Knights to coach Essendon

[Verbeek]

16th, 15th, 11th, 16th, 16th, 15th

Thank christ we're not Carlton.

Whats your point exactly? You are still our bitches and on the rare occasion that you did beat us this year you struggled to do it against a tanking team that was toying with you in the first half. You also lost complrehensively to Richmond at Hirdy and Sheedy's Melbourne farewell.

You have the worst midfield ever assembled. Watson, Peveril, the Johnsons, Widerlich. I mean WTF is that shit?

Your good contributing players are 30+

Average bunch of youngsters.

You have appointed a coach who was soft as butter as a player and a dud coach for Port Magpies. Whats he gonna bring to the table?

Yeah, exciting times ahead Bombers. If I was an Essendon fan, I would JUMP at the offer to finish 16th, 15th, 11th, 16th, 16th, 15th for the next 6 years.

 

[GoDons]

Re: I am in shock...and I don't support Essendon

Doesn't make sense does it.

If you were going to sack soemone like Sheedy, at the time they did, surely you'd do it knowing 100% who your replacement Coach was.

If you were informed it would make sense.

Sheedy was sacked predominantly because of his age. The board didn't imagine him being there when we next challenged for the flag.

It wasn't about finding a better coach, because it's very hard to find a new coach as good as another with 27 years experience, but about finding the best young coach to take the young crop forward.

The board have determined that Matthew Knights is the best equipped of the available potential coaches.

 

[w00dy]

i think some of you bomber supporters underestimate how much of an impact he had on your team... him not playing you next year will really hurt, in the closer games he's been the difference more often than not...

 

[SOT4]

Whats your point exactly? You are still our bitches and on the rare occasion that you did beat us this year you struggled to do it against a tanking team that was toying with you in the first half. You also lost complrehensively to Richmond at Hirdy and Sheedy's Melbourne farewell.

You have the worst midfield ever assembled. Watson, Peveril, the Johnsons, Widerlich. I mean WTF is that shit?

Your good contributing players are 30+

Average bunch of youngsters.

You have appointed a coach who was soft as butter as a player and a dud coach for Port Magpies. Whats he gonna bring to the table?

Yeah, exciting times ahead Bombers. If I was an Essendon fan, I would JUMP at the offer to finish 16th, 15th, 11th, 16th, 16th, 15th for the next 6 years.

Essendon will finish higher than Carlton. Bookmark it, keep it in your wallet whatever you want, but we have had our down time and chose to win games rather than tank. Your players dont know how to win games, except for the older ones who were there from pre 2000.

 

[scorpion2466]

Interesting choice. Highly regarded in football circles and obviously they went with someone who's been working with the younger players at the Bendigo Bombers. Give the guy a break. Look at Clarkson at Hawthorn.

 

[Mervyn Beasley]

They needed someone with intimate knowledge of how crap they are!

 

[mantis]

They needed someone with intimate knowledge of how crap they are!

The obsession continues, what were the qualifications of your current coach?

 

[Mervyn Beasley]

The obsession continues, what were the qualifications of your current coach?

Relevance?
But since you asked. Snr coach at Werribee, Snr Coach in SANFL, Port Power. In Grand finals with all 3.

 

[The Chad]

Re: The GREAT Bomber Blunder

ROFL dan26

don't sell the "freo flag contenders" line now

i was pretty sure they wouldn't make the 8 pre-season and 3 quarters into round 1 it was a nailed on certainty

if essendon stay in the umpires' pockets again next season like they did this year they'll find 7 wins next year

 

[Asgardian]

The article from Real Footy made it sound like the heavy weights at Essendon were after a 'yes' man

http://realfooty.com.au/news/news/bomber-board-wants-quick-fix/2007/09/27/1190486481638.html

 

[The Chad]

The article from Real Footy made it sound like the heavy weights at Essendon were after a 'yes' man

http://realfooty.com.au/news/news/bomber-board-wants-quick-fix/2007/09/27/1190486481638.html

well lets face it, sheedy has been selling an average list for 2 years now - why would the board accept the cold hard truth from a man who saw alastair clarkson go through the hawks with a buzzsaw

 

[Paddywhackers]

Essendon will finish higher than Melbourne next year. Easily.

If that makes you happy bwehehehehe

 

[SOT4]

The article from Real Footy made it sound like the heavy weights at Essendon were after a 'yes' man

http://realfooty.com.au/news/news/bomber-board-wants-quick-fix/2007/09/27/1190486481638.html

Do you think we wont be contenders by 2010? I'm surprised Hardwick wrote off our chances of being a contender in 3 years. 3 years is a long time in football.

 

[Asgardian]

Do you think we wont be contenders by 2010? I'm surprised Hardwick wrote off our chances of being a contender in 3 years. 3 years is a long time in football.

I have my doubts

My comments though were purely in relation to the coaching appointment. I made no reference, positive or negative, about the state of your list and it's short to medium term prospects.

 

[wazzabp]

I reckon we would have been given scathing critisism by some on here no matter how we handled the situation and no matter who we appointed, as some people just post with just hatred in their minds and no commonsense whatsoever.

If anyone bagged a new player before he set foot at the top evel, they would be shot down on here, so I can't why people treat the new coaches any different.

 

[nutter]

Knights Coaching Record:-

PA Magpies 7-13
Bendigo Bombers 24-32

Playing record - Career Win / Loss
Richmond 118 - 161

 

[- PC -]

Do you think we wont be contenders by 2010? I'm surprised Hardwick wrote off our chances of being a contender in 3 years. 3 years is a long time in football.

Any football club, Carlton included, should be a contender or at least in the 8 after 3 years...even with a cleanout.

 

[Deenamite]

Pretty funny. Would've worked better if they'd weaved Knights into the gameplan midseason and just gone for a straight handover instead of this process shit.

 

[PROUD LION]

I am happy Essendon have appointed Knights as coach , makes sure they won't win another premiership for as long as he's there.....and that's one less club everyone else has to worry about.

Seriously, for such a "big" club, it seems they have taken the longest time to make the dumbest decision....a coach who was there the whole time and one who has no history of winning

 

[The Donners]

Re: The GREAT Bomber Blunder

Im going by what I heard briefly on the Footy Show a few minutes ago. Gary Lyon mentioned that Damien Hardwick all but had the Essendon coaching job only for Matty Knights' presentation to clinch it at the last minute. Apparently the clincher was Hardwick's more pessimistic view that the Bombers will probably miss the finals for the next two years and will need to re-build. The Essendon honchos did not like the sound of truth. They cant handle the truth!!!

Other than the fact that they have overlooked a former club legend in Hardwick, has Essendon completely stuffed it up by not giving the job to a pragmagtic realist and instead offering it to the softest player to ever grace the field?

Face the truth Essendon, on-field you are currently well below average. Once you accept this you can move on and become a better team for it. Hardwick was the man for the job because at least he had his blinkers off.

I think this decision all but confirms a bottom 2 finish for the Dons in 08.

I've come out of retirement from this thread to agree with you 100%, Essendon needs to rebuild. Time will tell if it confirms a bottom 2 finish but if that is the reason Knights got the job over a former Essendon premiership player I would be unhappy.

 

[Longy413]

Re: The GREAT Bomber Blunder

We had impact from the young blokes - Ryder, Winderlich, Davey, Jetta, Nash, Laycock

Those blokes have improved a lot haven't they?

Watson likewise.

Who has been our development coach the last two years?

I've come out of retirement from this thread to agree with you 100%, Essendon needs to rebuild. Time will tell if it confirms a bottom 2 finish but if that is the reason Knights got the job over a former Essendon premiership player I would be unhappy.

If Harwick's theory is that you need to go to the bottom to succeed then I don't blame the board for going in another direction.

There is no proof that years rebuilding from the bottom wins flags.
In fact, quite the opposite if you consider where Sydney, West Coast, Port and Geelong have come from.

People are forgetting we delisted/traded 12 players in 2005. We've been rebuilding for in a big way for two years. This will be our third year at the high end of the draft.

In the past two years, we have traded players away to improve our draft position.

We haven't gone to the extent Hawthorn have, but we have drafted kids and we have been rebuilding. We played 39 players last season and 7 debutants.

We've boosted our recruiting resources, we'll be doubling our player development resources. We've had two solid drafts and with another one this year there is no reason we can't go forwards to go forwards, rather than going backwards first.

 

[BIGBEZ]

After hearing Lloyd speak on matter, it seemed to me, the reason Hardwick wasnt selected, was because he was a clubman who was more of a mate, than a 'authorotive' figure!

 

[mustapha]

Re: The GREAT Bomber Blunder

if essendon stay in the umpires' pockets again next season like they did this year they'll find 7 wins next year

It's all about the umpires with Hawthorn isn't it? The Hawthorn supporters on this board whinge about umpires more than any other supporters in the AFL.

 

[Smokin]

Gotta admit, to a part of me, this decision kinda stinks. Time will tell, but lord help us if we struggle next year. Knights has no favourable history, track record or reason to be optimistic it time of crisis, should it happen.

Anyway, in relation to the Hardwick thing, to me it sounds like he was trying to buy himself time from the get go, giving a worst case scenario should it not go to plan.

We have re-built so much in the past couple of season, cleaned out so many, to the point where as it stood at the end of 07, players like the Johnsons, Pev etc were replaced by youth, and the only "old" players in the 22 are Lloyd, Lucas, Fletcher and Mal. 3 of them are club legends and will not be "cleaned out" because thats not how we treat legeds, and Mal holds his spot well in our best side. What is there to cleanout? all the kids? the joint is full of kids, its laughable when people say we have no kids. Many are going to be extremely suprised.

What im trying to say is it sounds like Hardwick was trying to buy himself an excuse straight off the bat. Hardly confidense-instilling!

Im much more shocked, disapointed and in disbelief in the comments made regarding the Thompson situation. To me, Jackson is doing a Fozie and taking us fans as fools. To wait this long, to be told we cant wait the 48 hours till the GF? Dont take me for an imbecile! Would it really hurt to wait till Sunday/Monday? Or was it the plan to name a mate all along?

 

[Bloben]

I believe that Hardwick was offering an honest appraisal of where Essendons list is at. I think there are some really exciting kids coming through at Essendon however the core strength of the team is still the older guys. I would say that Collingwood will be contenders in 2010 with a chance in 2009 but realistically our kids wont be fully primed until 2010, and we are further advanced than Essendon.

For Knights and the board to make this decision they are really putting pressure on themselves to perform.

Lloyd will not be there in 2010, nor will Fletcher, Michael and Lucas will probably be passed his best.