Sack the coach?

[Megan]

For those of you who don't know me well enough to know how spastic I was over a certain player in his playing career... I will add this disclosure: This ain't my opinion. So don't go getting up my arse.

I'm just asking the question.

Considering where we were last year, and the questions being asked...

How come no one wants Hirdy's head? This time last year Knighta had both feet and one arsecheek out the door, and all I'm seeing this year is how shit the team is and how everyone thinks Hirdy and the panel have a lot of work ahead of them... yet no one wanted to give Knights that chance?

Just wondering why. I'm not a 'sack the coach' kinda gal (tho I confess I wanted Knights gone in the end too, he'd had his crack) so I'm genuinely interested. I realise Hirdy is new in the gig, and he hasn't had a chance to settle in yet but had this been Voss/Buckley/Whoever, would we be asking the question?

Are we just more jaded with the players after a few years?

[robbie67]

Because he just got here. He has to begiven the opportunity to build and mould his own team. He is making some mistakes, especially around selection, but as I have said many times, when it comes to our list, you just cant polish a turd.

[DC2]

Knighta'a "vision" just that after 3 years...a "vision". The team was going no where under Knights. Our defense never got better and nor did the team over all.

Hird as robbie said just got here. Its hard to turn a company thats in the red around over night, and thats what Hird as ahead of him. Injuries to certain players obviously havent helped.

But Hird needs to learn to pick the nest available. And guys like Welsh, Slatts and Myers etc aint the best.

[stryper]

Only been coaching for 6 months compared to Knighta - would have been his 4th year...
Everybody deserves to be given a fair go...
Especially such a Legend who bleeds the red and the black...
Short term pain for long term gain...

[Megan]

Knighta couldn't polish the turd either, tho?

Just wondering if everyone would be giving any new coach this leniency, or just because it's the golden boy Jimmy.

And I'm playing devil's advocate here. So don't go questioning my loyalty to the club or coach.

[Gyoza]

Knighta couldn't polish the turd either, tho?

Just wondering if everyone would be giving any new coach this leniency, or just because it's the golden boy Jimmy.

And I'm playing devil's advocate here. So don't go questioning my loyalty to the club or coach.

The extended honeymoon period is because it's Hirdy.
If we had Mark Williams or Dean Laidley I'd already be screaming for blood.

[robbie67]

Knighta couldn't polish the turd either, tho?

He had three years, and had lost the players. He had his chance to reshape the list, and he gave Gnome a 3 year deal. It's one thing not beingable to polish turds, it's entirely different to give birth to them.

[Western Red]

Please "mod" yourself Megan for this!

Bit early for these calls yet and we need to keep the faith - this is going to be a tough period as we clean out some dead wood and inject some youth.

More delistings and trades to be done at the end of the year and then add some more youth and settle on the game plan. I think that the coaching panel is still tinkering and looking for something - not sure what it is but I am sure they are looking - and these things will take time. No way was anyone (even Sir James) going to be able to change the team in one season.

Sure it is not much fun as a supporter at the moment but it would be no good for the club to "sack" a new coach again and not give him a decent run at it.

[tonysoprano]

sacking the coach wouldn't solve the issue.

in my opinion the single greatest problem we have is fitness. we are not fit enough and haven't been for 5 plus years to compete week in week out.

a complete overhaul of our strength, conditioning, aerobic capacity, pace training has to happen first. we have to stop this bull shit we have seen over the last few years where we can play 3 quarters out of 4, or like this season about 8-9 rounds to a decent level and then look like we are jogging on the spot.

[BenDoolan]

sacking the coach wouldn't solve the issue.

in my opinion the single greatest problem we have is fitness. we are not fit enough and haven't been for 5 plus years to compete week in week out.

a complete overhaul of our strength, conditioning, aerobic capacity, pace training has to happen first. we have to stop this bull shit we have seen over the last few years where we can play 3 quarters out of 4, or like this season about 8-9 rounds to a decent level and then look like we are jogging on the spot.

Yeah, you gotta love those pre-season articles showing our boys "really strutting their stuff" and "running their fastest times" and "the best pre-season they've ever had" and "so and so has really bulked up". Yet they can't play even half a season proper.

How ironic that one week after our fitness coach resigns (or is sacked), we get three hamstring injuries in one game.

LOL

[hop]

Hirdy aint gunna be sacked anytime soon - and we all know it.

He has a licence to do what he wants for 3 to 5 years.

The issue is about not seeing the wood for the trees. One hopes that the wiser heads that he has surrounded himself with are able to direct his thoughts.

It is incredibly frustrating that we haven't had a decent explanation as to how our form has fallen so dramatically.

We all think we know why (and I know better than anyone else here ) - yet we only get sheedy-esque platitutes.

Fess up Sir james! Out the blaggards!

[Madden]

Knights had three years. Hird has had 6 months.

If we are still playing this way in Hird's third year then I will be concerned.

[tonysoprano]

Knights had three years. Hird has had 6 months.

If we are still playing this way in Hird's third year then I will be concerned.

you're not concerned yet staggy? your tolerance is enviable.

[Wally]

Because Knights was only ever going to be the transition on from Sheedy. Nothing more.

Hird & Co came into this with eyes wide open. This year was always going to be an assesent of the list and football department to ascertain what we have and more importantly what we need. They work with the what we have and are doing their due dilligance on the rest.

Knights was never going to get that as he had already committed us to continued failure with his plan and vision. He had absolute no previous success as a player nor coach so he was never going to get it right.

[MH_Bomber]

This tread should be labelled blasphemy.

[jimmyc1985]

you just cant polish a turd.

Word. I wouldn't piss on our list if i was paid $10m and the entire playing group was on fire.

[Windy_Hill]

Hird has nothing to do with the fact that we are the shitiest team in the league, how could you possible point the finger at him??????

Mick Malthouse would be at a loose end if confronted with the likes of Myers, Monfries, Ryder, Welsh, McVeigh etc

Lets get some talent and then judge the coaching

[Jazz_84]

Hirdy i think created the problem with the super tough pre-season with 4-5 tough intra-club games (so im told) along with a red hot NAB cup and good first 8 rounds, we are just stuffed, we peaked in round 3

our players hadn't even heard of "the press" before this year and they can't sustain the effort required for that style, Collingwood has been doing it for years and even West Coast have been learning it for 2 years prior to this year

we're going to have to wait for Hurley, Zaka, Hocking, Heppell, Pears to be the ones to stand up and be regular leaders, cause our old brigade arn't doing shit at the moment and most of them are done anyway, 1993 just doesn't happen these days

i think Hirdy is doing the right thing on most fronts, he will find out what works and what doesn't over the rest of this year and by god i hope he cleans the shit out in 1 foul swoop, trade for whatever we can get i don't care, id rather have picks and see what we get out of them over proven cloggers

im still confident that even though they peaked way to soon the result of a thrashing on the training track will pay dividends in years to come

id like to see Hirdy give Heppell a break, he is too young and too thin to be thrown into the middle and made to play a leaders role

WE NEED a bloody forward, Hille/Ryder can't do it, we need a proper FF with Hurley CHF and leave them in place, surely Gumby or even Steinburg needs to come in and give us that FF target, 3 ruckman bullshit is not how a footy team should be setup

[Jazz_84]

id also like to know how much advice Hirdy actually uses from Bomber...

someone said to me last night to watch Thomson take over next year and Hirdy take a step back for couple of seasons under Bomber to learn the game a bit more, can't see it happening myself

[Bomber_Fan]

Now I'm going to get shot down for this but so be it - it's all about opinions - I will give it and anybody who wants to disagree can. I was very sceptical when the "so-called dream team" was appointed, I really thought that we needed an outsider to clean up the mess that is our club. I honestly thought after the GC game that I was wrong - had been a long time since we had pantsed an opposition team like that. When we lost to Richmond and then Melbourne, I thought maybe we've reached the part of the season where we increased the training load on our players. But after another couple of losses - especially against Hawthorn who were missing almost their entire list of KPP - I can see that this definitely can't be the case.

So clearly I've gone the other way again now. Hird and Lloyd were leaders at our club when it really started to go into decline, so the logic of putting Hird in charge was lost on me. The other thing that made me a little bitter was that Hird was getting all this support while Knights had a sub-standard panel of assistants around him. Why did it take our board this long to realise that you need to spend money to be successful onfield. Effectively they admitted that the last three years had been a failure. This could have been Knights' fault, maybe he had a Voss-like knack of wanting to control everything but I'm only saying as an outsider what I felt at the time.

Now that we're past the halfway point of the season, I feel that we perhaps we have a culture and leadership issue at our club that stems from the early noughties and this has affected our development. I don't think it's the quality of our playing list but rather their application. Why? Because we all saw what the team could do at the start of the season and I don't think you can switch that off after a quarter of a season. The current coaching panel claim that their players aren't following instructions. This is extremely worrying because Knights and co. were saying the same thing.

Now if this is the case, players aren't willing to work hard and follow the gameplan because
a) the lack of any strong leadership on our team - no offence to Jobe (currently the best option for captain at our club!) but he doesn't strike me as the sort of player who will take someone aside and rip into him; we really need an authoritarian on-field leader at our club
b) how easily our players become disgruntled with coaches (a culture issue!); we've heard all about the rumours with Knights, Sheedy and their strained relationships with players, perhaps it's the same now but it's all been kept in house. If a group of players decides that they're not going to put in 100% anymore because they don't like the coach; I'm sure this has a huge psychological effect on the rest of the playing group in terms of sapping morale. So what I'm saying is that there might be a group of players that feel they can dictate how we should play and when they don't get their way, they're happy to cause grief for the coaches by causing trouble with the playing group. Ergo, we don't play like a team out on the field and this has been clearly evident.

So having said this, should we sack Hird? No because we've made our bed and now we have to sleep in it. And really give him a chance to see if he can turn it around. Having said this though, development excuse is no longer good enough as we have a lot better quality playing list than we did when Knights took over. I think Hird definitely would have had it easier if the great start to the season hadn't drawn such expectations.