Coach Fages and the coaching group

[McIvor]

Nah, I'd keep Gardiner, but Adams has to go. He is just plain terrible. He has ZERO football sense. Before the game I said exactly how Riewoldt was going to beat him and it happened perfectly to script.

I actually think we should keep Adams in to play on McKay. I still think we should drop Gardiner and bring in Lester tho.

 

[3KZ is Football]

Adams set to be murdered again, this time by his Carlton opponent.

 

[PattyKwasagun]

Adams set to be murdered again, this time by his Carlton opponent.

Your vendetta against Marcus is the second weirdest individual vendetta on this forum. It's highly unusual. There are, to my count, five or six regulars in the senior team who it could be well worth tearing your hair out about this season in one way or another. I just can't see how Marcus could possibly be one of them.

Even though he hasn't matched his brilliant early season form since coming back from Covid, I still think he has been our best key defender most weeks (and probably was again today). It's just a very unusual hill to die on.

 

[Jeremiah001]

Your vendetta against Marcus is the second weirdest individual vendetta on this forum. It's highly unusual. There are, to my count, five or six regulars in the senior team who it could be well worth tearing your hair out about this season in one way or another. I just can't see how Marcus could possibly be one of them.

Even though he hasn't matched his brilliant early season form since coming back from Covid, I still think he has been our best key defender most weeks (and probably was again today). It's just a very unusual hill to die on.

My understanding of the plan is first SACK FAGAN leading to DROP ADAMS with the ultimate goal of INSTALL LESTER CAPTAIN/COACH.

 

[3KZ is Football]

Your vendetta against Marcus is the second weirdest individual vendetta on this forum. It's highly unusual. There are, to my count, five or six regulars in the senior team who it could be well worth tearing your hair out about this season in one way or another. I just can't see how Marcus could possibly be one of them.

Even though he hasn't matched his brilliant early season form since coming back from Covid, I still think he has been our best key defender most weeks (and probably was again today). It's just a very unusual hill to die on.

Clearly he wasn’t our best defender. He had an absolute SHOCKER, as did Andrews. The numbers don’t lie.

 

[Nathan Barley]

Took 3KZ a while to revert back to quoting key defenders possession count

Riewoldt kicked 2 goals including 1 he stole off Lynch and 1 miracle goal from the boundary line. Adams did a good job on him

 

[Squizz89]

The defence as a whole but especially the key defenders are really struggling. Prior to covid Adams was in AA form, but has been pretty average since then.

Harris has been horrible by his standards for at least 12-18 months now. TBD said in the game thread he was carrying a knee which is pretty obvious, but if that's going to be a chronic thing for the rest of his career, you do worry about how that might fair for him given he was already slow.

In regards to Darcy, I wouldn't lose sleep if he joins McStay in the exits, especially if we can save on both their salaries and spend it on more important needs.

 

[The Flying Belgian]

You are speaking to the players at your press conference. You are putting the pubic face to your organisation in terms of expectations on the field. I don’t think they are getting baked behind closed doors either?

The presser was nauseating.

Kiddy cramping, best game we’ve played on the G in years, Richmond had their best side in, Richmond are great. Barely even addressed the level of disserpointnent everyone was feeling, acted like it was normal, just a shrug of the shoulders.

I love Fages, I don’t want him sacked, we owe him a lot - but his ‘softly, softly’ approach to everything has 100% given us a soft underbelly.

Setting some expectations, talking more objectively to your supporters and putting players and the team on notice in a presser (without going overboard) is perfectly reasonable and and healthy tool a coach can use to put players on notice, clear the air with supporters and set expectations, on record going forward.

The 2 minutes spent each week bigging up the oppo is just so obviously not what you should be talking about every week.

He didn’t even talk about the mental aspects to the 42 point capitulation? Like come on man, talk honestly without aiming to protect your and the players reputation.

The first bolded is most likely a load of bollocks. I'd be surprised if most of the players even watch the pressers. At times I wonder if the player who sometimes fronts up really takes it in.

The second bolded is the crux of the matter. What you really want is some display that they are hurting as much as you are. I get it to an extent. But their disappointment is a different kind to what we feel. They have control over a situation whereas we don't. Their brains are likely switching to fix-it mode and tearing down players confidences isn't going to achieve what people hope it might. Public bakings do more to erode trust than build it, that for sure.

You're right, the fatherly approach, while beneficial up until now, may prevent him taking the next step as a coach. But everything I hear from comments by players over the years is that the warm fuzzy Fages that we see isn't the one the players get behind closed doors.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is don't mistake what's best for you as a supporter is the same as what's best for the team.

 

[Strato]

This season I have commented on Coaches, certain player and game performances and Mindset. All season we have performed for 4 quarters, yes, we can play well for 1 or 2 quarters. Yesterday to nearly half time I was very impressed the way we played - Best performance all season. But after half time everything went to the pack which to me the side has proved it is mentally weak. Unfortunately, Fagan and Assistants are most likely coaching to the best of their ability BUT their coaching has weaknesses that make the team mentally and psychically strong. I never see any hard ruthless decisions coming from them. I am over Fagan just standing there bloody chewing and doing nothing - hopeless. Our Captain and Vice Captains on ground leadership performances are less than inspirational. The club is that the stage where some seriously hard decisions need to be taken to very soon.

 

[martinson]

The first bolded is most likely a load of bollocks. I'd be surprised if most of the players even watch the pressers. At times I wonder if the player who sometimes fronts up really takes it in.

The second bolded is the crux of the matter. What you really want is some display that they are hurting as much as you are. I get it to an extent. But their disappointment is a different kind to what we feel. They have control over a situation whereas we don't. Their brains are likely switching to fix-it mode and tearing down players confidences isn't going to achieve what people hope it might. Public bakings do more to erode trust than build it, that for sure.

You're right, the fatherly approach, while beneficial up until now, may prevent him taking the next step as a coach. But everything I hear from comments by players over the years is that the warm fuzzy Fages that we see isn't the one the players get behind closed doors.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is don't mistake what's best for you as a supporter is the same as what's best for the team.

That's all true.

Yesterday's press conference was weird in that whoever was asking the questions was petrified to address the elephant in the room and Fages body language and the things he said indicated he wasn't going there under any circumstances.

He did address the MCG thing in that it isn't a thing because we haven't played well when we play there . OK big insight .Usually in important matches.

It's hard for coaches fronting up when you don't feel like saying anything but I think some of his performances since the Melbourne game have been a bit delusional. When he gave Fish a bake for inserting one word it did go through my mind the wheels might be half falling off on his era.

 

[Mighty Lions]

The first bolded is most likely a load of bollocks. I'd be surprised if most of the players even watch the pressers. At times I wonder if the player who sometimes fronts up really takes it in.

The second bolded is the crux of the matter. What you really want is some display that they are hurting as much as you are. I get it to an extent. But their disappointment is a different kind to what we feel. They have control over a situation whereas we don't. Their brains are likely switching to fix-it mode and tearing down players confidences isn't going to achieve what people hope it might. Public bakings do more to erode trust than build it, that for sure.

You're right, the fatherly approach, while beneficial up until now, may prevent him taking the next step as a coach. But everything I hear from comments by players over the years is that the warm fuzzy Fages that we see isn't the one the players get behind closed doors.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is don't mistake what's best for you as a supporter is the same as what's best for the team.

Good Post.

Never has been a warm & fuzzy coach. The father figure is fake news 100%. Fages can be/is as hard as it can get when needed. He is a competitive animal who's will to win is as strong as anyone's. As you say above, they are all hurting and all know how much of an opportunity they just let slip. Any supporter of the club who has played footy will know how much that hurt is being felt by the players/coach's right now. Why would anyone want to be a coach?

 

[FeastOrFamine]

Every time we get beaten, we get beaten by what we know. It feels as though every loss is just the same game except the opposition are wearing different jumpers.

Are our players not good enough, or have these coaches taken us as far as they can?

 

[CarterS]

Who is our midfield coach?

 

[Johnny Bananas]

Who is our midfield coach?

Cameron Bruce

 

[Squizz89]

Every time we get beaten, we get beaten by what we know. It feels as though every loss is just the same game except the opposition are wearing different jumpers.

Are our players not good enough, or have these coaches taken us as far as they can?

I think it's a bit of both to be honest, but I've always been pretty negative in my view of this team. I certainly haven't seen a premiership team in it, as I just don't rate the list as highly as some others here, especially the midfield and in comparison to past premiership sides.

Having said that though, all you can do as a coach is continue to put the list in contention each year, which is what Fages and the coaching staff have managed to do so you have to give them credit for that. With that in mind you'd think the club would assume they're close enough to have a red hot crack and if so that is obviously where coaching comes into as well. I'm not sure Fages and/or the assistants have the game day ability to take them any further.

How many times do you see us put a number behind the ball when teams get a run on for example? Those types of in-game decisions are squarely on the shoulders of the coaching team (not just Fages) and your leaders. I said yesterday we must be one of the poorer "game awareness" teams going around. I don't have stats to back this up, but how many times do we (still) concede red time goals and/or a goal directly after kicking one ourselves? It's all about playing percentages in those circumstances and we don't seem to do that.

 

[CarterS]

Cameron Bruce

Do we sack him?

 

[RoyBoy17]

Would love to know what we had planned to stop Bolton having a huge influence on the game. They knew Starcevich was 50/50 on Monday so we had time to think a plan through properly. We could all see that was a problem coming into the game yet it seems we did nothing about it. It was embarassing how many times he was all by himself in the forward half. It seems all we do as a coaching group is assign a match up and that's it. And we had no plan for him in the centre bounces, he was standing on his own every time.

Oscar was dominating in the ruck yesterday yet we persisted with Fort in the centre bounces in the second half. I have no idea what is going through their heads at times. Just play Fort fwd and keep Oscar in at centre bounces for his better reach over Nankervus.

The thing that alarms me is this is all common sense stuff that we all know and see at the ground. If you have a lighter/ faster player at a centre bounce to deal with then body him up/ arm across him at all times. Those players don't like body contact. We don't seem to worry about it at all.

 

[Jivlain]

With the sub, what you're functionally doing is going half in with an extra tall. If you go in with Fort on field and (say) Cockatoo sub, you wind up in the same place. Now when Bailey goes down, you're bringing in an extra runner but it's making up the numbers on what you lost by going tall in the first place. The end result is the same.

But, inshallah, if noone gets injured you just wind up being top-heavy. Nature of the strategy. It's less controversial though because mostly people don't have much more than a vibe to go on on measuring top-heaviness.

What it comes down to, is, you're playing three tall forwards, and a ruck, and also a spare ruck in case the first gets injured. In a more typical setup your spare ruck is your third forward. And if you can't trust any of your best three tall forwards to take over the ruckwork if the primary ruck gets injured, well, are all those forwards really all best 22?

 

[Nathan Barley]

Do we sack him?

Not his fault Zorko, Robbo and Lyons are cooked and Rayner and Bailey aren't instantly A graders.

 

[Nathan Barley]

Would love to know what we had planned to stop Bolton having a huge influence on the game. They knew Starcevich was 50/50 on Monday so we had time to think a plan through properly. We could all see that was a problem coming into the game yet it seems we did nothing about it. It was embarassing how many times he was all by himself in the forward half. It seems all we do as a coaching group is assign a match up and that's it. And we had no plan for him in the centre bounces, he was standing on his own every time.

Oscar was dominating in the ruck yesterday yet we persisted with Fort in the centre bounces in the second half. I have no idea what is going through their heads at times. Just play Fort fwd and keep Oscar in at centre bounces for his better reach over Nankervus.

The thing that alarms me is this is all common sense stuff that we all know and see at the ground. If you have a lighter/ faster player at a centre bounce to deal with then body him up/ arm across him at all times. Those players don't like body contact. We don't seem to worry about it at all.

In hindsight I would've given Madden all week preparing for one task; shutting down Bolton. If Starce got up to play then no issue but it was clear we didn't have anyone on the weekend capable to go with him. Madden could athletically. Whether he not he mentally could have switched on for long enough to shut him down is a different question

Also in hindsight Starce on Cumberland would've been handy

 

[Thomasno]

Not his fault Zorko, Robbo and Lyons are cooked and Rayner and Bailey aren't instantly A graders.

But it’s surely partially his fault?

It can’t be a coincidence that our midfield has gone from one of our strongest parts to our weakest as soon as he’s appointed.

 

[JoeDanihersMoustache]

Do we sack him?

Absolutely.

 

[Nathan Barley]

But it’s surely partially his fault?

It can’t be a coincidence that our midfield has gone from one of our strongest parts to our weakest as soon as he’s appointed.

Not sure it was ever really a strength. Neale is probably back to his best but everyone else has dropped off. It's probably debatable if Clug was more impactful on the wing.

Neale and Lyons used to be a good combo in the clearance and Oscar isn't anywhere near where Stef was at his peak.

Zorko is a shell of the player he was in 2019

I put a lot of it on poor drafting and development

 

[jjami15]

In regards to Darcy, I wouldn't lose sleep if he joins McStay in the exits, especially if we can save on both their salaries and spend it on more important needs.

I reckon he would have been well looked after post 'go-home mob'. I agree and i also would be thinking to move on from Zorko as well. Time to freshen it up a bit IMO.

 

[McIvor]

In hindsight I would've given Madden all week preparing for one task; shutting down Bolton. If Starce got up to play then no issue but it was clear we didn't have anyone on the weekend capable to go with him. Madden could athletically. Whether he not he mentally could have switched on for long enough to shut him down is a different question

Also in hindsight Starce on Cumberland would've been handy

You'd almost have to think that Madden should be given a job on Saad next week as Keays did exceptionally well on him. KNowing our coaches, they'l leave Saad unchecked b/c God forbid we tag someone.