bing181

Nonsense. You seem to think that what they say publicly is what they say internally. The club, like all sports clubs at this level, is a commercial venture. They need to sell tickets, memberships, merchandise, sponsorships etc. etc. Do you think even clubs like Richmond or WCE are coming out at the beginning of the season saying "well, it's going to be a shot season, we'll be lucky to win even a handful of matches and will probably be fighting it out for the wooden spoon"? Of course they don't.

I don't believe we misjudged where the list is at, quite the reverse - thus the extensive trades to get into the pointy end of the draft over the past couple of seasons.

You're just showing your ignorance. Do some reading. It's widely known that AFL coaches do NOT have a major say in recruiting, for obvious reasons. There's a great Chris Scott interview out there somewhere where he confirms as much. (Also not limited to AFL, in fact in some sports the head coach has minimal to zero input into recruiting.)

Sporting teams rise and fall. Who would've thunk.

Perhaps. But if that's the case, it should be so that we can get some games into Adams, or even Howes.

Goodwin doesn't make the draft selections, he's but one amongst a number who have input, the call mainly comes from Taylor (National Recruiting Manager).

Funny how when Lever was dropped Howes took his role.

See also Kolt and McVee.

Regardless of what happens to Lever, surely Tmac, Turner and May makes us top-heavy down back?

You're dropping a defender and 2 forwards but bringing in 3 defenders?

Serious injuries will do that to you (see Bowey last year).

For starters, they play completely different roles. If you're talking either/or, then it's TMac for May, perhaps Turner. The closest we have to Lever (intercept defender) would be Howes.

That was supposed to be Ben Brown. Who in spite of everything, wasn't all that old when he had to hang up the boots. Against that, JVR and our other key forwards get to train against May, Turner, Lever etc., and you would think that there are plenty of "learnings" to be had there.

Also shows real ignorance as to what an assistant coach's role is, or even what the requirements are. In any case, you can go through the AFL and there's a big fat zero correlation between having an ex-forward as forwards coach and having an effectively functioning forward line. In fact, if you look through it, there are a LOT of ex-defenders coaching forwards - which of course makes perfect sense. Not only do defenders spend their whole careers working out what forwards are doing, they get to come up against different forwards and different forward systems every week.

Both on and off the field. There's huge Angus-shaped hole in the club, from leadership to the midfield to the list.

I think the idea is we try to find 24 - 26 year olds, players with 4-5 years of experience already but still plenty of footy in front of them. Quite where/how we find such players, especially as most of them would be still too young for FA, is another question.

How many teams in the 8 have an ex-forward as forward coach?

I'd be surprised if we see (m)any changes. Apart from hardly having anyone knocking the door down in the 2's we need consistency. This is a team that has hardly played together and it shows. If Howes is right, bring him in for ... someone (Sharp?). If not, Windsor, but not sure whether he's done for the year after never getting going after his foot infection/injury across the pre/early season. Suspect that Petty will be held back another week at least.

Nope. Not how it works. Mark Neeld was a new coach with a new voice and direction/game plan. How did that work out? Or Dean Bailey? How about the interim coaches we had post Daniher, all of whom also had new voices, most had decent credentials (Riley, Viney, Craig). In fact, in all those cases, the interim coaches had WORSE win/loss records than the coaches they were replacing. How's it working out for North, or Richmond or West Coast? How's it worked out over the last 20 years for Essendon? 6 new coaches with new voices and a new direction/game plan across that period, and what do they have to show for it? Anyone who thinks changing coaches would change something - except to take us backwards - is just deluding themselves and clutching at straws. And the data is out there to confirm it. You want change and improvement? Change the list. Paul Roos understood that, which is why one of the first things he did was to bring in 3 experienced players as part of a big cleanout. Those 3 (Vince, Tyson, Cross) had a bigger impact on the team and the way it performed than any new voice and new game plan.

Just love Demonland. This is the forum where posters are constantly bagging Goodwin (even though all of these decisions are made by a team of people not just Goodwin, but heh ..) for yo-yoing JVT in/out of the team and in/out of ruck/forward - yet when we see one of our younger players developing in front of our eyes to be one of the best key defenders in the AFL, some here want him thrown up the other end of the ground. Because. Also the forum where "just play the kids" and "the season is shot, we should concentrate on development" means bringing in one of our oldest players in probably his last year. If the argument was throw Turner forward (but see above) to bring in Adams, though questionable it would at least be coherent. But Demonland ...

Jesus H Christ. TMac was a decent 3rd defender, nothing more. And Goodwin doesn't have to decide he isn't the future, he isn't the future. End of.

Been kind of the same all year, not the player he was or can be, he missed too much of the pre and early season injured. See Bowey last year.

Story of the season. Can’t hit I50 targets, and then can’t kick straight.

Need some players who can hit targets. Without that everything else is just yadda yadda.

Wanganeen-Milera ... effortless.