Opinion Get Clarko to The Hangar - 5 year deal done says Heppellfreak (post #334) - now with poll

[MiguelM]

I don't want Clarko but the next 7 weeks will be telling. A loss to North would be coach killer for Rutten.

A respectable showing in these final rounds will guarantee Rutten stays IMO. Why throw out everything and start again.

 

[ghostdog]

But for how long will he be driven? 3 years? 4 years? Will he be Woosha/Malthouse/Lyon/Thompson level cooked? Will Clarkson really be that 10-15 year coach for us?

It's just taking an unnecessary risk with only the immediate future in mind. He can go to GWS who are closer to a premiership. We need stability more than anything right now. If Clarkson coaches next year, then that will be Merrett's 5th coach. What a joke. Then it's very possible that Clarkson burns out and Merrett will have a 6th coach by the end of his career. I'm sick of this revolving door of coaches and I'm sure the players are as well.

The only time I'm willing to look at another coach is if there are clear signs Rutten has lost the playing group. There's no sign to suggest he has so why look elsewhere? Especially for a coach that may well be cooked in 3-4 years.

Agree 100%
Merrett's language the other day that senior players need to stand up, as well as the suggestions being made here that Parish wants to stay, suggests to me that Rutten has them, in spite of some of the stories coming out this year.

Add to that the contract renewals this year of Cox, Durham, Hind, Langford (who also spent considerable time in the coaches box), Laverde, Martin, Perkins and Reid; and last year Merrett and Ridley, and I would say the coach has them.

Surely the change in character of our performances over the last few weeks is also indicative of this. Has no-one noticed Rutten has gone back to a partial man-on-man defensive structure? He obviously went a bit too far in terms of what he thought they could do, but elements of the zone remain. We are a work in progress folks.

Parachuting Clarko in will satisfy a loud mob but create further instability. Why should the coach get rolled for the club's long term cultural issues. As far as I can see, it has been the coach who has been driving the cultural change and people want him rolled. Narrow minded and impatient.

 

[JayJ20]

Nope. Been over this before. 3rd year head coach, 4th year at the club.

- Parish has had career best form because he's A) Developing as a young player and B) Has the license to play as an unaccountable, one way running accumulator instead of a forward like his earlier years. That persistent playstyle really does not scream "buying in" to me.

- Wright is in great form because he's getting a game for starters and has physically matured. Is it a surprise a 25 y/o KPF is playing better than a 21 y/o version of himself at the Suns who were much worse in previous years?

- Stringer was AA in 2015 - not sure how he's now in career best form?

- Shiel has had a great few weeks despite a largely disastrous couple years. 2017 AA at GWS vs a good clearance mid at Essendon. Hardly call that one a win.

On the flipside we have Merrett who has not improved under truck, Ridley has largely regressed, McGrath's development has stalled, yet to make anything of Aaron Francis and Cox playing poorly and bereft of confidence this year.

Those questions you pose have no real answer. He could go on to coach another 15 years or another 5. Likewise with Truck. Nobody knows the answer. Talking about it almost feels silly. If he wants to come back to coach, I'm assuming he's mature enough as a person and as a decorated coach to know he wants a proper coaching tenure without an eye on the exit from the outset.

Yes, Clarkson had some good picks and was able to nurture those picks into building a quality list. There are plenty of clubs that have had double or triple the picks and have achieved absolutely nothing with them, let alone 4 flags. Clarkson's last final - a measly 2015 premiership. Oh, the horror! He's won 4 flags since the last time we won a final.

Nobody is expecting him to come in and pull some masterstrokes and change everything and all of a sudden we're a 2023 finals threat. What people like myself ARE expecting him to come in and do is address some of our recent failures, like;

• Why do we consistently show up to seasons underprepared and get bullied in the first half of the year, only to win some brave dead rubbers in the back half?
• Why is our fitness so consistently poor?
• Why do we constantly get recurring, lengthy injuries to senior players?
• Why after 4 years of the same fingerprints on our defensive DNA do we look so poor?
• Why after insisting we're building towards being bloo kolla do we still look unchanged from our previous schoolboy DNA?

I could go on but you get the idea. I feel a seasoned coach in Clarko is not only better equipped to answer these puzzling questions, but also better equipped in finding solutions and implementing them to get a result. Truck on the other hand has demonstrated he simply does not have the answers let alone the ability to implement solutions.

Lol he's not in his 3rd year. It's his second year.

Let me give you one player. Laverde. Is it not Rutten that revitalised his career? Without Rutten, Laverde may have been delisted by now.

Stringer would have been AA if he wasn't injured in the first half of the year. He set many PBs in the second half of the year and was instrumental in us making finals. Even Redman is an excellent player under Rutten. Hind played really well under Rutten last year and is starting to get back into form.

Merrett was literally AA last year so I don't know how he didn't improve??? Ridley is not playing as an unaccountable defender. It seems like Truck wants him to be more accountable which is hardly bad. Ridley needs to lift his ability to defend.

Francis is injured and unfit too often for him to have any impact. Wright's improvement as well as Jones' emergence effectively ended his career with us. If he cannot compete for a spot, then there's nothing the coach can do. Cox is a second year player who had injury issues. It's unrealistic to expect him to be ready. He tried Cox on the wing. Worked last year, didn't work this year so back to the drawing board. No harm in figuring out a player's best position in his first year and a half. The only player's development that I've been critical of is BZT given that we should be playing a KPD.

- Slow starts have been an issue since before Rutten and that's an area they need to focus on. It's both on the players and coaches to be ready when the season starts. We did however have a difficult start to the year playing all current top 4 sides (Geelong, Brisbane, Melbourne and Fremantle) in the first 5 rounds. Hardly sack worthy in only his second year though. Only the first half vs Geelong and second half vs Fremantle were downright unacceptable.

Since when is Rutten responsible for fitness? Every coach wants fit players, but it's up to list management and the fitness coach. List management is responsible for recruiting players with the capacity to run. The fitness coach is responsible for a fitness program.

- Again, how is Rutten responsible for injuries? That's on the fitness coach.

- You're not going to be blue collar without blue collar players. Rutten's vision is to make the side more blue collar and defensively accountable. Not going to happen with the midfield we have. Clarkson won't change that if list management do not recruit blue collar players.

Most of the points you raise doesn't have anything to do with Rutten's coaching ability. You have unrealistic expectations of Rutten when Clarkson won't do any better in Rutten's situation. I don't see how Clarkson would be taking the current side bereft of leaders and A-graders to finals. Sure he has more tactical experience, but we'd still be in the bottom 4 or close to it. Clarkson was once in Rutten's position of being an inexperienced coach. You don't sack a coach for being an inexperienced head coach.

 

[JayJ20]

Agree 100%
Merrett's language the other day that senior players need to stand up, as well as the suggestions being made here that Parish wants to stay, suggests to me that Rutten has them, in spite of some of the stories coming out this year.

Add to that the contract renewals this year of Cox, Durham, Hind, Langford (who also spent considerable time in the coaches box), Laverde, Martin, Perkins and Reid; and last year Merrett and Ridley, and I would say the coach has them.

Surely the change in character of our performances over the last few weeks is also indicative of this. Has no-one noticed Rutten has gone back to a partial man-on-man defensive structure? He obviously went a bit too far in terms of what he thought they could do, but elements of the zone remain. We are a work in progress folks.

Parachuting Clarko in will satisfy a loud mob but create further instability. Why should the coach get rolled for the club's long term cultural issues. As far as I can see, it has been the coach who has been driving the cultural change and people want him rolled. Narrow minded and impatient.

That's actually a really good point. All of these players committed to Rutten as coach.

On the topic of leadership, Clarkson could probably take a couple of weeks off with players like Hodge, Mitchell, Burgoyne, Roughead, Sewell and Lewis in the side. They had strong leaders. I can see Perkins, Hobbs, Draper, Redman and Laverde being leaders if given time to develop, but Rutten needs that time. I'm really not interested in bringing Clarkson "because 4 premierships" when I haven't seen him win even a single final without those on-field leaders playing. It's funny because Hawthorn post Hodge and Mitchell were very similar to Essendon now and how did Clarkson go?

Luke Hodge went to Brisbane for a couple of years and how much did Brisbane change? May not have done much on-field, but he provided that leadership and on-field coaching they desperately needed.

We should actually be looking at on-field leadership more than a new coach.

 

[citizen-erased]

Agree 100%
Merrett's language the other day that senior players need to stand up, as well as the suggestions being made here that Parish wants to stay, suggests to me that Rutten has them, in spite of some of the stories coming out this year.

Add to that the contract renewals this year of Cox, Durham, Hind, Langford (who also spent considerable time in the coaches box), Laverde, Martin, Perkins and Reid; and last year Merrett and Ridley, and I would say the coach has them.

Surely the change in character of our performances over the last few weeks is also indicative of this. Has no-one noticed Rutten has gone back to a partial man-on-man defensive structure? He obviously went a bit too far in terms of what he thought they could do, but elements of the zone remain. We are a work in progress folks.

Parachuting Clarko in will satisfy a loud mob but create further instability. Why should the coach get rolled for the club's long term cultural issues. As far as I can see, it has been the coach who has been driving the cultural change and people want him rolled. Narrow minded and impatient.

good post.

we trialled some stuff and tweaked the progression of the game plan. this will keep happening until we get it right
Add to that injury and a tough initial draw (though losing to the Eagles, yet beating Saints and Swans undermines this excuse) - may end up being a year we have to have. We may have another next year too.

 

[ghostdog]

That's actually a really good point. All of these players committed to Rutten as coach.

On the topic of leadership, Clarkson could probably take a couple of weeks off with players like Hodge, Mitchell, Burgoyne, Roughead, Sewell and Lewis in the side. They had strong leaders. I can see Perkins, Hobbs, Draper, Redman and Laverde being leaders if given time to develop, but Rutten needs that time. I'm really not interested in bringing Clarkson "because 4 premierships" when I haven't seen him win even a single final without those on-field leaders playing. It's funny because Hawthorn post Hodge and Mitchell were very similar to Essendon now and how did Clarkson go?

Luke Hodge went to Brisbane for a couple of years and how much did Brisbane change? May not have done much on-field, but he provided that leadership and on-field coaching they desperately needed.

We should actually be looking at on-field leadership more than a new coach.

Yep. Bringing in Jake Kelly I'm sure was part of that vision.

 

[ghostdog]

Clarkson would definitely be a better fit at GWS. Port Adelaide should be having a serious dip as well. Hinkley is cooked.

 

[citizen-erased]

Clarkson would definitely be a better fit at GWS. Port Adelaide should be having a serious dip as well. Hinkley is cooked.

disagree on Hinkley. Port are good without being great & finished quite strongly. I reckon he needs a change of scenery...perhaps even a change of role (rather than head coach)
North could do worse than Ken. or even Ken in to support Noble. He connects with players.

Clarkson to GWS probably makes the most sense for all parties.

 

[eth-dog]

disagree on Hinkley. Port are good without being great & finished quite strongly. I reckon he needs a change of scenery...perhaps even a change of role (rather than head coach)
North could do worse than Ken. or even Ken in to support Noble. He connects with players.

Clarkson to GWS probably makes the most sense for all parties.

Hinkley is cooked mate.

 

[JayJ20]

I can't help but see the similarity between Rutten/Clarkson and Ratten/Malthouse.

Carlton made finals under Ratten and played pretty well with promising young players. They dipped in 2012 (literally just one year after being a kick from a prelim) and sacked him because Malthouse became available. They expected for Malthouse to just take them to another level for no other reason then his achievements and reputation. Set them back as a club another 10 years.

There's no good reason to sack Rutten this year so we shouldn't be hasty. I'd only have entertained Clarkson if we needed a new coach. We wouldn't be talking about a new coach if Clarkson wasn't available.

 

[Bunk Moreland]

Welcome aboard Clarko, provided he doesn’t have any coaching ambitions he’d be by far an away the best director of footy or footy ops person we could ever dream of.

Why? He’s a very, very difficult person who has a habit of often losing his shit and going ****ing mental at people who don’t do everything he says and kiss his feet.

His whole time at Hawthorn he basically had “minders” such as Fagan to act as a buffer between him and the rest of the club.

He’s clearly a very good coach and good with players, but he’s also a ****in prick and needs everybody doing what he says.

My strong suspicion is he’d be an absolute bloody disaster in any other role and I don’t think he’s the slightest bit interested in doing that anyway.

Get Clarko is dumb messiah shit that we need to get over as a club. We have a football department stacked with external successful experience. Let them work.

 

[Milanista28]

Ok so my 3 possible timelines...

We sack Truck and hire Clarkson in 2022.
We stay the course, Truck has the team playing good footy in 2023 and gets an extension.
We stay the course, Truck and the team fail to fire in 2023 and we sack him and go for an experienced coach, most likely Buckley. (we will not consider any 1st time coaches, so our process will be blinkered again)

 

[rumply]

 

[Nifft]

How does the coaching cap work if the current coach is sacked before the contract is completed?

If Rutten's contract has to be included in the cap even if he's sacked, how could we possibly even fit Clarkson under the cap? You could back end Clarkson's contract, but that would just lead to issues where there's limited money for other coaching staff.

 

[Keystone agony]

I like this move

Clarkson isnt stupid. If Rutten is 2-6 next year Clarkson is coaching round 9 onwards

The issue is if were 4-4 than Clarkson is either happy with his new role or still wants to coach and moves on after a year to opportunity

He may very well like the idea of this new role for a dew years than becoming the Tasmanian coach in 2026 if he still has the desire

 

[bomberlegend2007]

Nope. Been over this before. 3rd year head coach, 4th year at the club.

- Parish has had career best form because he's A) Developing as a young player and B) Has the license to play as an unaccountable, one way running accumulator instead of a forward like his earlier years. That persistent playstyle really does not scream "buying in" to me.

- Wright is in great form because he's getting a game for starters and has physically matured. Is it a surprise a 25 y/o KPF is playing better than a 21 y/o version of himself at the Suns who were much worse in previous years?

- Stringer was AA in 2015 - not sure how he's now in career best form?

- Shiel has had a great few weeks despite a largely disastrous couple years. 2017 AA at GWS vs a good clearance mid at Essendon. Hardly call that one a win.

On the flipside we have Merrett who has not improved under truck, Ridley has largely regressed, McGrath's development has stalled, yet to make anything of Aaron Francis and Cox playing poorly and bereft of confidence this year.

Those questions you pose have no real answer. He could go on to coach another 15 years or another 5. Likewise with Truck. Nobody knows the answer. Talking about it almost feels silly. If he wants to come back to coach, I'm assuming he's mature enough as a person and as a decorated coach to know he wants a proper coaching tenure without an eye on the exit from the outset.

Yes, Clarkson had some good picks and was able to nurture those picks into building a quality list. There are plenty of clubs that have had double or triple the picks and have achieved absolutely nothing with them, let alone 4 flags. Clarkson's last final - a measly 2015 premiership. Oh, the horror! He's won 4 flags since the last time we won a final.

Nobody is expecting him to come in and pull some masterstrokes and change everything and all of a sudden we're a 2023 finals threat. What people like myself ARE expecting him to come in and do is address some of our recent failures, like;

• Why do we consistently show up to seasons underprepared and get bullied in the first half of the year, only to win some brave dead rubbers in the back half?
• Why is our fitness so consistently poor?
• Why do we constantly get recurring, lengthy injuries to senior players?
• Why after 4 years of the same fingerprints on our defensive DNA do we look so poor?
• Why after insisting we're building towards being bloo kolla do we still look unchanged from our previous schoolboy DNA?

I could go on but you get the idea. I feel a seasoned coach in Clarko is not only better equipped to answer these puzzling questions, but also better equipped in finding solutions and implementing them to get a result. Truck on the other hand has demonstrated he simply does not have the answers let alone the ability to implement solutions.

So, you honestly believe Rutten has had no influence, whatsoever, on this playing group?

Take away the fact that you believe he is shit, the ability you have in twisting things to fit your argument is astounding. Next you will ask why Rutten hasn’t built a time machine to stop the drug scandal yet.

Just simply farcical stuff here.

 

[bomberlegend2007]

Nope. 2nd year head coach who made the finals in his first year in charge. Stop trying to spin the facts for the sake of your argument.

Na my man, he has been coach for 15 years now. We all know this. Still unsure after Rutten recruited Ty Zantuck, he still has a job tbh.

 

[ghostdog]

disagree on Hinkley. Port are good without being great & finished quite strongly. I reckon he needs a change of scenery...perhaps even a change of role (rather than head coach)
North could do worse than Ken. or even Ken in to support Noble. He connects with players.

Clarkson to GWS probably makes the most sense for all parties.

Rather, I've been inarticulate. I agree, he needs a change of scenery. Maybe stale at Port is more what I meant.

 

[ghostdog]

That's a bit f***** too IMO. Both Rutten and Cara have just come from a system that won three premierships. Let them do their thing.

 

[faible]

That's a bit f***** too IMO. Both Rutten and Cara have just come from a system that won three premierships. Let them do their thing.

May well have consulted with those guys first, if you're Rutten and Clarkson is holding out for a Tasmanian side to coach, do you say no to a couple of years of opportunity to work with the best AFL coach of the past 20 years?

 

[ghostdog]

May well have consulted with those guys first, if you're Rutten and Clarkson is holding out for a Tasmanian side to coach, do you say no to a couple of years of opportunity to work with the best AFL coach of the past 20 years?

If there's been consultation that changes the situation entirely, obviously. If Truck is learning about this through the media, then...

 

[Zach Package]

Why? He’s a very, very difficult person who has a habit of often losing his s*t and going ****** mental at people who don’t do everything he says and kiss his feet.

His whole time at Hawthorn he basically had “minders” such as Fagan to act as a buffer between him and the rest of the club.

He’s clearly a very good coach and good with players, but he’s also a *in prick and needs everybody doing what he says.

My strong suspicion is he’d be an absolute bloody disaster in any other role and I don’t think he’s the slightest bit interested in doing that anyway.

Get Clarko is dumb messiah s**t that we need to get over as a club. We have a football department stacked with external successful experience. Let them work.

Which is why the ‘no ambitions to coach’ is key. I don’t want duel of the fates shit happening on top of the other crap we have going on. If he still wants to coach I don’t want him anywhere near the joint because it’s a disaster waiting to happen.

He’s not the ultimate panacea but his knowledge will be invaluable in some capacity, even if we engage him for 6 weeks to run the rule over the footy program. He’s a straight shooter with enough cache for what he says to mean something.

 

[windyhill]

Only one team wins the flag. It’s a lot of luck. Go and be shit in a year where there is a dusty or a trac, all luck. He is a decent human Truck and I can see the shell of a decent team being created, but we’ve gotta take our chances. **** clarkson, he himself admits he got lucky with hawfforn. He was a dirty prick of a player, sniper is too kind, he hates our guts. Stick with Truck, I can sort of see what’s building with us.

 

[Schnitzengruben]

So, you honestly believe Rutten has had no influence, whatsoever, on this playing group?

Take away the fact that you believe he is s**t, the ability you have in twisting things to fit your argument is astounding. Next you will ask why Rutten hasn’t built a time machine to stop the drug scandal yet.

Just simply farcical stuff here.

Nice strawman there. I see you've been reading others posts around here.

I think using players natural progression and claiming it as a win for Rutten is disingenuous. Saying they are "buying in" yet continuing to play their own unaccountable football while he lets them do it is simply wrong.

Some guys guys like Laverde have improved with positional changes, but then there are players who have become worse like Cox and Ridley. I'd say this "Rutten effect" has been net middling at best.

 

[ant555]

Nice strawman there. I see you've been reading others posts around here.

I think using players natural progression and claiming it as a win for Rutten is disingenuous. Saying they are "buying in" yet continuing to play their own unaccountable football while he lets them do it is simply wrong.

Some guys guys like Laverde have improved with positional changes, but then there are players who have become worse like Cox and Ridley. I'd say this "Rutten effect" has been net middling at best.

Ridley has not been worse. He is actually defending better than he ever has.