- Banned
- #1
I will preface this by saying that injuries have played a part, but they don't tell the full story.
Inquiring minds were concerned about the loss of coaching talent last year and were worried that we would struggle to replace it. Not only does it seem that we didn't replace quality coaches like Scott but failed to replace loss of coaching numbers with equivalents. In pure staffing levels we are diminished.
I look at the second and third year players, and aside from Fyfe, I don't see a lot of improvement. Players like Hill, Ballas, Mayne, De Boer, Suban, Broughton, etc all seemed to go to another level last year and because of that we improved.
This year, all those players have at best remained the same. That is at a very best estimation. Meanwhile, non-Fyfe second year players seem to have done little. Even more apparent is the relative lack of impact first year Freo players like Lower or Pitt (as compared to impacts made by Silvagni or Roberton last year).
To use an example: Simon Lloyd gets a lot of credit for our development improvements, and from what I can tell that is well deserved. However, this year he has two roles - assistant coach, as well as development.
Is this an effective use of his talents? Is the reason we have gone backwards because we are spreading the coaching resources too thinly?
Yes, injuries have hurt. But when the majority of these injuries are to second and third year players, are they really an excuse?
To end this post. We have witnessed a number of clubs throw massive amounts of resources to improve their footy department (Essendon the most notable, but Richmond have made noise about the same). Are we falling behind? And where does the buck stop if we are?
Inquiring minds were concerned about the loss of coaching talent last year and were worried that we would struggle to replace it. Not only does it seem that we didn't replace quality coaches like Scott but failed to replace loss of coaching numbers with equivalents. In pure staffing levels we are diminished.
I look at the second and third year players, and aside from Fyfe, I don't see a lot of improvement. Players like Hill, Ballas, Mayne, De Boer, Suban, Broughton, etc all seemed to go to another level last year and because of that we improved.
This year, all those players have at best remained the same. That is at a very best estimation. Meanwhile, non-Fyfe second year players seem to have done little. Even more apparent is the relative lack of impact first year Freo players like Lower or Pitt (as compared to impacts made by Silvagni or Roberton last year).
To use an example: Simon Lloyd gets a lot of credit for our development improvements, and from what I can tell that is well deserved. However, this year he has two roles - assistant coach, as well as development.
Is this an effective use of his talents? Is the reason we have gone backwards because we are spreading the coaching resources too thinly?
Yes, injuries have hurt. But when the majority of these injuries are to second and third year players, are they really an excuse?
To end this post. We have witnessed a number of clubs throw massive amounts of resources to improve their footy department (Essendon the most notable, but Richmond have made noise about the same). Are we falling behind? And where does the buck stop if we are?
