. I posted elsewhere that Walsh will become the anvil on which the new team standards are forged. He will drive Cripps and Weiters and Doc by sheer example, even though he is the baby of the group. Make that the leadership group; keep it small. If you listen to Sellers McClure, he says it a lot. Back in the day, they partied hard and worked hard. Well those days are gone but the other thing he says is that if you didn't go when it was your turn or you didn't meet the on-field standards, you copped it from the players long before the coach ever had the chance to get to you. And then you had to stand there and take it while Parko or Walls gave you both barrels in front of your mates who weren't your mates when it came to that.
Keogh makes a lot of sense in between his endless harping about SOS and this point is something he is big on. There are too many softcocks in the team at the moment. Cripps is one of them. Not in his on-field stuff. Nobody could ever accuse him of that but if you look at him at half time last game, he was obviously personally disappointed but he wasn't bollocking his team. Neither was Doc. Or Weitering, both of whom give it their 90% every week and both of whom made a few errors during the quarter. Teague said in his presser that Walsh was beating himself up for his efforts. Walsh! Easily our best player on the night. He is still too young to be ripping shreds off his team mates but he is the one to do it when the last of the dinosaurs has left. And when Cottrell has fifty games under his belt, I can't see him as being timid either. That's why I would keep him. He's a rough nut who is playing for the club of his boyhood. If anybody is going to die wondering, it won't be him.
I disagree with Keogh that we are miles away. Good on him for his passion but he is a glass half empty type of poster by his own admission. I lean more to the Bondi camp because I'm a glass half full type of person. It makes it harder to swallow when Keogh is right of course and this year he is right. We have made little if any progress on the ladder, whether it is SOS's fault or not. Even though I predicted we would finish 12th on the appropriate thread, I saw enough during the season to realise we should have been playing finals. So now I am disappointed we didn't. We have the bulk of the list in-waiting. We have a shit game plan that doesn't allow enough flexibility to shore up the defense during play when we are getting flogged but Teague has been able to stop the rot between quarters. That says something. The game plan will be tweaked. It's what we don't have that's the issue and that's where we get back to Keogh's soft cocks. Or maybe the on-field leaders aren't allowed. Who knows? Regardless, when we are leaking, SOMEBODY has to just make the call. Slow the game. Move somebody down back for five minutes. Swap Levi and Willo. Something. Anything.
James Hird might not be our favourite person here on TC but if you look at his playing days, he had the capacity to insert himself where he was most needed. Kouta was the same. Dusty Martin just does it at Richmond. Patrick Dangerfield at Geelong. Fingers in dikes before the floodgates open.
Anyway, we have 5 months to sort this out. We prune the unproductive wood. We graft buds and wood from other varieties and let the new combination of strong branches bear the fruit.
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