After watching all the good teams and premiership contenders out there, one thing that seems glaringly obvious is that we lack the team spirit that the likes of WCE, Geelong, Swans & Hawks have. Back a couple years ago the Hawks did the Kakoda trail as a team bonding exercise as they had a group of very young players that were recently recruited and cleaned out a few older players that weren't going to make the grade. To me you could see that on display last Friday where a player would lay a tackle and his team mates would run over and pick them up/ pat them on the back. Even Crawf said on radio that they really play for each other even to the expense of their own game.
The Blues really need to adopt something similar to gel as a team, because it appears that everyone is playing for their own performances and not for their team-mates. We don't run off our man to help a team mate out, we rarely fly the flags when one of our own gets some treatment, we lose the close ones and get flogged in the bad games, these are all signs that we are not working as one unit, but as 22 seperate units with similar goals.

Maybe a change of coach would breath new air around the club and address this issue differently from what we have been doing, after all how can we expect the players to gel when the coaches can't? For this reason I believe that we need a coach from outside our current list (sorry Rats) to bring a different mentality and although someone like Voss hasn't got the experience can perhaps gel the team and get them to play like one.

Is there any merit on this or am I just looking too hard?

I totally agree with you...

If you look at the "new breed of coaches" they are quite close to the playing group and seem to value interpersonal relations highly...

From what ive heard about Pagan, he is the type that would talk to his select few (Lance, Kouta and some of leadership group) and dis- regard the rest of the playing group because he doesn’t value there opinion...

It seems like Pagan doesn’t have any time for young developing players and doesn’t offer them encouragement but in turn intimidates them. Rather than telling them to back themselves, he seems to offer them little support and play them in the twos. If they are not in the twos they are on the bench for 3 quarters of the game, and if a mistake is made during that time they are benched at a drop of a hat.

That’s why Fev should have been captain, all the young players look up to him, and they know he supports them…

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"Dont count the games, make the games count"

Maybe as a bonding exercise the team can all do a "Survivor" on some deserted island - and then at the Tribal Council vote Pagan out.

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NOW YOU'RE JUST SOME CLUB THAT I USED TO KNOW.

Lots of posters on this forum have been saying this for years

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Cheats never prosper (except in the AFL)

Great post...great idea Steve C_7.

There's definetely a lack of something like that in most games, and when spirit, passion and mutual adhoration is shown, it definetely hasn't been shown throughout a whole game...I reckon they haven't done the miles in their legs and lack stamina; they're probably always catching their breath.

An outsider for mine is the go...but then again I really don't know how good Ratten is.

I'm sure the new breed are out there.

If Ratten isn't the one, then I reckon coaches like Bond would be good to get close on a personal level with all players.

I don't know what Longmire or McKenna are like. Voss, not so, he's another breed...more of an assistent coach imo...a bit too young and macho.

The New Age is here.

Long Live Jonny Rotten.

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

Pagan isn't my focal argument here, what I am more concerned with and not just because of the Hawthorn game, but throughout this year and particularly last year is that the team doesn't seem unifed. You hear comments from guy like Murphy and Gibbs that the younger guys are talking and seemingly creating a mateship between them, but not so much with the older guys (Fev excluded).

what have the rest of the palying group done to have their opinions valued

the majority of our team is made up of kids or young players, of course they are going to spend time on the bench.

if all our kids were of the ability of marc murphy, then we could play them more and for longer, unfortunatly they are not all of murphy's ability.

pagan is not the only person on the match committee.

The young players are the future of this club!

If these young players don’t feel welcome, or important, and not encouraged, do you think the young players will be prepared to get the best out of themselves?

They’re young they need to be developed by the best, and be taught to back themselves, and actually give the role they are comfortable with.

I agree with you when you say young players should be on the bench longer than the players in the 25 - 30 age brackets.
However when these young players are on the field you can see these kids look low on confidence, because they MC doesn’t have any faith in them.

Look at Collingwood players like Toovey, Goldsack etc. They are young but the coaching staff trusts them and allow them develop because they encourage them and give them a role to play.

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"Dont count the games, make the games count"