Is it the players or dysfunction at the management level?

[Queanbeyan Demon 6,870]

Definition of the football department at the MFC:

• Goodwin – senior coach
• Richardson – GM of AFL Football Performance
• Yze – midfield coach
• Chaplin – backline coach
• Stafford – forward line coach
• Williams – head of development
• Whitford – VFL senior coach
• Radford - opposition strategy and education

Can someone who has real world knowledge and practical experience in such an environment please explain, in practice, how does a football department actually work? For example:

• What does the FD do during pre-season as a group?
• What does the FD do during a ‘normal’ week as a group during the season?
• How do the backline, midfield and forward line coaches work, in an integrative manner, during the year and on gameday?
• How is information passed between these coaches and then onto the players?
• Who reports to who?
• Who is in charge during the game of making moves and adjusting strategy and tactics?
• What does Simon actually do?

Edited September 15, 2023 by Queanbeyan Demon
Typo

[adonski 12,458]

Live scenes of preseason training #contest 

[spirit of norm smith 16,589]

Both? The bombs inside 50 don’t work.  We all know it. A 6 year old knows it. Why do the players do it? Their own bloody mindedness or they are told to. Either way … watch others and fix it!! I’m still angry btw 

[GM11 782]

AFL footballers.

Should be able to kick the ball.

Worst losses have been solely due to not converting inside 50s.

Shouldn't need to be coached on kicking at this level.

Players need to take ownership of this.

 

[Clintosaurus 7,874]

Both games were lost on conversion in terms of things the club can control. Nothing more.

[gregdemon 624]

And just plain bad luck is a factor when you lose 2 finals by a total of 9 points.  If frittta kicks straight if max does of picket does not give away  if Viney does kick straight to Carlton. MNy ifs if too plZyed we win i

[Rodney (Balls) Grinter 10,893]

1 hour ago, Queanbeyan Demon said:

Definition of the football department at the MFC:

• Goodwin – senior coach
• Richardson – GM of AFL Football Performance
• Yze – midfield coach
• Chaplin – backline coach
• Stafford – forward line coach
• Williams – head of development
• Whitford – VFL senior coach
• Radford - opposition strategy and education

Can someone who has real world knowledge and practical experience in such an environment please explain, in practice, how does a football department actually work? For example:

• What does the FD do during pre-season as a group?
• What does the FD do during a ‘normal’ week as a group during the season?
• How do the backline, midfield and forward line coaches work, in an integrative manner, during the year and on gameday?
• How is information passed between these coaches and then onto the players?
• Who reports to who?
• Who is in charge during the game of making moves and adjusting strategy and tactics?
• What does Simon actually do?

Well reasoned post Queanbeyan, but the title of the thread is over negative click bait garbage.

I'm really interested in the response to the questions you've posed, but my summary is that we did pretty well this season with the chips we were dealt.

So Grundy won't be viewed as a sucess in retrospect, but the opportunity was there and worth a try.

All up, I think Goody has the right approach and is always looking for ways to get better, without throwing the baby out with the bath water, but also prepared to make tough calls and changes when things clearly arn't working.

Few saw us even making finals at the end of 2020, let alone making a premiership in 2021, so people can continue to write us off, I say.  We'll be competing with a pretty good chance next year and I have confidence in the bulk of the players and coaching staff to do whatever is required to get there.

[demon3165 2,805]

1 hour ago, spirit of norm smith said:

Both? The bombs inside 50 don’t work.  We all know it. A 6 year old knows it. Why do the players do it? Their own bloody mindedness or they are told to. Either way … watch others and fix it!! I’m still angry btw 

Except some posters here who cannot see that as a problem it was the same last year and again this year, time for a new forward line coach and someone who knows how to play and teach the younger players.

[Watson11 2,244]

1 hour ago, Queanbeyan Demon said:

Definition of the football department at the MFC:

• Goodwin – senior coach
• Richardson – GM of AFL Football Performance
• Yze – midfield coach
• Chaplin – backline coach
• Stafford – forward line coach
• Williams – head of development
• Whitford – VFL senior coach
• Radford - opposition strategy and education

Can someone who has real world knowledge and practical experience in such an environment please explain, in practice, how does a football department actually work? For example:

• What does the FD do during pre-season as a group?
• What does the FD do during a ‘normal’ week as a group during the season?
• How do the backline, midfield and forward line coaches work, in an integrative manner, during the year and on gameday?
• How is information passed between these coaches and then onto the players?
• Who reports to who?
• Who is in charge during the game of making moves and adjusting strategy and tactics?
• What does Simon actually do?

If the coaching team were not dysfunctional I would be very surprised. 99% of management teams are. 

I believe Goodwin reports to Richo.

I suspect mid, forward, and back coaches report to Goody.

I suspect Williams, Whitford, Radford report to Richo but are part of a team and all provide input/advice to Goody. But Williams has (or used to have) a lot of input with the senior group re skills so maybe he has dual reporting lines.

There is also the high performance manager and analytics teams. I suspect they report to Richo but also provide input to Goody. Burgo framed it that he provides advice and risks (re injuries and whether players are ready) but the final decision is the coach.

Goody sets our gameplan using all the info, he tells the line coaches. He is responsible for match day moves but gets advice.

But who knows if the coaching team works well together or not.  We just see what happens on the field, but we don’t sit in team meetings with Goody and all of the above.  We have no idea if they are a really high functioning team where ideas are expressed freely and without reprisal and good decisions are made, or whether they are what is common in business and are a dysfunctional team and bad decisions are made. 

Just looking at goalkicking.  I was so frustrated looking at the way we took our set shots. Kossie, Max, Tracc still have no reliable set shot routine to fall back on under pressure.  It’s a bad decision to not invest more in goal kicking. Inside 50 plan is another dysfunctional plan and I find it hard to believe all coaches agree with our safety first approach.

[Rodney (Balls) Grinter 10,893]

In summary, in response to the question of disfunction, I'd say neither of our management or players are.  To the contrary, you don't get where we have over the past 3 years if your dysfunctional.

The results of our past two seasons do say there is room for improvement though and I think our track record says that we'll critically review seek that improvement out to give ourselves the beat shot at it again in future years.

Edited September 16, 2023 by Rodney (Balls) Grinter

[Roost it far 8,667]

1 hour ago, spirit of norm smith said:

Both? The bombs inside 50 don’t work.  We all know it. A 6 year old knows it. Why do the players do it? Their own bloody mindedness or they are told to. Either way … watch others and fix it!! I’m still angry btw 

Because we have forwards with little or no forward craft, mids who can’t kick and a use a plan to suit/minimise those weaknesses 

[layzie 34,014]

40 minutes ago, gregdemon said:

And just plain bad luck is a factor when you lose 2 finals by a total of 9 points.  If frittta kicks straight if max does of picket does not give away  if Viney does kick straight to Carlton. MNy ifs if too plZyed we win i

If, if, if. If we did this, if we did that. 

The number one keyword for DL in the past 24 hours, 'if'. Rudyard Kipling must be doing cartwheels in his grave. 

We shouldn't call it the premiership, we should call it "The team that took their chances early in games and won cup" or the "luck with injuries Pennant". 

When we talk about past great teams and what they do best, forget the Clarko cluster, Richmond chaos ball zone or Gee-long and direct styles of play they all just had luck with injuries and took their chances early. Case closed, shut down all footy talk shows, close all online discussion forums like this, that's apparently all it ever is. 

Sure sometimes football comes down to very simple things like above, but it's kind of baffling to me how many people here, some really smart and cluey football brains are going into total simplistic mode. "If we turn a few more of those points into goals" lines are true but why are we not able to convert at league average in these games? Is it psychological? Technique? The entry quality? The types of looks we get at goal? This needs to be drilled down into more and expected score needs to be used as a tool not a yip-yap.

If 4 straight finals of failure on the big stage isn't enough sample data to tell you something isn't right (3 of which inaccuracy killed us) then I can't help you. If you just want put it down to bad luck then what are we paying specialist coaches, psychs and other staff for? 

Not directed at you Gregdemon but I don't like this idea of people telling me I should be happy to get to this point but not unhappy about the result because there's a myriad of excuses to use for it.

[Sir Why You Little 37,161]

4 Straight Finals losses, ALL OF THEM  at The MCG. 

That is not LUCK. 

That is a trend. 
 

After Round 15 Carlscum were 15th

The MFC finished the Season below them. 
 

#realitycheck