I love David King now 

It would be good to have a discussion here about whether 'us against the world' works - I like it and hope it does. Perhaps with some examples, in the public domain or personal experiences. And how a team goes about making it work.

Fire away, 'Landers! 🙃

5 minutes ago, Timothy Reddan-A'Blew said:

It would be good to have a discussion here about whether 'us against the world' works - I like it and hope it does. Perhaps with some examples, in the public domain or personal experiences. And how a team goes about making it work.

Fire away, 'Landers! 🙃

There is absolutely - without a shadow of a doubt - an opportunity to really use recent events, the Maynard incident, double straight sets and arguably a few other things to galvanize the group this pre-season. Drive them hard. 

Goody will need to be careful in how he chooses to use the 'theme' as it can grow tired really quickly - maybe save the good stuff for finals, but the theme has to be prominent throughout the year and really build a story around it. 

End of the day, clubs look for an edge. We were 7 and 2 points away from a PF. That is nothing - so every penny counts. 

I think this is another “fugazi” moment 

Noise that isn’t as King suggests detracting from our performances

i don’t think it’s us against the world anymore than any other season 

If we aren’t going forward with our list and player development then we are going backwards because several of 2023’s pretenders will evolve to be contenders in 24

 

John Northey had an 'us v the world' approach in the late 80's. It dragged us from the depths to be a contender.

Yadda yadda. He said last year we were training better than anybody else and were the team to beat. The truth is no one, especially him, has a clue.

14 minutes ago, Timothy Reddan-A'Blew said:

It would be good to have a discussion here about whether 'us against the world' works - I like it and hope it does. Perhaps with some examples, in the public domain or personal experiences. And how a team goes about making it work.

Fire away, 'Landers! 🙃

Sir Alex Ferguson (Manchester United) used it as continuous motivation and mind game for his players throughout the 90's and early 2000's. In England particularly, you either love or hate Man Utd, a bit like Colonwood in Australia I guess. The media scrutiny is immense and it's something that some players don't particularly deal with well, so Ferguson would take the heat of the media off the players by playing mind games with the media and other managers, and then privately build an us against them environment in the dressing room. At times it boiled over on the pitch with players like Roy Keane who was fearless and confrontational with opposition and also referees. Overall I think his management style produced results as they were successful over a long period and his leadership methods are the stuff of legend really. 

‘Us vs the world’ is an overly emotional motivation strategy, that worked better with previous generations. These days it seems like coaches take a ‘growth mindset’ mentality, and don’t try and make everything feel so dramatic. They recognise that people get burnt out by feeling like the world is against them - as it begins to become a self fulfilling prophecy.

I think the ‘us vs the world’ mentality is a huge part of the problem for the Bulldogs under Beveridge. There can be less opportunity to find joy in the process.

10 minutes ago, Bonkers said:

Sir Alex Ferguson (Manchester United) used it as continuous motivation and mind game for his players throughout the 90's and early 2000's. In England particularly, you either love or hate Man Utd, a bit like Colonwood in Australia I guess. The media scrutiny is immense and it's something that some players don't particularly deal with well, so Ferguson would take the heat of the media off the players by playing mind games with the media and other managers, and then privately build an us against them environment in the dressing room. At times it boiled over on the pitch with players like Roy Keane who was fearless and confrontational with opposition and also referees. Overall I think his management style produced results as they were successful over a long period and his leadership methods are the stuff of legend really. 

Kevin Sheedy, love him or loath him, was the past master of it. 10 premierships at Essendon in 27 years says it all.

4 minutes ago, The heart beats true said:

‘Us vs the world’ is an overly emotional motivation strategy, that worked better with previous generations. These days it seems like coaches take a ‘growth mindset’ mentality, and don’t try and make everything feel so dramatic. They recognise that people get burnt out by feeling like the world is against them - as it begins to become a self fulfilling prophecy.

I think the ‘us vs the world’ mentality is a huge part of the problem for the Bulldogs under Beveridge. There can be less opportunity to find joy in the process.

I was once asked by a coach at half-time to tag Ted Joy. Never found him.

40 minutes ago, Timothy Reddan-A'Blew said:

It would be good to have a discussion here about whether 'us against the world' works - I like it and hope it does. Perhaps with some examples, in the public domain or personal experiences. And how a team goes about making it work.

Fire away, 'Landers! 🙃

It's not quite the same, but Essendon in 2000 was so upset by not getting into the GF in 1999, that they went through the whole 2000 season where they won 21 out of 22 home and away games (and the pre-season competition which they also won) without once singing the theme song after a win. In the team's view, winning a H&A game was not good enough. They didn't consider themselves to be winners until they won the Premiership, which, of course, they did.

1 hour ago, chook fowler said:

Yadda yadda. He said last year we were training better than anybody else and were the team to beat. The truth is no one, especially him, has a clue.

He actually said Melbourne’s training is brutal and it’s at a level he hasn’t seen from other teams and he countered it with that it would be difficult to sustain that level of intensity throughout the year.

He wasn’t wrong we dipped for a period mid year and started to build strongly after the Brisbane win, anyone who doesn’t think we were into it up to our necks before Petty and Melk went down is trying to rewrite history.

Lucks involved and you make your own, but from August onwards despite what he says now in hindsight Kane Cornes had us as favourites, Cam Mooney had us as the team to beat, Brenton Sanderson had us as grand finalists and most pundits had the Pies second half of the season pointing to alarming heading into September 

Could of, would of, should of I know but IMO the window ain’t close to being closed

1 hour ago, chook fowler said:

Yadda yadda. He said last year we were training better than anybody else and were the team to beat. The truth is no one, especially him, has a clue.

In fairness, chook, not just injuries but combination / clusters of injuries Petty Melksham Frittata Brown McDonald could not have been worse and we only failed by a couple of shots in both finals.

2 hours ago, Queanbeyan Demon said:

Kevin Sheedy, love him or loath him, was the past master of it. 10 premierships at Essendon in 27 years says it all.

4 premierships. Though your point clearly stands well enough on that. Plus there is some bonus credit for beating Hawthorn in consecutive Grand finals. I reckon even Sam Mitchell has that on his bucket list.

So, here's a fun 'would you rather'; Would you rather the 84/85 double premiership or the 1993 'baby bombers' evolving to the 2000 'greatest'?

I wonder who our conceptual Hird-Mercuri-Misiti-Fletcher-Wallis core that would play in both be? And on that note - I would never have thought that there were only five players from the supposedly very youg 1993 side who were still around for the 2000 win.

I'm running with the thought; 2021 premiership players on our list now who would realistically be young enough to also contest a 2028 premiership;

True youngsters are Petty, Spargo, Sparrow, Pickett, Rivers and Bowey. Then of the mature players Petracca, Oliver, Brayshaw and Lever are all contracted to at least the end of 2028, so count them in. Fritsch with his brain-and-skill based play should last that long, too.

11 players realistically in the window for both a 2021 and 2028 premiership! Noice. 🦄

16 minutes ago, monoccular said:

In fairness, chook, not just injuries but combination / clusters of injuries Petty Melksham Frittata Brown McDonald could not have been worse and we only failed by a couple of shots in both finals.

Probably right but it doesn’t stop me being pee’d off.

11 minutes ago, monoccular said:

In fairness, chook, not just injuries but combination / clusters of injuries Petty Melksham Frittata Brown McDonald could not have been worse and we only failed by a couple of shots in both finals.

Since I had old Essendon stats open already, I took a quick look at their 2000 injury run for comparison.

5 players played every game, 7 players only missed one game, 7 more played at least 20 games.

Our marking forwards (Brown, McDonald, Petty, Fritsch) missed more games through injury this season than Essendon's entire starting 18 in their premiership season!

I said no such thing!!

4 hours ago, chook fowler said:

Yadda yadda. He said last year we were training better than anybody else and were the team to beat. The truth is no one, especially him, has a clue.

Then again, Chook, add Melksham and Petty to the 2 finals side, say Brayshaw was not the victim of common assault, and Van R not rubbed out, he would have been correct. Luck is such a big part of it because, in the end, not much seperates the 4 really good sides...

20 minutes ago, McQueen said:

I said no such thing!!

Who are you talking to?

Don't take any notice of what comes out of Kings mouth.

5 hours ago, WalkingCivilWar said:

Who are you talking to?

Correct!

17 hours ago, Gawndy the Great said:

There is absolutely - without a shadow of a doubt - an opportunity to really use recent events, the Maynard incident, double straight sets and arguably a few other things to galvanize the group this pre-season. Drive them hard. 

Goody will need to be careful in how he chooses to use the 'theme' as it can grow tired really quickly - maybe save the good stuff for finals, but the theme has to be prominent throughout the year and really build a story around it. 

End of the day, clubs look for an edge. We were 7 and 2 points away from a PF. That is nothing - so every penny counts. 

Collingwood has used that mantra successfully for a very long time. It’s always been if you don’t “love them ..you hate them”. & it’s worked . You can see the adrenaline and never say die attitude the players  have when they play in front of their rabid crowd. That’s why we have to grow our supporter base & as Kate Roffey said “ become obnoxious supporters..not collingwood obnoxious but loud & proud! 

14 hours ago, Little Goffy said:

Since I had old Essendon stats open already, I took a quick look at their 2000 injury run for comparison.

5 players played every game, 7 players only missed one game, 7 more played at least 20 games.

Our marking forwards (Brown, McDonald, Petty, Fritsch) missed more games through injury this season than Essendon's entire starting 18 in their premiership season!

There it is in a nut shell.

Nailed it @Little Goffy

Go have a look at out Forward spine in the 4 Finals we played in from 22 to 23.

Then compare it to 2021 it tells you everything you need to know.

We were a whole lot closer to the mark than a semi final exit would suggest in my view, we probably SHOULD have won both finals, but didn't handle the big moments all that well and missed some big chances. also one of our better players getting knocked out early in a final by an action that was at best, ridiculous doesn't help anything. i know it's a controversial view but i think it speaks directly to the integrity of the AFL competition that they forgot about Brayden Maynards duty of care to Gus conveniently because he's an important player to Collingwood during a finals series. I would be very very confident that would have been a suspension if it was a St Kilda player and it was during the season