REJOICE QUINN HATERS!!

[paddyl90]

Leaving at years end.

Commence your joy


Essendon Football Club today announced that high performance manager, John Quinn, has decided to pursue other career opportunities.

Quinn, who joined the club at the commencement of the 1999 season, will remain with the club until the completion of the 2008 season.

"John feels the time is right to look at other opportunities and we understand and accept that," Essendon chief operating officer Travis Auld said.

"He has been a part of this club for the best part of a decade and we thank him for his contribution.

"Both John and the club agreed it is appropriate to make this decision public now so that, as a club, we can commence the process of finding the best person for the job.

"The football department has undergone some significant change in recent times and we see this as an opportunity to continue to build for the future."

Quinn said he had enjoyed his time at the club and that he would look at new opportunities over the next few months and is excited about the future.

"It has been a very rewarding period of my life but the time is right to start looking at what is next from a career perspective," Quinn said.

"I have really enjoyed my time with the club and I would particularly like to thank all the players I have worked with so closely, the coaches and other staff.

"I have become a better person while being at Essendon and I hope I will leave the club in a stronger position for having been here."

http://www.essendonfc.com.au/news/news.asp?nid=5945

[Rover 7]

Judging by the phrasing by both parties seems he's being boned.
They got their way.

[Megan]

Ha ha I was just coming in to report this, you beat me!

Did a lot for Hirdy, for which I'll always be thankful.

[andrewb]

I always found the term "High Performance Manager" a little bit oxymoronic in Quinn's case.

That said, by all accounts he has been an excellent people person around the club and he's been a good mentor to a lot of kids. He got Sir James back up and running and did an amazing job with Courtney Johns.

I've read a bit of Quinn's material and I think he has a lot to offer the industry. However, he should perhaps think about specialising in rehabilitation. The AFL is not the right environment for experimentation.

[Madden]

Hope he doesn't let the door hit him on the way out...















.... because if it does he will probably do a hamstring.

[jimmyc1985]

Breathe Filth, breathe !

[Madden]

Breathe Filth, breathe !

I so desperately want to see him when he opens this thread. He's gonna be so happy....

[Ossie]

We should throw all the money we've got at the fitness guys at Hawthorn, Geelong or Sydney.

[BenDoolan]

JOHN QUINN cut a sad sight as he walked around the boundary line on Saturday night.

His team had been beaten marginally by Richmond. The Essendon crowd had been generous before the game, giving him a standing ovation as he appeared on the oval. The supporters did so again as he made his way to the sheds after the game. Quinn will be back to Windy Hill one more time as High Performance Manager when the Bombers play St.Kilda in the final round.

These final handful of matches should have been a celebration of one of the great men in Australian sport. They aren't. We watch as mourners. This is to the eternal shame of the Essendon board that panicked when players got injured and the chances of getting a team on the field diminished.

So Essendon sacked him, the president Ray Horsburgh lying to the media that the board had even discussed his position. Because the board acted so secretly and so hastily it had neither a succession plan to work on, nor any sense of a send-off for the club's greatest contributor.

Whether Quinn continued on in 2009 was the board's business. The issue was the manner in which it was done. It was imperative that Quinn leave with style and respect, for his is a great legacy. That did not happen. The president didn't even attend the news conference announcing Quinn's termination.

Worse, the thousands of members, supporters and sponsors were not told why he was being moved on. They deserved to know for they had invested much in money and emotion but the board will not publicly or privately articulate why Quinn is no longer the right Fitness coach for 2009 and beyond. Just be told that he isn't.

Well, we can now tell you why he was boned. And the principal reason is that John Quinn in his first season at Essendon in 1999 is the same John Quinn of 2008. While he has learnt more, kept up with the newest trends, visited leading clubs overseas and remains innovative, as witnessed with his early season injury register, he is the same quirky, eccentric Quinn who began at Essendon 9 years ago.

Quinn does things his way, which is invariably inspired by vibes, his mojo and gut feelings. He is a one-man operation which was fine when every team was exactly that. A fitness coach surrounded by witches' hats and nothing else.

When asked why he thought he was sacked, Quinn told us: "Because I have been there 9 years." That is, of course, no reason to dismiss anyone but it shows how bewildered and unprepared Quinn was for last month's decision not to renew his contract.

So Quinn at his core is the same man who took his first training session for Essendon in the pre-season of 1999. The environment about him in football has changed wildly. Quinn might not have embraced utterly the new science of football but he has not ignored it. He looks and listens.

The fitness boffins report to him about satellite tracking, heart monitors, blood results, lactic acid levels and well-being charts. Assistants plot opposition clubs, how they set up, how and when they switch play, how often they interchange. But all this information will not necessarily define his decision.

A gut feeling might. A hunch. Quinn always did it his way. If the Essendon board was to tell us success in 2009 and beyond must be more precisely charted you could hardly quibble.

Often Quinn sees something in a player that others might not determine with a telescope. They are given chances that other players might not. He has done that all his career. There are other things that when Essendon was winning were treated as loveable idiosyncrasies but when losing might be interpreted as unprofessional.

A survey of players did not help him. There was strong indication that players felt communication was a problem. Because Quinn has such a heavy schedule time is limited to get his ear. When he did speak to a player over a physio table the young footballer did not always gain much from it. At times Quinn can speak in tongues.

It is common knowledge Quinn has never had the full support of his board. Only strong chairmen have kept him at the club during regular boardroom-attempted coups. But since helping Essendon to a premiership in 2000 and a grand final in 2001 everybody has become less forgiving.

It is not as though he did not have good players from 2001. Eight players from the grand final team remain on his list. He has some young players now who should develop into solid warriors for the club.

But it appears the club has cut Quinn no slack in rehabilitating a team of injured players. And so he has gone. After 9 years someone else must take Essendon back to the top. According to the board's timetable it must be done by 2011.

Quinn has not just shaped Australian sport but the country's culture, too. To sack him was the board's prerogative. To farewell the great man with dignity was its duty. Seeing Quinn walk the boundary line on Saturday night was to know how hopelessly the board has failed.

- Patrick Smith

Disgrace!

[Jazz_84]

that Patrick is such a f***wit... fast becoming my most hated journalist

[Ossie]

What a load of bollocks that article is. So we're not allowed to sack someone because he's not good enough? er... ok.

[bomberdonnie]

Very good Benny

It will be interesting too see if our injury fortunes get better, worse or stay the same now that he is going...

[Madden]

that Patrick is such a f******... fast becoming my most hated journalist

You may have missed the joke...

Oh, and excellent work BD. That "replace with" tool in Word is really handy isn't it?

[bomberdonnie]

Doesnt take much to trick people around here does it

[BenDoolan]

Sorry folks, I couldn't help myself. thought I'd save Patrick the time....

[CameronClayton]

I am actually glad to see him go, not because the club has gotten rid of it's easy target scape goat, but because it will prove once & for all next season when we get another raft of S/T injuries, that it is the Dome surface, not the High Performance coach, which is to blame for our OTT S/T injuries. Has Fletch ever played a game there & not been proppy after the game, or missed the following week?

Filthy, you have gotten your way, but I bet you a million bucks (or a slab of beer) that we are still one of the worse clubs for S/T injuries in 2009.

Quinn, thanks for healing up Hirdy properly, & being part of that great 2000 side.

[andrewb]

Seriously CC, you're kidding yourself.

We've had more injuries this year than four or five other teams combined. The fact that the majority of them are either overuse or soft tissue injuries is a disgrace. You can wear the occasional hamstring / ankle or the occasional knee / shoulder / impact injury but we've had about 10 hamstrings / calf / groin injuries and a bunch of overuse injuries (3 or 4 OP, a couple of stress factures). We are not managing fitness or fatigue well. I dare say this sacking is due to the review of soft tissue injuries kicked off at the start of the season.

It's not the dome, it's not the football gods, it's not the vibe, it's not MABO. It's mismanagement, plain and simple.

The fact that most of us were reasonably happy with our fitness and conditioning last year because we only had half a year with most of the team out speaks volumes. Over 10 years our expectations of % players injured, time for rehabilitation, likelihood of reinjury and a bunch of other KPIs have been reduced to the point that we're ecstatic when we get mediocre results.

Is it any surprise that our recruitment since 2000 has been so dodgy? Think about the amount of young players we've had that haven't been able to consistently get on the park. It's happening all over again with Houli, Hislop, Gumby, Hocking, Dempsey, Neagle, Lee, etc.

This is the probably the single most important personnel change at Windy Hill since 1981.

[CameronClayton]

Andrew persist with your easy targets; how much money do you want to bet that things don't improve next season?

Everyone thinks it's a matter of getting rid on one bloke & all our problems are solved.

[andrewb]

I will bet you $1000 that we lose less weeks to injury at the equivalent stage next year than we have so far this year.

$10000.

f*** it, I'll bet you my house.

[CameronClayton]

No worries; no hamstring problems at Essendon since R4 - Quinn WTF are you doing wrong?