[censored] I’m sick of the “changing the coach does nothing” argument.

Anyone who thinks changing the coach without making any other changes is going to see some marked turnaround is clearly wrong. But genuinely how many of them are there?

Most of those who were in the camp of a new coach for 2026 are also posters who want a new approach to our midfield, forward line, stoppage setup, training structure, etc.

At the heart of the argument for changing the coach is to bring other changes that perhaps would not have occurred under Goodwin.

2 hours ago, Adam The God said:

Caro clearly has sources at board level, directly or indirectly.

'Clearly'

Must be true then

Just now, jnrmac said:

'Clearly'

Must be true then

Sorry, everything's fine. 👍 Nothing to see here.

12 hours ago, binman said:

I mean there is so little evidence changing coaches results in sustained success that its bizarre the myth, not to mention practice (though AFL clubs are not changing coaches as often now) continues.

This, a thousand times this.

I just find it bizarre. All the evidence you could ever want is out there, but people are just sticking their heads in the sand.

8 hours ago, Adam The God said:

Caro clearly has sources at board level, directly or indirectly.

Caro clearly has sources.

15 hours ago, titan_uranus said:

At the heart of the argument for changing the coach is to bring other changes that perhaps would not have occurred under Goodwin.

I'd go a step further and say definitely could not have happened under Goodwin.

9 hours ago, bing181 said:

I just find it bizarre. All the evidence you could ever want is out there, but people are just sticking their heads in the sand.

Is the logical conclusion, then, that you never change a coach?

21 hours ago, binman said:

I reckon that's simple not the case, and its a falsity that drives myth that replacing the coach will address sustained poor performance.

I mean there is so little evidence changing coaches results in sustained success that its bizarre the myth, not to mention practice (though AFL clubs are not changing coaches as often now) continues.

Just look at the blues and roos for recent examples. How many coaches did both clubs cycle thru in the 5 years before landing on their current saviours Voss and Clarkson, neither of whom have been able to achieve anything remotely resembling sustained success.

I wold argue the number one factor in not achieving sustained success is a poorly performing executive.

Number two is players.

Number three is the high performance team and culture (the latter being influenced by the coach).

Number four is the coach.

If they don't sort the governance of the club the next coach could be a combination of Norm Smith, Clarkson, Hardwick, Phil Jackson and Sir Alex Ferguson and we'd still have sustained lack of success.

Which is this quote from the Caro article posted above is spot on:

Whether or not you agree with the decision to sack Simon Goodwin, it cannot be disputed that he coached in often challenging and occasionally untenable conditions. Board discord has punctuated the past six seasons, including 2021 when Goodwin coached the club to its first flag in almost six decades. Surely the next coach will be spared that distraction.

The club has issues. Goodwin underperformed. These things can both be true.

If you're talking about distinct periods I agree. If you're talking about sustained periods of underperformance/decline, that's on coaching not getting the best out of their players. You could argue we didn't have the players to win a flag the last two seasons and I would agree. But I would argue we had the players to at least challenge for finals and we have been way off even that.

If replacing the coach doesn't change anything, then it doesn't really matter that we sacked Goodwin anyway because his effect on the club was negligible.

I get that our win/loss record has been atrocious this year, but per this picture below we're 5th for with the footy now over the last 5 games which shows why Goodwin was bullish on our progression. Our defence has clearly let us down this year and I think it was the next thing Goody was going to focus on, but that's the best we've been 'with the footy' since 2021.