Gold Coast’s issues run so much deeper than the coach and the playing list.  They have never established a professional footballing culture and high performance environment.  The initial administrators and senior players failed to establish and maintain it.  Whilst GWS is struggling to attract supporters, their culture has always been strong.

Need experienced leadership to turn the place upside down, similar to Jackson and Roos at the Dees.

 

I love the way everyone assumes Hardwick is keen on it….   Guess time will tell

Hardwick right now ... probably

6 minutes ago, kryton101 said:

I love the way everyone assumes Hardwick is keen on it….   Guess time will tell

When asked about it he said he’d gladly take the call. So he’s already he’s entertaining it and not shutting it down. Very high likelihood the jobs his already.

 

I wonder how long this has been on the cards? It’s almost like Hardwick’s manager knew about this 6 weeks ago.

6 weeks ago it was all a bit ‘too’ much for Dimma. Now he’s ready to take a call about a new gig?

Give me a spell.

I personally think it's a little hilarious vignette of the job for the lads. Sure, he's won 3 premierships, but to be parachuted into a job, which would have been orchestrated by the AFL, when there is no guarantee of success, just seems naive.

It's not the coach, it's the structure.

I still feel for Guy McKenna.

 

Hardwick can institute "the Gold Coast man" culture.

4 hours ago, Tim said:

Yes, although appointment of Hardwick may also have the effect of players wanting to stay under the “master coach”.

That would be a big part of the reason this is happening on the Suns' side and heaps of cash on the other side.

 

Whoever gets the job will have big pants to fill.

On a unrelated note, a deep fryer is being sold on Gumtree by the Gold Coast Suns, comes with 100kg of frozen chicken nuggets and dim sims. 

Edited July 11, 20231 yr by Rocknroll

Dees players regularly say Suns team hardest to play. 
This year the same. 
 

Relocating Premiership coaches not really successful. 
Only Mick (2010) done it since 2000. 
Oh,  and Matthews but that side was already growing into Godzilla. 

2 hours ago, Whispering_Jack said:

St Kilda are next up to play Gold Coast. It might not be so lucky for them because often teams play better first up with a new coach.

That's what the poster meant.

1 hour ago, old55 said:

Hardwick can institute "the Gold Coast man" culture.

2 hours ago, Heart Beats True said:

Sounds familiar 🤔

I dont buy into this. Just look at Fly with the Pies or Hinkley and Port. The fact of the matter is players these days respond better to a coach who is more personable rather than the 'boss' days of old. We oldies dont get it, but it is what it is. 

3 minutes ago, Gawndy the Great said:

I dont buy into this. Just look at Fly with the Pies or Hinkley and Port. The fact of the matter is players these days respond better to a coach who is more personable rather than the 'boss' days of old. We oldies dont get it, but it is what it is. 

Lemme get my nerd on...and a book im writing...JUST replacedthe word Parent with Coach and Child with Athlete... 'it's STILL amazingly the same!"

The Whole-Brain Athlete 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Athletes’s Developing Mind

CHAPTER ONE: Coaching with the Brain in Mind
Because experiences are constantly shaping the brain for better or for worse, your interactions have a big impact on athletess brains. Integration is the key concept underlying the 12 strategies described in the book – connecting the many parts and functions of the brain to achieve well-being. In this chapter the authors introduce the concepts of neurons (or brain cells), the activation (or firing) of these cells, and the many connections these cells make with each other – the wiring.

CHAPTER TWO: Two Brains Are Better Than One: Integrating the Left and the Right
The two sides of our brains are different. The left side likes lists, sequences, logic, language, details, rules, and order. The right side pays attention to nonverbal signals, emotions, images, personal memories, music, art, creativity, and is more connected to the lower brain area that receives, understands, and processes emotional information. The two sides are connected by a bundle of fibers because we need them to work together, to be integrated.
Young athletes, however, are mostly operating from their right brains because they haven’t developed the abilities to use logic, understand time, use words to express feelings, etc. It’s our role to help them use both sides of their brains.
Two strategies will help for athletes of any age:
Whole brain strategy #1: Connect and Redirect: Surfing Emotional Waves Step 1: Connect with the Right: When athletes are experiencing big emotions, they’re operating from their right brain. Logic, language, telling them it isn’t so bad, trying to distract them – none of these strategies will work because they’re left-brain strategies. Instead, use your right brain to connect, to tune in to their emotions, to resonate with your athletes – acknowledge their feelings. Then and only then -
Step 2: Redirect with the Left: Use simple logic and language to suggest solutions to their problems. The authors caution that this does not mean permissiveness, that it takes practice to get good at this strategy, and that you have to maintain your own calm.

Whole brain strategy #2: Name It to Tame It: Telling Stories to Calm Big Emotions
Too often we “dismiss and deny” the emotional importance of life’s difficult experiences: we try to talk athletes out of their feelings, or we avoid painful issues. Instead, pick a time when you and your athletes are feeling calm, and have a story-telling conversation about the difficult event. This strategy is integrating both sides of the brain – the left tells the story of the right brain’s strong emotion: taming by naming.

CHAPTER THREE: Building the Staircase of the Mind: Integrating the Upstairs and Downstairs Brain Imagine the brain as a two-story house. The downstairs brain develops early and is responsible for bodily functions like breathing, as well as for strong emotional reactions like fight (anger), flight (fear), and freeze (fear). There’s a small structure in the downstairs brain that the authors call the “baby gate” of the mind – it causes us to react emotionally without thinking. Sometimes this is good, especially when we feel passionate about
someone or thing; often it gets us into trouble (when we react instead of respond to experiences that aren’t life-threatening).

The upstairs brain (the top part of your cortex, especially the area behind your forehead) develops later in childhood and on into adulthood; it’s the place where mental processes happen – good decisions, self understanding, emotional and bodily control, empathy, a sense of right and wrong, etc. All the actions we hope athletes will take require the upstairs brain, which isn’t fully on-line yet, but we can still appeal to it using the following strategies:
Whole brain strategy #3: Engage, Don’t Enrage: Appealing to the Upstairs Brain
First make sure you have applied step 1 of Strategy 1 and connect. Then, once calm, help them find solutions to their challenges. Engage their upstairs brain in problem-solving.

Whole brain strategy #4: Use It or Lose It: Exercising the Upstairs Brain
“A strong upstairs brain balances out the downstairs brain, and is essential for social- emotional intelligence.” So throughout the day look for opportunities to help your athletes practice upstairs brain skills:
Making decisions: For toddlers, give choices about what to wear, what to drink, etc. For older athletes, let them, with support and guidance, make more difficult choices about conflicting schedules or desires. Don’t rescue them, even if you can foresee that their choice might lead to their regret. However, help them predict possible outcomes. Regulating emotions and the body: Be sure and model this yourself in all your interactions with your athletes. Teach them calming techniques like taking a deep breath (“Swallow a bubble,” “Take a belly breath.”). Older athletes can learn to count to ten, or take a mental time-out.

Self-understanding: Ask athletes questions that help them think about and reflect on their feelings, help them predict what they might feel in a new situation & how they might handle it. Also, model this for them by using self-talk out loud, “Hmmm. I seem to feel extra nervous. I wonder why? Maybe it’s because I don’t know what my boss will say when I ask for time off.”
Empathy: Ask athletes questions about the feelings of others, about what someone’s actions might suggest about how they feel, about what might make someone feel better, etc.
Show compassion and empathy yourself. Morality: This isn’t just knowing what’s right and wrong but understanding how actions impact the greater good. We want our athletes to do the right thing with compassion, kindness, and empathy – not because someone’s watching, but because they know right from wrong. The authors give examples of questions and situations to develop this.

Whole brain strategy #5: Move It or Lose It: Moving the Body to Avoid Losing the Mind Movement changes brain chemistry, so when athletes are near a breaking point and aren’t connecting with their upstairs brain, get them moving to integrate their brain. The same is true for adults.

CHAPTER FOUR: Kill the Butterflies! Integrating Memory for Growth and Healing
Memories are tricky because they’re not just experiences filed away in a file cabinet, exactly as they happened. And they’re not exact photocopies of the experience, either. In this chapter you’ll learn about two different kinds of memory, and how to help your athletes (and yourself) integrate them. If we don’t help our athletes integrate their difficult memories, their emotions will show up in their behavior - which can confuse both them and us. And it’s important to remember that what’s a challenging memory for a athletes might seem pretty harmless to us. The authors use cute cartoon drawings and catchy sayings to illustrate the strategies:

Whole brain strategy #6: Use the Remote of the Mind: Replaying Memories
Just as telling a “story” or narrative about a strong emotion is naming it to tame it, here we help athletes get in touch with their unhappy and challenging memories to integrate them. The authors suggest we guide athletes to think of their minds as a remote control that can fast-forward, skip, pause, and stop when remembering painful experiences. As adults, we should help them “rewind and remember” instead of “fast-forward and forget.”

Whole brain strategy #7: Remembering to Remember: Making Recollection a Part of Your Family’s Daily Life Make daily family conversations a habit so athletes always have a chance to talk about their experiences and memories. Ask open-ended questions that will get them thinking and encourage them to share more than a “yes” or “no.” Instead of the usual, “How was your day?” ask them questions like, “What was your favorite part of the day?” and “Tell me about recess.” Ask them about their not-so- favorite parts of the day, too. Print those digital photos and make books and albums for your athletes so you can talk about shared experiences together. Have a regular family movie night where you watch movies you’ve made of your athletes, family, and experiences.

CHAPTER FIVE: The United States of Me: Integrating the Many Parts of the Self
In this chapter the authors introduce the idea of “Mindsight,” a term coined by Dan Siegel that mean understanding our own minds, which then we can then use to understand the minds of others. In this chapter you’ll read how to teach athletes about the wheel of awareness, telling the difference between what they feel and who they are, learn to focus their attention, and learn to get back to their hub (center). This will help them develop Mindsight. Most of these concepts are for K-12 athletes, but you yourself will benefit from applying them to your own mind. By modeling this for younger athletes, you’ll be preparing them to use Mindsight as they get older.

Whole brain strategy #8: Let the Clouds of Emotion Roll By: Teaching That Feelings Come and Go Teaching athletes to get in touch with and verbalize their feelings is a good strategy. But it’s also important to teach them that feelings are temporary and changeable, like the weather. This helps them put feelings in perspective – they won’t last forever. This will help them regain a calm state more easily and maintain it when painful feelings come along.

Whole brain strategy #9: SIFT: Paying Attention to What’s Going On Inside
Teach athletes to know what’s on the rim of their wheel of awareness and focus their attention on the following: the Sensations (messages) their body sends them; the Images they have from their experiences and imagination (from the right brain); the Feelings they have (right brain); and the Thoughts they are using to understand their world (left brain). This process is the basis for Mindsight and the chapter has strategies to make it fun.

Whole brain strategy #10: Exercise Mindsight: Getting Back to the Hub
By teaching athletes that they can choose how to think and feel about what happens to them in life, that they aren’t victims, that they can use their mind to calm their brain, they’ll thrive. The authors present ways to help athletes get in touch with their “hub,” that peaceful, calm center.

CHAPTER SIX: The Me-We Connection: Integrating Self and Other
We need to help athletes develop the second aspect of Mindsight - to integrate self and other – and develop relationships based on kindness, compassion, and empathy. Using the Mindsight skills they’re learning, with help from you and the developmental process, they can now learn to combine insight with empathy to develop interpersonal integration. It’s up to adults to create positive relationships with athletes; to encourage them to make friends and form relationships by helping them be receptive instead of reactive, and to use Mindsight skills with others.
Whole brain strategy #11: Increase the Family Fun Factor: Making a Point to Enjoy Each Other Spend time having fun, playing, and enjoying each other’s company. Every time you have enjoyable experiences with athletes, their brains release a “reward” chemical called dopamine, and they learn that relationships are rewarding. You’ve probably tried some of the suggestions to implement this strategy – and if you haven’t, the time to start is now!
Whole brain strategy

#12: Connection Through Conflict: Teach Athletes to Argue with a “We” in Mind Conflict is unavoidable in relationships, so teach athletes how to handle it in helpful ways using Mindsight:
recognize others’ perspectives and viewpoints (teach them previous strategies);
2. teach them to understand nonverbal cues so they can attune with others;
3. teach them to repair the relationship after conflict.

4 minutes ago, Engorged Onion said:

Lemme get my nerd on...and a book im writing...JUST replacedthe word Parent with Coach and Child with Athlete... 'it's STILL amazingly the same!"

The Whole-Brain Athlete 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Athletes’s Developing Mind

CHAPTER ONE: Coaching with the Brain in Mind
Because experiences are constantly shaping the brain for better or for worse, your interactions have a big impact on athletess brains. Integration is the key concept underlying the 12 strategies described in the book – connecting the many parts and functions of the brain to achieve well-being. In this chapter the authors introduce the concepts of neurons (or brain cells), the activation (or firing) of these cells, and the many connections these cells make with each other – the wiring.

CHAPTER TWO: Two Brains Are Better Than One: Integrating the Left and the Right
The two sides of our brains are different. The left side likes lists, sequences, logic, language, details, rules, and order. The right side pays attention to nonverbal signals, emotions, images, personal memories, music, art, creativity, and is more connected to the lower brain area that receives, understands, and processes emotional information. The two sides are connected by a bundle of fibers because we need them to work together, to be integrated.
Young athletes, however, are mostly operating from their right brains because they haven’t developed the abilities to use logic, understand time, use words to express feelings, etc. It’s our role to help them use both sides of their brains.
Two strategies will help for athletes of any age:
Whole brain strategy #1: Connect and Redirect: Surfing Emotional Waves Step 1: Connect with the Right: When athletes are experiencing big emotions, they’re operating from their right brain. Logic, language, telling them it isn’t so bad, trying to distract them – none of these strategies will work because they’re left-brain strategies. Instead, use your right brain to connect, to tune in to their emotions, to resonate with your athletes – acknowledge their feelings. Then and only then -
Step 2: Redirect with the Left: Use simple logic and language to suggest solutions to their problems. The authors caution that this does not mean permissiveness, that it takes practice to get good at this strategy, and that you have to maintain your own calm.

Whole brain strategy #2: Name It to Tame It: Telling Stories to Calm Big Emotions
Too often we “dismiss and deny” the emotional importance of life’s difficult experiences: we try to talk athletes out of their feelings, or we avoid painful issues. Instead, pick a time when you and your athletes are feeling calm, and have a story-telling conversation about the difficult event. This strategy is integrating both sides of the brain – the left tells the story of the right brain’s strong emotion: taming by naming.

CHAPTER THREE: Building the Staircase of the Mind: Integrating the Upstairs and Downstairs Brain Imagine the brain as a two-story house. The downstairs brain develops early and is responsible for bodily functions like breathing, as well as for strong emotional reactions like fight (anger), flight (fear), and freeze (fear). There’s a small structure in the downstairs brain that the authors call the “baby gate” of the mind – it causes us to react emotionally without thinking. Sometimes this is good, especially when we feel passionate about
someone or thing; often it gets us into trouble (when we react instead of respond to experiences that aren’t life-threatening).

The upstairs brain (the top part of your cortex, especially the area behind your forehead) develops later in childhood and on into adulthood; it’s the place where mental processes happen – good decisions, self understanding, emotional and bodily control, empathy, a sense of right and wrong, etc. All the actions we hope athletes will take require the upstairs brain, which isn’t fully on-line yet, but we can still appeal to it using the following strategies:
Whole brain strategy #3: Engage, Don’t Enrage: Appealing to the Upstairs Brain
First make sure you have applied step 1 of Strategy 1 and connect. Then, once calm, help them find solutions to their challenges. Engage their upstairs brain in problem-solving.

Whole brain strategy #4: Use It or Lose It: Exercising the Upstairs Brain
“A strong upstairs brain balances out the downstairs brain, and is essential for social- emotional intelligence.” So throughout the day look for opportunities to help your athletes practice upstairs brain skills:
Making decisions: For toddlers, give choices about what to wear, what to drink, etc. For older athletes, let them, with support and guidance, make more difficult choices about conflicting schedules or desires. Don’t rescue them, even if you can foresee that their choice might lead to their regret. However, help them predict possible outcomes. Regulating emotions and the body: Be sure and model this yourself in all your interactions with your athletes. Teach them calming techniques like taking a deep breath (“Swallow a bubble,” “Take a belly breath.”). Older athletes can learn to count to ten, or take a mental time-out.

Self-understanding: Ask athletes questions that help them think about and reflect on their feelings, help them predict what they might feel in a new situation & how they might handle it. Also, model this for them by using self-talk out loud, “Hmmm. I seem to feel extra nervous. I wonder why? Maybe it’s because I don’t know what my boss will say when I ask for time off.”
Empathy: Ask athletes questions about the feelings of others, about what someone’s actions might suggest about how they feel, about what might make someone feel better, etc.
Show compassion and empathy yourself. Morality: This isn’t just knowing what’s right and wrong but understanding how actions impact the greater good. We want our athletes to do the right thing with compassion, kindness, and empathy – not because someone’s watching, but because they know right from wrong. The authors give examples of questions and situations to develop this.

Whole brain strategy #5: Move It or Lose It: Moving the Body to Avoid Losing the Mind Movement changes brain chemistry, so when athletes are near a breaking point and aren’t connecting with their upstairs brain, get them moving to integrate their brain. The same is true for adults.

CHAPTER FOUR: Kill the Butterflies! Integrating Memory for Growth and Healing
Memories are tricky because they’re not just experiences filed away in a file cabinet, exactly as they happened. And they’re not exact photocopies of the experience, either. In this chapter you’ll learn about two different kinds of memory, and how to help your athletes (and yourself) integrate them. If we don’t help our athletes integrate their difficult memories, their emotions will show up in their behavior - which can confuse both them and us. And it’s important to remember that what’s a challenging memory for a athletes might seem pretty harmless to us. The authors use cute cartoon drawings and catchy sayings to illustrate the strategies:

Whole brain strategy #6: Use the Remote of the Mind: Replaying Memories
Just as telling a “story” or narrative about a strong emotion is naming it to tame it, here we help athletes get in touch with their unhappy and challenging memories to integrate them. The authors suggest we guide athletes to think of their minds as a remote control that can fast-forward, skip, pause, and stop when remembering painful experiences. As adults, we should help them “rewind and remember” instead of “fast-forward and forget.”

Whole brain strategy #7: Remembering to Remember: Making Recollection a Part of Your Family’s Daily Life Make daily family conversations a habit so athletes always have a chance to talk about their experiences and memories. Ask open-ended questions that will get them thinking and encourage them to share more than a “yes” or “no.” Instead of the usual, “How was your day?” ask them questions like, “What was your favorite part of the day?” and “Tell me about recess.” Ask them about their not-so- favorite parts of the day, too. Print those digital photos and make books and albums for your athletes so you can talk about shared experiences together. Have a regular family movie night where you watch movies you’ve made of your athletes, family, and experiences.

CHAPTER FIVE: The United States of Me: Integrating the Many Parts of the Self
In this chapter the authors introduce the idea of “Mindsight,” a term coined by Dan Siegel that mean understanding our own minds, which then we can then use to understand the minds of others. In this chapter you’ll read how to teach athletes about the wheel of awareness, telling the difference between what they feel and who they are, learn to focus their attention, and learn to get back to their hub (center). This will help them develop Mindsight. Most of these concepts are for K-12 athletes, but you yourself will benefit from applying them to your own mind. By modeling this for younger athletes, you’ll be preparing them to use Mindsight as they get older.

Whole brain strategy #8: Let the Clouds of Emotion Roll By: Teaching That Feelings Come and Go Teaching athletes to get in touch with and verbalize their feelings is a good strategy. But it’s also important to teach them that feelings are temporary and changeable, like the weather. This helps them put feelings in perspective – they won’t last forever. This will help them regain a calm state more easily and maintain it when painful feelings come along.

Whole brain strategy #9: SIFT: Paying Attention to What’s Going On Inside
Teach athletes to know what’s on the rim of their wheel of awareness and focus their attention on the following: the Sensations (messages) their body sends them; the Images they have from their experiences and imagination (from the right brain); the Feelings they have (right brain); and the Thoughts they are using to understand their world (left brain). This process is the basis for Mindsight and the chapter has strategies to make it fun.

Whole brain strategy #10: Exercise Mindsight: Getting Back to the Hub
By teaching athletes that they can choose how to think and feel about what happens to them in life, that they aren’t victims, that they can use their mind to calm their brain, they’ll thrive. The authors present ways to help athletes get in touch with their “hub,” that peaceful, calm center.

CHAPTER SIX: The Me-We Connection: Integrating Self and Other
We need to help athletes develop the second aspect of Mindsight - to integrate self and other – and develop relationships based on kindness, compassion, and empathy. Using the Mindsight skills they’re learning, with help from you and the developmental process, they can now learn to combine insight with empathy to develop interpersonal integration. It’s up to adults to create positive relationships with athletes; to encourage them to make friends and form relationships by helping them be receptive instead of reactive, and to use Mindsight skills with others.
Whole brain strategy #11: Increase the Family Fun Factor: Making a Point to Enjoy Each Other Spend time having fun, playing, and enjoying each other’s company. Every time you have enjoyable experiences with athletes, their brains release a “reward” chemical called dopamine, and they learn that relationships are rewarding. You’ve probably tried some of the suggestions to implement this strategy – and if you haven’t, the time to start is now!
Whole brain strategy

#12: Connection Through Conflict: Teach Athletes to Argue with a “We” in Mind Conflict is unavoidable in relationships, so teach athletes how to handle it in helpful ways using Mindsight:
recognize others’ perspectives and viewpoints (teach them previous strategies);
2. teach them to understand nonverbal cues so they can attune with others;
3. teach them to repair the relationship after conflict.

impressive but it does assume athletes have brains - not so sure.

5 hours ago, dazzledavey36 said:

Unfortunately for Dew I think this had to happen.

Their list is choc full of talent but yet they're one of the most irrelevant club in thr competition.

They stand for nothing and I think Dimma will give them some edge and toughness about them on and off the field.

I’m not convinced Dew or toughness were the problems. They are one of the best contested sides in the comp and our players and coaches always talk about how tough they play us.

Dew’s rebuilt their backline really well from just about scratch. And even then they’re playing Mac before he’s really ready because they don’t have a solid B grade tall to go alongside Collins and Ballard.

As good as Witts, Miller, Rowell, Anderson are their wings and midfield depth is ordinary. It’s taken Ainsworth a long time to find his role on the wing. Hollands and Flanders still finding their way. Some will say that’s poor use of really talented kids but I think they are guys who take time despite their draft position. Overdrafted one way running mids who struggle for spots at half forward and rotation mid minutes isn’t uncommon throughout the comp.

King and Lukosius make the forward line look good but they aren’t actually stars yet, they’re still so young for tall forwards. Dew’s nurtured them along. Rankine’s a huge loss because it’s a big step down to their other small forwards.

Was their game plan incredibly basic - win contests, hoof it long - yes. But did they have the side to work more possession between the arcs without a lot of skill in the half forward, wings and depth mids? Not exactly.

Hardwick will probably get them rolling but I feel like they needed just one more summer for the talent to really mature.

If Dew was fired for anything it should be just how long it took them to clean the books and how they haven’t recruited well enough with experienced players. He took the job knowing it was going to be tough but he’s had so little help from the head of footy/list manager. Wayne Campbell doesn’t even live full time on the Gold Coast, how is that sustainable?

 

Edited July 11, 20231 yr by DeeSpencer

4 hours ago, Whispering_Jack said:

St Kilda are next up to play Gold Coast. It might not be so lucky for them because often teams play better first up with a new coach.

That does seem to be the case.

Anyone know the statistics ?

It isn't surprising if it is true. Players must get sick of the same voice year after year.

13 minutes ago, DeeSpencer said:

I’m not convinced Dew or toughness were the problems. They are one of the best contested sides in the comp and our players and coaches always talk about how tough they play us.

Dew’s rebuilt their backline really well from just about scratch. And even then they’re playing Mac before he’s really ready because they don’t have a solid B grade tall to go alongside Collins and Ballard.

As good as Witts, Miller, Rowell, Anderson are their wings and midfield depth is ordinary. It’s taken Ainsworth a long time to find his role on the wing. Hollands and Flanders still finding their way. Some will say that’s poor use of really talented kids but I think they are guys who take time despite their draft position. Overdrafted one way running mids who struggle for spots at half forward and rotation mid minutes isn’t uncommon throughout the comp.

King and Lukosius make the forward line look good but they aren’t actually stars yet, they’re still so young for tall forwards. Dew’s nurtured them along. Rankine’s a huge loss because it’s a big step down to their other small forwards.

Was their game plan incredibly basic - win contests, hoof it long - yes. But did they have the side to work more possession between the arcs without a lot of skill in the half forward, wings and depth mids? Not exactly.

Hardwick will probably get them rolling but I feel like they needed just one more summer for the talent to really mature.

If Dew was fired for anything it should be just how long it took them to clean the books and how they haven’t recruited well enough with experienced players. He took the job knowing it was going to be tough but he’s had so little help from the head of footy/list manager. Wayne Campbell doesn’t even live full time on the Gold Coast, how is that sustainable?

 

Yep. Both queensland clubs are ranked bottom for handballs year after year (or close to) bar the off exceptional year when they are mid table.  It's a contest, clearance and kick game plan.  You have to have skill between the arcs or key marking forwards. You're simply not going to have wave running.  The list needs a tweak. Not an easy fix imo.

Edited July 11, 20231 yr by Jjrogan

2 hours ago, Demonstone said:

Whoever gets the job will have big pants to fill.

I see what you did there....

6 hours ago, ElDiablo14 said:

It was always meant to happen.

GC has been a very underachieving team during his tenure their entire existence.

 

With the amount of money the AFL has dumped into the GCS for no return, it would be negligent of them not to put a 3 time premiership winning coach into the role the minute he became available. 

There is no point putting in another no name up there. The only way this club gets anywhere, regardless of how great their list is, is with a big name coach.

47 minutes ago, Engorged Onion said:

Lemme get my nerd on...and a book im writing...JUST replacedthe word Parent with Coach and Child with Athlete... 'it's STILL amazingly the same!"

The Whole-Brain Athlete 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Athletes’s Developing Mind

CHAPTER ONE: Coaching with the Brain in Mind
Because experiences are constantly shaping the brain for better or for worse, your interactions have a big impact on athletess brains. Integration is the key concept underlying the 12 strategies described in the book – connecting the many parts and functions of the brain to achieve well-being. In this chapter the authors introduce the concepts of neurons (or brain cells), the activation (or firing) of these cells, and the many connections these cells make with each other – the wiring.

CHAPTER TWO: Two Brains Are Better Than One: Integrating the Left and the Right
The two sides of our brains are different. The left side likes lists, sequences, logic, language, details, rules, and order. The right side pays attention to nonverbal signals, emotions, images, personal memories, music, art, creativity, and is more connected to the lower brain area that receives, understands, and processes emotional information. The two sides are connected by a bundle of fibers because we need them to work together, to be integrated.
Young athletes, however, are mostly operating from their right brains because they haven’t developed the abilities to use logic, understand time, use words to express feelings, etc. It’s our role to help them use both sides of their brains.
Two strategies will help for athletes of any age:
Whole brain strategy #1: Connect and Redirect: Surfing Emotional Waves Step 1: Connect with the Right: When athletes are experiencing big emotions, they’re operating from their right brain. Logic, language, telling them it isn’t so bad, trying to distract them – none of these strategies will work because they’re left-brain strategies. Instead, use your right brain to connect, to tune in to their emotions, to resonate with your athletes – acknowledge their feelings. Then and only then -
Step 2: Redirect with the Left: Use simple logic and language to suggest solutions to their problems. The authors caution that this does not mean permissiveness, that it takes practice to get good at this strategy, and that you have to maintain your own calm.

Whole brain strategy #2: Name It to Tame It: Telling Stories to Calm Big Emotions
Too often we “dismiss and deny” the emotional importance of life’s difficult experiences: we try to talk athletes out of their feelings, or we avoid painful issues. Instead, pick a time when you and your athletes are feeling calm, and have a story-telling conversation about the difficult event. This strategy is integrating both sides of the brain – the left tells the story of the right brain’s strong emotion: taming by naming.

CHAPTER THREE: Building the Staircase of the Mind: Integrating the Upstairs and Downstairs Brain Imagine the brain as a two-story house. The downstairs brain develops early and is responsible for bodily functions like breathing, as well as for strong emotional reactions like fight (anger), flight (fear), and freeze (fear). There’s a small structure in the downstairs brain that the authors call the “baby gate” of the mind – it causes us to react emotionally without thinking. Sometimes this is good, especially when we feel passionate about
someone or thing; often it gets us into trouble (when we react instead of respond to experiences that aren’t life-threatening).

The upstairs brain (the top part of your cortex, especially the area behind your forehead) develops later in childhood and on into adulthood; it’s the place where mental processes happen – good decisions, self understanding, emotional and bodily control, empathy, a sense of right and wrong, etc. All the actions we hope athletes will take require the upstairs brain, which isn’t fully on-line yet, but we can still appeal to it using the following strategies:
Whole brain strategy #3: Engage, Don’t Enrage: Appealing to the Upstairs Brain
First make sure you have applied step 1 of Strategy 1 and connect. Then, once calm, help them find solutions to their challenges. Engage their upstairs brain in problem-solving.

Whole brain strategy #4: Use It or Lose It: Exercising the Upstairs Brain
“A strong upstairs brain balances out the downstairs brain, and is essential for social- emotional intelligence.” So throughout the day look for opportunities to help your athletes practice upstairs brain skills:
Making decisions: For toddlers, give choices about what to wear, what to drink, etc. For older athletes, let them, with support and guidance, make more difficult choices about conflicting schedules or desires. Don’t rescue them, even if you can foresee that their choice might lead to their regret. However, help them predict possible outcomes. Regulating emotions and the body: Be sure and model this yourself in all your interactions with your athletes. Teach them calming techniques like taking a deep breath (“Swallow a bubble,” “Take a belly breath.”). Older athletes can learn to count to ten, or take a mental time-out.

Self-understanding: Ask athletes questions that help them think about and reflect on their feelings, help them predict what they might feel in a new situation & how they might handle it. Also, model this for them by using self-talk out loud, “Hmmm. I seem to feel extra nervous. I wonder why? Maybe it’s because I don’t know what my boss will say when I ask for time off.”
Empathy: Ask athletes questions about the feelings of others, about what someone’s actions might suggest about how they feel, about what might make someone feel better, etc.
Show compassion and empathy yourself. Morality: This isn’t just knowing what’s right and wrong but understanding how actions impact the greater good. We want our athletes to do the right thing with compassion, kindness, and empathy – not because someone’s watching, but because they know right from wrong. The authors give examples of questions and situations to develop this.

Whole brain strategy #5: Move It or Lose It: Moving the Body to Avoid Losing the Mind Movement changes brain chemistry, so when athletes are near a breaking point and aren’t connecting with their upstairs brain, get them moving to integrate their brain. The same is true for adults.

CHAPTER FOUR: Kill the Butterflies! Integrating Memory for Growth and Healing
Memories are tricky because they’re not just experiences filed away in a file cabinet, exactly as they happened. And they’re not exact photocopies of the experience, either. In this chapter you’ll learn about two different kinds of memory, and how to help your athletes (and yourself) integrate them. If we don’t help our athletes integrate their difficult memories, their emotions will show up in their behavior - which can confuse both them and us. And it’s important to remember that what’s a challenging memory for a athletes might seem pretty harmless to us. The authors use cute cartoon drawings and catchy sayings to illustrate the strategies:

Whole brain strategy #6: Use the Remote of the Mind: Replaying Memories
Just as telling a “story” or narrative about a strong emotion is naming it to tame it, here we help athletes get in touch with their unhappy and challenging memories to integrate them. The authors suggest we guide athletes to think of their minds as a remote control that can fast-forward, skip, pause, and stop when remembering painful experiences. As adults, we should help them “rewind and remember” instead of “fast-forward and forget.”

Whole brain strategy #7: Remembering to Remember: Making Recollection a Part of Your Family’s Daily Life Make daily family conversations a habit so athletes always have a chance to talk about their experiences and memories. Ask open-ended questions that will get them thinking and encourage them to share more than a “yes” or “no.” Instead of the usual, “How was your day?” ask them questions like, “What was your favorite part of the day?” and “Tell me about recess.” Ask them about their not-so- favorite parts of the day, too. Print those digital photos and make books and albums for your athletes so you can talk about shared experiences together. Have a regular family movie night where you watch movies you’ve made of your athletes, family, and experiences.

CHAPTER FIVE: The United States of Me: Integrating the Many Parts of the Self
In this chapter the authors introduce the idea of “Mindsight,” a term coined by Dan Siegel that mean understanding our own minds, which then we can then use to understand the minds of others. In this chapter you’ll read how to teach athletes about the wheel of awareness, telling the difference between what they feel and who they are, learn to focus their attention, and learn to get back to their hub (center). This will help them develop Mindsight. Most of these concepts are for K-12 athletes, but you yourself will benefit from applying them to your own mind. By modeling this for younger athletes, you’ll be preparing them to use Mindsight as they get older.

Whole brain strategy #8: Let the Clouds of Emotion Roll By: Teaching That Feelings Come and Go Teaching athletes to get in touch with and verbalize their feelings is a good strategy. But it’s also important to teach them that feelings are temporary and changeable, like the weather. This helps them put feelings in perspective – they won’t last forever. This will help them regain a calm state more easily and maintain it when painful feelings come along.

Whole brain strategy #9: SIFT: Paying Attention to What’s Going On Inside
Teach athletes to know what’s on the rim of their wheel of awareness and focus their attention on the following: the Sensations (messages) their body sends them; the Images they have from their experiences and imagination (from the right brain); the Feelings they have (right brain); and the Thoughts they are using to understand their world (left brain). This process is the basis for Mindsight and the chapter has strategies to make it fun.

Whole brain strategy #10: Exercise Mindsight: Getting Back to the Hub
By teaching athletes that they can choose how to think and feel about what happens to them in life, that they aren’t victims, that they can use their mind to calm their brain, they’ll thrive. The authors present ways to help athletes get in touch with their “hub,” that peaceful, calm center.

CHAPTER SIX: The Me-We Connection: Integrating Self and Other
We need to help athletes develop the second aspect of Mindsight - to integrate self and other – and develop relationships based on kindness, compassion, and empathy. Using the Mindsight skills they’re learning, with help from you and the developmental process, they can now learn to combine insight with empathy to develop interpersonal integration. It’s up to adults to create positive relationships with athletes; to encourage them to make friends and form relationships by helping them be receptive instead of reactive, and to use Mindsight skills with others.
Whole brain strategy #11: Increase the Family Fun Factor: Making a Point to Enjoy Each Other Spend time having fun, playing, and enjoying each other’s company. Every time you have enjoyable experiences with athletes, their brains release a “reward” chemical called dopamine, and they learn that relationships are rewarding. You’ve probably tried some of the suggestions to implement this strategy – and if you haven’t, the time to start is now!
Whole brain strategy

#12: Connection Through Conflict: Teach Athletes to Argue with a “We” in Mind Conflict is unavoidable in relationships, so teach athletes how to handle it in helpful ways using Mindsight:
recognize others’ perspectives and viewpoints (teach them previous strategies);
2. teach them to understand nonverbal cues so they can attune with others;
3. teach them to repair the relationship after conflict.

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