Mark Harvey - opinions

[Robbo2003]

Definitely had a good young side heading in the right direction in 2010. Unfortunately injury absolutely ravaged them in 2011. He was unfairly sacked and the way it was done by the Fremantle hierachy was a disgrace.

It's hilarious how these w***ers say "oh Freo's decline this year was because Chris Scott wasn't there rah rah rah". Maybe the decline was caused by the fact that they had the worst run of injury of any AFL team in recent memory.

 

[theGav56]

If Lyon does well with this lot, Harvey better get a nod his way.

So if the Dockers don't step up you think Harvey is going to put his hand up and take responsibility?

Last season;

We desperately need a Full Forward, but Anthony gets two games where the ball does not make it past centre in either of them, and he is dropped after both games.

We desperately need a clearance, gut-running midfielder, but Palmer is played as a Forward Pocket.

We have a champion CHF who gets run ragged as a midfielder who has marginal impact.

We have an excitement machine who is skinny and young and struggling with a tag, and nothing is done to get him through it.

We have the best ruckman in the league, and very capable support in Griffin, but Harvey waits for injury before he plays Griffin, then brings back Sandilands (insert numerous other names here) too early from injury.

We lose top-line assistant coaches, and don't replace them.

We have two players on the list who had better seasons last year than the year before.... that is a massive failure.

 

[Slattery_20]

Terry Wallet was great with the media. How did that work out for him?

2 prelims amongst 4 finals campaigns in his 6 years at the dogs would suggest things worked out a fair bit better than anything's worked out for Harvey.

Wallace's biggest mistake was going to Richmond. Never had the players.

 

[Lord Nicholson]

Chris Scott acknowledged Thompson a lot, so not sure where you're coming from there

Oh, I'm not talking about Scott.

 

[theGav56]

2 prelims amongst 4 finals campaigns in his 6 years at the dogs would suggest things worked out a fair bit better than anything's worked out for Harvey.

Wallace's biggest mistake was going to Richmond. Never had the players.

Rubbish. He cherry-picked Richmond and was at the forefront of their recruiting and list management.

 

[Ron The Bear]

Rubbish. He cherry-picked Richmond and was at the forefront of their recruiting and list management.

Unfortunately I don't think Wallace had any real appetite for youth development. He's on record as saying Richmond had a better list than Hawthorn at the time, and if you only take into account the senior players (26yo+) he was probably right.

In hindsight he bemoaned our lack of resources for development, but he went into the job with his eyes open. He may have succeeded at a wealthier club - good match day coach, good promoter of the club. But that wasn't enough, and his approach wasn't what was needed at the time. I think St.Kilda's situation bears some resemblance to Richmond's of seven years ago, albeit not as dire.

When you look at Freo's list at the end of 2007 - third-last with a bevy of mediocre older players who had been overrated by Connolly - Harvey (or the list manager) did a very good job of turning things around.

 

[Robbo2003]

Was totally out of his depth after Chris Scott left. Overtrained the team in the preseason, played too many players out of position and his gameplan this year was terrible

Know that for a fact do you? That's a pretty sweeping assumption. You do realise that the majority of Fremantle's injuries were impact injuries which have absolutely nothing to do with how they trained in the pre season.

Maybe playing players out of position was due to the list being decimated by injury, so there were holes on the field that needed to be filled.

If Fremantle stay relatively fit and don't get near the top 4 next year then Chris Bond and Steve Rosich the smiling assasins will have a hell of a lot to answer for.

 

[theGav56]

Unfortunately I don't think Wallace had any real appetite for youth development. He's on record as saying Richmond had a better list than Hawthorn at the time, and if you only take into account the senior players (26yo+) he was probably right.

In hindsight he bemoaned our lack of resources for development, but he went into the job with his eyes open. He may have succeeded at a wealthier club - good match day coach, good promoter of the club. But that wasn't enough, and his approach wasn't what was needed at the time. I think St.Kilda's situation bears some resemblance to Richmond's of seven years ago, albeit not as dire.

When you look at Freo's list at the end of 2007 - third-last with a bevy of mediocre older players who had been overrated by Connolly - Harvey (or the list manager) did a very good job of turning things around.

Yes I agree with your post. The only real variance I have is that Harvey kept the list he got from Connolly and played his first season with minimal changes apart from recruiting senior players as a clear top-up for a Finals push. If Connolly overrated the players, so did Harvey

Surely part of Wallace's problems was in the type of players that he favoured recruiting, leading to an unbalanced side???

 

[Ron The Bear]

Surely part of Wallace's problems was in the type of players that he favoured recruiting, leading to an unbalanced side???

That was one problem. His vision of a side full of fleet-footed short people running rings around the opposition never looked like coming to fruition.

The other was that the list was in crisis following the Frawley years. That the older players were capable was shown by the start in 2005 (7-2 and 3rd until Brown went down), but there was precious little in the 21-25 bracket, and we lost Ottens from that. Wallace was probably comforted by our five top-20 picks at the draft, but promising players/high picks like Tambling, Raines, Meyer, Schulz, Jackson, Pattison, Polo, Thursfield, Roach never developed beyond mediocre. To top it off, our most likely youngster in Coughlan had his career derailed by injury.

Even when Wallace won games in late 2008, it was on the backs of a handful of (very) senior players like Richo and Bowden. The board could see we were on a road to nowhere, and sacked Miller and put the heat on Wallace. His solution was to get Cousins & McMahon and push for the finals to get a contract extension. Not surprising in hindsight that it all went pear-shaped.

 

[Slattery_20]

Rubbish. He cherry-picked Richmond and was at the forefront of their recruiting and list management.

As I say, his big mistake was going to Richmond. Had he got the Sydney job, who knows. Might have a flag, probably would have played finals.