Changes Required

[Golden_6]

Time for a rebuild

This couldn’t be further from reality.

We’re already in the middle of a mini rebuild. The 5 we have to replace are Jones, Lobb, Treloar, Libba & Duryea. The rest of the list is young enough to contribute for the next 3-5 years at least.

I’d argue we might already have replacements for most of these guys with Busslinger, JOD, Croft & Sanders. Another midfield acquisition will be a priority and all of the sudden we can phase out those older guys in a couple of years without having to drop on the ladder.

 

[X_box_X]

 

[Lockstock79]

When do we find out if we are continuing with the same assistant coaches? If Spangher continues, I’m not expecting any improvement next year.


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[fred cook]

If he continues I will give up football and start playing table tennis on a lake.

 

[Pocket Terrace]

Firstly the $1.4m is over 3 years, not per year.

Its not just the fans it is the memberships and coterie packages. Some simple back of the envelope calculations.

We have approximately 15,000 reserved seat holder members. These are for 9 games. By making them available for 11 games and increasing the cost per year by approximately $80 per member there is an additional $600,000.

The same goes for approximately 2,500 coterie members. There is an additional $150 per member (BTW this is below the current average). That is an additional $375,000.

Now we have more corporate access and corporate boxes. There is an additional $150,000.

Again these are conservative numbers based on where we stand now not what we may grow.

So I ask you is what we are getting from Ballarat worth more than the minimum $1,125,000 we could be getting from our own supporter base with zero growth. Oh and the additional 4,000 if they are non members is an additional gate for general admission of $120,000 more if they purchase premium seats.

The danger of data being used to support staying in Ballarat is it is past data, not representative of post covid growth across the board growth in crowds and memberships nor does it reflect what has actually been occurring with our club

I agree with all of this, but you need to include several millions to the back of your envelope that went towards new facilities at Whitten Oval. Without getting into bed with the State Government for the Ballarat deal, I doubt the club will have secured project funding in the millions plus adjacent land grants through the rezoning of land.

Rightly or wrongly, playing two games per year in Ballarat has built us new sheds for the boys.

Taking two games away from members (11 down to 9) and then trying to sell us an additional Ballarat memberhsip? I think the club’s dropped the ball there.

 

[stefoid]

Who else though? Who would be better than Bevo?

Young coaches can be expected to be cutting edge students of successful teams over the last 5 years - why woulsnt they? whereas older coaches might tend to stick to the tried and 'true'. Good old rock, nothing beats rock...

 

[Walsh Bay]

No announcement from Keath pre GF.

Surely he's not trying to get another year.

 

[Snarls Barkley]

No announcement from Keath pre GF.

Surely he's not trying to get another year.

Surprising to me. Maybe waiting until B+F?

Wouldn't make sense to offer him a deal. We've got Jones, Lobb, O'Donnell, Busslinger, Khamis and Gardner contracted to play as KPD and even Coffield who can playas the third tall. Needs a lot of players to be out for Keath to get a gig, would rather use that list spot on getting a mature bodied back up ruck option so we don't have to move Lobb and/or Darcy around to cover an English injury.

 

[TiAn_]

We’ve probably just told Keath there’s a chance we might want to retain him and to hold tight until after trade period.

 

[BallaratBulldog]

He did manage to play five games this year. Jones, Coffeild and Odonnell have been out with injury for long peroids.

 

[fred cook]

Could members have a choice of no merchandise with their membership I wonder how much it is really needed and it could be good for the environment with just one more little item not coming from a Chinese factory polluting the environment

 

[Guido]

Could members have a choice of no merchandise with their membership I wonder how much it is really needed and it could be good for the environment with just one more little item not coming from a Chinese factory polluting the environment

This suggestion was raised on here 20 years ago.

Just make it opt-in via email/website/text - and if anyone 'expects' their 17th members/social club scarf/beanie/lanyard/stickers and doesn't get it, all it takes is a phone call.

10,000-20,000 unwanted 'goodies' boxes over 10-20 years would amount to at least a couple of million bucks, surely.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

We’ve probably just told Keath there’s a chance we might want to retain him and to hold tight until after trade period.

Yep, whether or not we want to keep Keath could really just depend on where our draft hand falls and how many list spots we have open, and who gets traded in or out, when it's all said and done.

Some players like Keath and be mature and professional about it, presumably, and understand we're not doing it to dick him around, it's genuine that he could just be on the edge and either keeping him or not, could either/or be the right decision depending on the circumstances.

 

[Proffessor]

Getting back to the opening premise, what changes are required to improve next year.

Firstly, I'd say we need to improve our general physical conditioning.
We were pushed around far too much this year, and we didn't run anyone of their legs either.

We need to get some serious trade rewards for the players we are about to lose over the preseason.

In terms of playing stocks, we also need to bring in some more naturally confident and aggressive players. Too many of our players lack self-confidence and seem to have a bit of imposter syndrome.

Lastly, we need to demand more from our fringe\young players when they get games. If they are not capable of contributing more than a handful of nervous possessions, and a bit of space filing running, then they should stay in the VFL until they are capable. We need to put our best team on the park, as often as possible.

 

[dogwatch]

Getting back to the opening premise, what changes are required to improve next year.

Firstly, I'd say we need to improve our general physical conditioning.
We were pushed around far too much this year, and we didn't run anyone of their legs either.

We need to get some serious trade rewards for the players we are about to lose over the preseason.

In terms of playing stocks, we also need to bring in some more naturally confident and aggressive players. Too many of our players lack self-confidence and seem to have a bit of imposter syndrome.

Lastly, we need to demand more from our fringe\young players when they get games. If they are not capable of contributing more than a handful of nervous possessions, and a bit of space filing running, then they should stay in the VFL until they are capable. We need to put our best team on the park, as often as possible.

Agree on all of these but three of them are motherhood statements. Every club wants to improve its conditioning / get good rewards for departing players / expect more from its fringe players.

The interesting one is the need for more naturally aggressive players with loads of self-belief. It doesn't mean we must have a bunch of campaigners like the Hawks of the three-peat era, although I wouldn't object to that. If you look at our 2016 premiership side there were a lot of nice guys in that side but some of them also had a hard competitive edge - players like Wood, Bont, Morris, perhaps Roughead. Also the captain Bob Murphy.

But we had some tougher unforgiving types like MBoyd, Libba, CSmith, Cordy, Picken and Dahlhaus.

Does it start and end with the personnel? Or is there a leadership and coaching aspect to it? I want them fired up to run through brick walls. I just don't think that's Bont's style. Or Bevo's. Bevo is more cerebral than fire-in-the-belly. It works sometimes but not every time.

So I agree our list needs a critical mass of those hard men, especially in your top 12 and your older players. Call them alpha males if you like. I don't think we have enough of them right now.

Bont
Libba
Naughton
Weightman sometimes (but he can go missing)
West
Darcy - but not yet he's very young and still finding his way. Maybe in 2025?

Plus a few fringe players like Harmes and Garcia.

That's not enough. Especially when we have to compensate for English tiptoeing through the midfield instead of crashing packs and burying anybody who gets in his way. In most sides the #1 ruckman is your go-to man for aggression and self-belief.

We should always look for these types in the national draft, but draftees first have to win their place in the seniors and it can take years for them to start influencing the rest of the side with their self-belief and aggression. So I reckon we need to look for some of that type in trades as well. Harmes was a good pickup in that regard, even if he's not much more than a fringe player.

I also wonder whether the wise footy heads at the club have an unintended filtering process that sees some of these brash, confident campaigner types slide down their draft order?

One thing is clear: we are brittle and inconsistent. If a side lets us get on the front foot early we are great front runners. But we struggle when the pressure is cranked up, even against lower ranked sides. How often in recent years have we won after being 3 goals down?

 

[Hobdog]

Is this thread meant to be different to the Bevo and future of the club thread?


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[AJARWA]

Agree on all of these but three of them are motherhood statements. Every club wants to improve its conditioning / get good rewards for departing players / expect more from its fringe players.

The interesting one is the need for more naturally aggressive players with loads of self-belief. It doesn't mean we must have a bunch of campaigners like the Hawks of the three-peat era, although I wouldn't object to that. If you look at our 2016 premiership side there were a lot of nice guys in that side but some of them also had a hard competitive edge - players like Wood, Bont, Morris, perhaps Roughead. Also the captain Bob Murphy.

But we had some tougher unforgiving types like MBoyd, Libba, CSmith, Cordy, Picken and Dahlhaus.

Does it start and end with the personnel? Or is there a leadership and coaching aspect to it? I want them fired up to run through brick walls. I just don't think that's Bont's style. Or Bevo's. Bevo is more cerebral than fire-in-the-belly. It works sometimes but not every time.

So I agree our list needs a critical mass of those hard men, especially in your top 12 and your older players. Call them alpha males if you like. I don't think we have enough of them right now.

Bont
Libba
Naughton
Weightman sometimes (but he can go missing)
West
Darcy - but not yet he's very young and still finding his way. Maybe in 2025?

Plus a few fringe players like Harmes and Garcia.

That's not enough. Especially when we have to compensate for English tiptoeing through the midfield instead of crashing packs and burying anybody who gets in his way. In most sides the #1 ruckman is your go-to man for aggression and self-belief.

We should always look for these types in the national draft, but draftees first have to win their place in the seniors and it can take years for them to start influencing the rest of the side with their self-belief and aggression. So I reckon we need to look for some of that type in trades as well. Harmes was a good pickup in that regard, even if he's not much more than a fringe player.

I also wonder whether the wise footy heads at the club have an unintended filtering process that sees some of these brash, confident campaigner types slide down their draft order?

One thing is clear: we are brittle and inconsistent. If a side lets us get on the front foot early we are great front runners. But we struggle when the pressure is cranked up, even against lower ranked sides. How often in recent years have we won after being 3 goals down?

This team is full of talent but mentally fragile.

Fagan on talking footy last week explained how after the 23 GF he asked each player to write down what they learnt from the loss and what they could have done better during the game and preparing for the game.

He then got them to revisit those notes at the start of this year's finals and again last week.

Our coach after 21? Nothing to see here. Might hurt your little souls. Move along.

Couldn't agree more with you on English. He should be setting the tone. But he's a fourth midfielder not an imposing ruck. My hope is Darcy takes over in the next 24 months. And with Sanders and Richards leads a new team into regular preliminary finals. Because unfortunately it's not happening with our current setup.

 

[Munnez]

I love my football as much as the next human on here but why are ratepayers subsidising this? 1.4M should be going to higher priority issues than getting AFL games in Ballarat

The council is investing 1.4m over 3 years. They would be seeing a significant return on that money with the extra accommodation and meals that would come into the town because of the matches.

And that's without the knock on benefits of the TV time which is ab effective advertising. I don't know the actual figures but I'm sure the council would be able to quantity it. It would be highly surprising if it was actually a negative number, I guess that these negotiations will tell the story of where it really sits

 

[Bonty4]

I understanding wanting more away games and replacement games at the MCG, but WHY would we want some of OUR home games there?

It’s a distance too far for the vast majority of our supporters to be a regular occasion, myself included, we would likely be outnumbered as a result if it is a big game vs say Collingwood, who would have half the stadium to themselves anyway in the AFL and MCC reserves, and I highly doubt it is more financially beneficial than the current arrangement.

Too far? It’s literally 5-10 mins extra on train or tram

 

[Freshwater]

This team is full of talent but mentally fragile.

Fagan on talking footy last week explained how after the 23 GF he asked each player to write down what they learnt from the loss and what they could have done better during the game and preparing for the game.

He then got them to revisit those notes at the start of this year's finals and again last week.

Our coach after 21? Nothing to see here. Might hurt your little souls. Move along.

Couldn't agree more with you on English. He should be setting the tone. But he's a fourth midfielder not an imposing ruck. My hope is Darcy takes over in the next 24 months. And with Sanders and Richards leads a new team into regular preliminary finals. Because unfortunately it's not happening with our current setup.

This is the sort of stuff we do as normal employees on less than a hundred grand a year and park footballers do getting paid peanuts. If we didn’t ask every player what they personally did wrong after the Hawthorn disaster then the coaching staff is negligent and they are on 10x the average salary. This sort of assessment would be the bear minimum any professional sports club must do to constantly improve.

 

[dogwatch]

Is this thread meant to be different to the Bevo and future of the club thread?

Good question. People keep opening new threads about where we need to go from here. I was responding to a topical post.

I'd be happy for it all to be merged if everybody thinks it's more of the same. I carefully avoided any commentary on keeping or replacing Bevo because there have been plenty of other threads that address that. But you can't talk about "changes required" and ignore how coaching fits into that. It doesn't however equate to "sack Bevo" if that's what you're suggesting.

What do you think the thread should include/exclude?

 

[threenewpadlocks]

This team is full of talent but mentally fragile.

Fagan on talking footy last week explained how after the 23 GF he asked each player to write down what they learnt from the loss and what they could have done better during the game and preparing for the game.

He then got them to revisit those notes at the start of this year's finals and again last week.

Our coach after 21? Nothing to see here. Might hurt your little souls. Move along.

Couldn't agree more with you on English. He should be setting the tone. But he's a fourth midfielder not an imposing ruck. My hope is Darcy takes over in the next 24 months. And with Sanders and Richards leads a new team into regular preliminary finals. Because unfortunately it's not happening with our current setup.

What's the evidence that we haven't done this, or that there's likely plenty of examples of teams doing this like this and it making no impact on a team's ability the following year? I'm sure the likes of Alistair Clarkson did similar things walking into North. It's not a magic bullet to win a flag.

 

[dogwatch]

What's the evidence that we haven't done this, or that there's likely plenty of examples of teams doing this like this and it making no impact on a team's ability the following year? I'm sure the likes of Alistair Clarkson did similar things walking into North. It's not a magic bullet to win a flag.

No evidence that we have done it either. And if we had, there's a good chance we'd have heard about it. The only evidence either way that I'm aware of is that we chose not to do any review of the 2021 GF capitulation. From memory that was a statement attributed to Bevo or Ameet in 2022. Maybe in response to a question.

What we as fans and members would like to see is some sign that the club is acknowledging its recurrent shortcomings and is trying to address them. Some good moves were made in that direction over the last off-season. Let's hope we continue down that path.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

No evidence that we have done it either. And if we had, there's a good chance we'd have heard about it. The only evidence either way that I'm aware of is that we chose not to do any review of the 2021 GF capitulation. From memory that was a statement attributed to Bevo or Ameet in 2022. Maybe in response to a question.

What we as fans and members would like to see is some sign that the club is acknowledging its recurrent shortcomings and is trying to address them. Some good moves were made in that direction over the last off-season. Let's hope we continue down that path.

So if we had done it, we would have won a flag since?

 

[dogwatch]

So if we had done it, we would have won a flag since?

Not sure how you got to that conclusion. It's certainly not what I said.