Coach Men's Senior Coach: Brad Scott

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joey_jo_jo said:
kind of have hands tied behind back with all the contract extensions/long contracts being given. Wonder how much say Scott has in contract lengths?
I may be going a bit "scorched earth" due to being at the "anger" stage of grief but theres a couple of guys in the 25-30 age bracket that im looking at now and thinking they are just passing on the loser mentality to the next gen that the leaders before passed on to them.
then you look at the contracts for those guys and theres not really much wriggle room to make a statement at trade time.
Some of these guys I love as players but honestly which ones actually stand up on field when chips are down to support Merrett and how much have they really achieved to deserve such long term faith?
  • Langford - contracted till 2027
  • Redman - 2028
  • Ridley - 2029
  • Parish - 2029
  • Redman -2028
  • Mcgrath - 2030
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You'd think the coach has a massive say in contract lengths. There's no way the list management team are signing up players to long term contracts without the blessing of the coach.

While I defend Scott and think calling for his head at this point is laughable, I do have big question marks over a few of these contracts. 6 year deals for Parish and particularly McGrath just doesn't sit well with me. I agree he is tying his own hands behind his back.
 
P Money said:
You'd think the coach has a massive say in contract lengths. There's no way the list management team are signing up players to long term contracts without the blessing of the coach.

While I defend Scott and think calling for his head at this point is laughable, I do have big question marks over a few of these contracts. 6 year deals for Parish and particularly McGrath just doesn't sit well with me. I agree he is tying his own hands behind his back.
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Yeah I defended the lengths at time because I knew it related to salary cap management, but when you look at them all it does seem like a bit of overkill when we are supposedly in the early stages of a rebuild.
 

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faible said:
2007: It's the coach. Sheedy sacked.
2010: It's the coach. Knights sacked.
2015: It's the coach. Hird. So many things.
2020: It's the coach. Worsfold sacked.
2022: It's the coach. Rutten sacked.
2024?: It's the coach.

Add in a season of Thompson. That's a lot of 'it's the coach'.
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Correct me if I'm wrong - but for all of the bolded coach selections, I'm sure each time the playing group advised they were welcoming of some hard coaching, analysis and home truths to come out.

Brad Scott played a hard game, so I'm not expecting that his coaching would be any different behind closed doors.

Is potentailly over 50% of our list soft menatlly. Can't take harsh feedback and have no desire to correct their issues?
 
dank420_ said:
Before they finished 4th they missed finals 3 years prior which encompassed his initial coaching career.
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Of course he did. That's what happens you rebuild a list. There is no doubt that it takes time when you build up from the bottom but this is not a reflection of the time it takes coaches to implement ideas - it is almost always the time it takes a young core of players to become 'adult' footballers.

The precedent is finals wins within 3 to 4 years (or 15 games a season and then doing it for 3 years in a row). Melbourne is the exception but there are 2 critical bases on which it can be distinguished, there was a coaching change and they retained very little from the pre-Roos list.

This is the misconception about Scott's position. He did not take over a list at rock bottom. He is now in year 4 of the rebuild that started at the end of 2020 when the club took 3 top 10 picks and brought in a top pick who was a second year player (i.e. Caldwell). Contrast with this Roos / Goodwin. Other than ant555, is anyone looking at this situation thinking that we will have anything like the list turnover Melbourne had between 2015 and 2020 between now and the point at which we are in contention? People will say yes, and I will point to:

  • 4 players contracted until 2027: Duursma, Langford, Martin, Merrett, Wright
  • 2 players contracted until 2028: Durham, Redman
  • 3 players contracted until 2029: McKay, Parish, Ridley
  • 1 player contracted until 2030: McGrath

That's us locked into 10 players until a minimum of year 5 of Scott's tenure. Caldwell will almost certainly be added to this group.

We have a pick 8 (Cox), pick 9 (Perkins), pick 10 (Reid), pick 11 (Hobbs), pick 25 (Hayes), pick 5 (Tsatas) and pick 8 (Caddy) on the list. Other than Hobbs and Reid, they are contracted until 2026 (along with Gresham)

Does anyone have any expectation that the 17 players I've named above will not be on the list by the end of 2027? It's not even an exhaustive list because it doesn't include Draper, Bryan, Lual, Roberts, the Daveys and EL Hawli.

This is nothing like what Roos, Bomber and Hardwick faced at the end of year 2. He has a much more mature list which, based on how we are managing the list, is largely in the shape it will be when we are expecting to be good under Brad Scott (which would be year 6 to 7 of the rebuild).

If he thought the list was the problem, he should have done something about it.
 
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Some of the facets of intent and effort are fairly easy to measure. The proof is in the pudding. The numbers don’t lie.

Since 2022 (so post COVID)

Contested possessions
Are you getting your hands dirty and winning it?

2022: 126.5 per game (17th)
2023: 130.4 (16th)
2024: 129.6 (13th)

Clearances
Can you take a 50/50 situation and get the ball going your way?

2022: 33.8 (16th)
2023: 33.7 (18th)
2024: 36.4 (10th)

Tackles
Are you chasing and throwing your body in to stop the opposition?

2022: 50.1 (17th)
2023: 57 (16th)
2024: 60.9 (7th)

We were notably soft the past two years. There’s no getting away from that.

We are definitely improved this year in some of these areas. The big tell will be where these numbers finish in a month’s time. If they fall right off and we finish up where were last year, then it’ll have been a wasted year. But otherwise, we will have improved.

On the whole however, I would caution something: turning teams around from prolonged failure and changing habits typically takes longer than people think. And it’s not linear.

I’ll be looking at these numbers at the end of the year as some sort of view of progress. But right now we are in a huge funk and need to turn it around quickly. That’s up to Scott.

If the next four games are like the last three, huge concerns. If it was a prolonged blip, not so much.
 
Mercurial89 said:
I'm far from his biggest supporter, I don't agree with decisions such as where he's playing certain players, I don't think he maximises the talent we do have. I have issues with how the club views things philosophically.

But I do think he can get (or could have got) a baseline level of training standards for the club.
It's easy for me to say "tank the ladder position and cull the list" because I don't have a job riding on it.
I think the cull is needed, the players are not talented enough, our top line will be the weakest of anyone in the top 8 if we ever made finals. That goes for this year, last year, next year, we just don't have the top end talent to even contemplate winning a flag, let alone the baseline competency across the list in basic fundamentals of football.
Going back to Dan's fantastic post, we don't have any weapon or elite strength as a club, no identity, so I gather you agree on that part.

But I don't think, to your post, that the actions needed to accomplish this are entirely realistic with all real world aspects taken into account.

I agree with your overall point that you have made that you cannot change what a player is in some areas.
McGrath as an example, he as a person is never going to be what we as a club need. May be a fine footballer that plays 200 games, does an ok job locking down a man some weeks and never causes an off field issue, but you could drop him, rant and rave and coach him as hard as you want he is never going to be a mongrel, crawl over the next guy for success type that I believe you need in this team and in leadership position.
He is the ultimate, this is my job type, I'd like a few more- this is my life types (to dumb the descriptor down as much as possible in a written medium).
He should be moved on.
But he's a VC, number 1 pick, the return you would get would be poor and it would be signalling where the club is going (full burn it down rebuild). I don't think that was ever on the cards because I don't think the club would have ever hired the person to do it.

I think you are a bit too singular on targetting the coach, when the players are a serious issue as well as the club pressuring the football program with what they will accept.
I don't think he in any universe could get them to change, no matter how many selection standards he maintained.
The only way through this is to cut it out of the club in my opinion, full rebuild.
The fact he thinks he could do it without changing the existing crew too much is a black mark against him, even though realistically due to the limits of this competition and what the club powers would allow the heavy duty change I'd like and expect we need would probably be unrealistic.
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I am singular targeting this coach because he has so very clearly not done what he should have done.

His job wasn't riding on immediate success, which we can infer from his 4 year contract. He had Merrett, his captain, publicly asking for a firm guiding hand which, as I believe is public record, was a sentiment shared by most of the players in the end of year review. They wanted to be spoon fed and he didn't do it. He had a blank canvass but he has chased results at the expense of building culture.

Sure, we can talk about conventional football operation, the way contract lengths have expanded being an example. The problem with that is that we are not a conventional football team. We have and systemic cultural problem and a problem with the list but we can't change the list (because of conventional football operation).

At some point, someone at Essendon needs to think about squaring all of these circles. Because the actual reason we have had this many coaching changes is because the coaches have not been able to get the players to listen. If you can't get the players to listen you need to get rid of the players or find a coach who can make them listen. You don't give coaches time to do that which they refuse to do or which they have been unable to do. That's just madness.

What is the worst thing that could happen at this point, we lose a few players like Perkins and Cox and look stupid for it? We've looked stupid for 20 years. What difference will it make?
 
joey_jo_jo said:
kind of have hands tied behind back with all the contract extensions/long contracts being given. Wonder how much say Scott has in contract lengths?
I may be going a bit "scorched earth" due to being at the "anger" stage of grief but theres a couple of guys in the 25-30 age bracket that im looking at now and thinking they are just passing on the loser mentality to the next gen that the leaders before passed on to them.
then you look at the contracts for those guys and theres not really much wriggle room to make a statement at trade time.
Some of these guys I love as players but honestly which ones actually stand up on field when chips are down to support Merrett and how much have they really achieved to deserve such long term faith?
  • Langford - contracted till 2027
  • Redman - 2028
  • Ridley - 2029
  • Parish - 2029
  • Redman -2028
  • Mcgrath - 2030
Click to expand...
Isn't Dodoro now looking after contracts etc, Rosa is in charge of recruiting? If so is this yet another thing we can thank Dodoro for?
 
Pweter said:
Isn't Dodoro now looking after contracts etc, Rosa is in charge of recruiting? If so is this yet another thing we can thank Dodoro for?
Click to expand...
yep, just wonder if scott's team also give guidance on length of contracts ie do they say "we want x & y for long term" or just say "keep x & y but b & c are expendable" and then dodoro's team determine the length of contracts themselves without any input from the coaching team?
 
joey_jo_jo said:
yep, just wonder if scott's team also give guidance on length of contracts ie do they say "we want x & y for long term" or just say "keep x & y but b & c are expendable" and then dodoro's team determine the length of contracts themselves without any input from the coaching team?
Click to expand...
No idea and fair questions to get the full context.
 
joey_jo_jo said:
kind of have hands tied behind back with all the contract extensions/long contracts being given. Wonder how much say Scott has in contract lengths?
I may be going a bit "scorched earth" due to being at the "anger" stage of grief but theres a couple of guys in the 25-30 age bracket that im looking at now and thinking they are just passing on the loser mentality to the next gen that the leaders before passed on to them.
then you look at the contracts for those guys and theres not really much wriggle room to make a statement at trade time.
Some of these guys I love as players but honestly which ones actually stand up on field when chips are down to support Merrett and how much have they really achieved to deserve such long term faith?
  • Langford - contracted till 2027
  • Redman - 2028
  • Ridley - 2029
  • Parish - 2029
  • Redman -2028
  • Mcgrath - 2030
Click to expand...
P Money said:
You'd think the coach has a massive say in contract lengths. There's no way the list management team are signing up players to long term contracts without the blessing of the coach.

While I defend Scott and think calling for his head at this point is laughable, I do have big question marks over a few of these contracts. 6 year deals for Parish and particularly McGrath just doesn't sit well with me. I agree he is tying his own hands behind his back.
Click to expand...
joey_jo_jo said:
Yeah I defended the lengths at time because I knew it related to salary cap management, but when you look at them all it does seem like a bit of overkill when we are supposedly in the early stages of a rebuild.
Click to expand...

We also have a lot of players who are still out of contract, without counting them I think there are more out of contract now than we've had at this point in the season in recent memory.

The other thing of note is that the whole league is going towards longer contracts as the latest strategy to mitigate the consequences of free agency on clubs. It doesn't mean they can't be traded, just that the club has more leverage if it comes to it. As we've seen with Collingwood a couple of years ago, having a contract doesn't mean shit if the club wants a player gone.

And thirdly, remembering that Vozzo is an ex-list manager and player manager with a strong interest in that side of the club. Scott and Dodoro probably don't have anything like as much say as anyone might previously have imagined with Vozzo in charge.
 

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BrunoV said:
I am singular targeting this coach because he has so very clearly not done what he should have done.

His job wasn't riding on immediate success, which we can infer from his 4 year contract. He had Merrett, his captain, publicly asking for a firm guiding hand which, as I believe is public record, was a sentiment shared by most of the players in the end of year review. They wanted to be spoon fed and he didn't do it. He had a blank canvass but he has chased results at the expense of building culture.

Sure, we can talk about conventional football operation, the way contract lengths have expanded being an example. The problem with that is that we are not a conventional football team. We have and systemic cultural problem and a problem with the list but we can't change the list (because of conventional football operation).

At some point, someone at Essendon needs to think about squaring all of these circles. Because the actual reason we have had this many coaching changes is because the coaches have not been able to get the players to listen. If you can't get the players to listen you need to get rid of the players or find a coach who can make them listen. You don't give coaches time to do that which they refuse to do or which they have been unable to do. That's just madness.

What is the worst thing that could happen at this point, we lose a few players like Perkins and Cox and look stupid for it? We've looked stupid for 20 years. What difference will it make?
Click to expand...
You do have to wonder how much list turnover we will generate . Have to go back and look at the exact time line but only Gawn and McDonald played under Roos and in the Premiership . Now it took 9 years for them to win the flag but you would have to say it would take us longer given the recent contracts which the current group have been a part of.

Just a point on your previous post and Voss . I think Voss had more to work with as far as list balance. We would look a better side if Wright was McKay and Stringer was Curnow and our ruck department was Pittonett and DeKoning and our FB was Wietering and not BZT like last year. Carlton are still having a lot of problems with some defensive aspects .

Anyway I get it . I have probably spent too long sitting on the fence waiting for this year to play out and see what they do but I agree . What are we exactly are we doing to generate the list turnover we need ? Now I do not want a big broom kill off another 10 years approach but it does look like it is too far the other way and too many of the usual suspects look like they are going to be around.

Edit - Should have said Gawn and McDonald where the only two premiership players to play in the first year under Roos .
 
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Schnitzengruben said:
So bascially Rutten had the right ideas but was too soft. Scott has the right ideas but is too harsh. In spirit of the 3 Little Bears - we need that coach who is juuuuuust riiight.

That coach's name? James Hird.
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No coach is perfect and it’s folly to expect any to be.

You need one who can drive results and suits where you are at. We identified we needed an experienced coach who was harder. Scott ticked those boxes so here we are.

Just because there’s been some shit performances over three weeks, doesn’t change the coach we need / needed. Really it’s all part of the journey.

He has actually improved us.

Sacking Scott now would be disastrous. But I also wouldn’t rule it out, because I don’t think our club is run by sane and balanced people.
 
Schnitzengruben said:
So bascially Rutten had the right ideas but was too soft. Scott has the right ideas but is too harsh. In spirit of the 3 Little Bears - we need that coach who is juuuuuust riiight.

That coach's name? James Hird.
Click to expand...

If we’re naming players who should be banned from coaching for life why not get Lance Armstrong in as a consultant. He’s one of the most successful endurance athletes ever /s
 
katana said:
surely oliver, petracca, salem, brayshaw, etc. would've played by 2016. probably the core of that side really.
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Should have said when Roos started :thumbsu:
 

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Coach Men's Senior Coach: Brad Scott

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