Coach Men's Senior Coach: Brad Scott

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Why on earth is Brett Stanton a development coach at the club ? Does anybody actually remember how frustrating he was most of the time ? His Forrest Gump style gut running was great but that was about it. Surely there is somebody else that was a smart footballer & experienced actual success that we could appoint in such a crucial position.

What did Giansiracusa ever do of note ? What kind of team success was he ever apart of ?
 
silk said:
It's tough, whilst I talk emotional shit in the preview threads for a bit of silly fun, I do agree we need to be patient, but I'm also annoyed by another top-of-the-bottom-eight finish which seems like. It's the worst place to be if you don't already have a foundation to build from. I feel we are still too scared to properly bottom out and have been for 20 years.

But at the same time, I honestly think we only have 1 great player and that's Zach Merret. Others are good, but no one else is great, many are overrated. We also lack good to solid players who are elite at a role; for example, at Collingwood, Mihocek isn't an elite player by any measure, but he is elite at competing, rarely gets outmarked and brings the ball to the ground if he doesn't get it himself.

Or maybe we don't know how to allow players to excel in a role they are good at.
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Do not start me on Mihocek . I know he was passed over a lot but his old man played for us and we should have been keeping track of him but that is just another story from the past.

Not getting any great players out of our top 10 picks in recent times is why I have been so hard on the Tsatas selection and also hard on exactly what Perkins and Cox are going to be. Sometimes it is dumb luck as far as when you get top 10 picks and 2020 was a year not top have 3 of them in hindsight but we have not made maximum use of the draft.
 
silk said:
Feels like the issue is we have the 18th-best ruckman in the league... and we'd just be trading in the hope that the 19th best ruckman per se, can step up a level.
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Agree on the ruck. There are no options that say we should trade him this year. I have been critical of Bryan and his Wright level of physical presence around the ground but he is signed for next year so we should just use him. If they both flop then find the next bloke.
 

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ant555 said:
Do not start me on Mihocek . I know he was passed over a lot but his old man played for us and we should have been keeping track of him but that is just another story from the past.

Not getting any great players out of our top 10 picks in recent times is why I have been so hard on the Tsatas selection and also hard on exactly what Perkins and Cox are going to be. Sometimes it is dumb luck as far as when you get top 10 picks and 2020 was a year not top have 3 of them in hindsight but we have not made maximum use of the draft.
Click to expand...

Not to mention McGrath when we needed size. 😵‍💫
 
If it's true some of them were sulking from a bake during the week Brad needs to get them playing effort football again or this will get ugly fast.
 
CBombers17 said:
If it's true some of them were sulking from a bake during the week Brad needs to get them playing effort football again or this will get ugly fast.
Click to expand...
It would make sense for some of it, there was so much ball watching. Couple of plays it looked like Caldwell was planning his holidays on a sunday jog.
 
CBombers17 said:
If it's true some of them were sulking from a bake during the week Brad needs to get them playing effort football again or this will get ugly fast.
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Collect the players that are sulking and throw them out. Build a playing group that are willing to play every week and actually have a premiership as their goal rather than just collecting payments.
 
EFC1993 said:
Why on earth is Brett Stanton a development coach at the club ? Does anybody actually remember how frustrating he was most of the time ? His Forrest Gump style gut running was great but that was about it. Surely there is somebody else that was a smart footballer & experienced actual success that we could appoint in such a crucial position.

What did Giansiracusa ever do of note ? What kind of team success was he ever apart of ?
Click to expand...
It's almost as if playing and coaching are too completely different skillsets. What did Clarkson do of note as a player?
 
Yoda_ said:
go through my posting history and its been echoes for years.

AFL sports media is not ready for the truth. They are still to immature to actually deal with the real answers and issues.

Imagine Scott saying "yeah, Peter Wright was crap tonight"

imagine the papers tomorrow "2MP a bomber no more" and the article itself will just be phrases and innuendo of what said journalist can twist to manipulate somewhat into what the headline grabber was
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You're never going to get the best out of blokes by publicly outing them. It's just dumb shit to placate meatheaded fans
 
For me the microscope well and truly focuses on him this week. He came into the job preaching patience and talks of not sacrificing the future for the present. Well I would suggest that selection the past month has done exactly that.

If the question marks around Alwyn and Jayden Davey, Hobbs, Tsatas, Roberts and Hayes are physicality, fitness and defensive acumen - can Scott honestly say with a straight face that the senior players are meeting that standard.

If its true that apparently a bunch of senior players were pouting because of getting some hard truths after last Friday, then they shouldn't play the last month. They were given a chance to respond and decided to pack it up. We can't cop these supposed senior members of the playing group mailing in the last month for two straight seasons. May as well play the kids and let them make the same errors the senior players make anyway.

The critique on Scott when we was moved on from the Roos was that he was too loyal to underperformed senior players and hung youngsters out to dry. We were told that wouldn't happen and there was a long term (8 years!?!?!?) Plan.

Well let's see. Proof will be in the pudding over the last month.
 
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It is certainly a judgment week for sure. Up until recently I could go along with him backing the senior guys and only having a small sample of young players because we where winning games and playing with effort for most of the games even if the execution has not been that flash. It is actually fork in the road time. He backed them again this week hoping to get a response and it ended up being a big pile of shit. Pressure is now on him.

I have been prepared to wait and see. For me it has always been about what he does at the end of this year now they have had a year to look at the football department and a year to start working on what they have seen as being wrong as a whole but the time is here . He has backed the old warriors . He has had the best part of a season to give the older blokes on the list a go and see where they are at. It is time to make a statement.

I know most think it is a load of crap that match sim is a big part of selection but when I have watched it you do learn a few things. When Wright or Caddy beat Hayes in match sim then you sort of get why he is not getting a run at it. When Bryan can not beat Goldstien in one on one contests or the tap work you see what they see. When Menzie has more impact around the footy than either Davey . That is what has been happening. Roberts being pulled aside to run through what he should be doing most match sims.

This is what happens behind the scenes. You could say that they should just bite the bullet and see at some stage but if you can not beat blokes on our list in a specific role then what can I say. The VFL has been a shit fight of errors most of the season as well so it is hard to see system.

The time has come. They have a number of players on long term deals who are not producing. They have several veterans who need to be put out to pasture and they need their shit together before we get to the Tasmanian drafts. It is now make or break for Scott / McPherson / Rosa and Vozzo . If they have a poor draft / fa / trade period this year we will be ****ed for another 8 years. Maye more.
 

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EFC1993 said:
Why on earth is Brett Stanton a development coach at the club ? Does anybody actually remember how frustrating he was most of the time ? His Forrest Gump style gut running was great but that was about it. Surely there is somebody else that was a smart footballer & experienced actual success that we could appoint in such a crucial position.

What did Giansiracusa ever do of note ? What kind of team success was he ever apart of ?
Click to expand...
Whilst I don’t agree with you comment about his running, I was concerned at his appointment from the outset. He got sacked by Carlton, he never screamed ‘natural leader’ at Essendon, didn’t set the world on fire as VFL coach and his appointment just seemed like another lazy board appointment (which we now know has been completely disjointed). I don’t want to pile on, but I think he is a very questionable appointment
 
We are still too nice a club. Time to make tough calls on the list.

The fact that Heppell was shocked at being omitted shows how deluded the playing list is.

I remember Stanton telling the coaches he was done, not the other way around. It is systemic.
 
ant555 said:
It is certainly a judgment week for sure. Up until recently I could go along with him backing the senior guys and only having a small sample of young players because we where winning games and playing with effort for most of the games even if the execution has not been that flash. It is actually fork in the road time. He backed them again this week hoping to get a response and it ended up being a big pile of shit. Pressure is now on him.

I have been prepared to wait and see. For me it has always been about what he does at the end of this year now they have had a year to look at the football department and a year to start working on what they have seen as being wrong as a whole but the time is here . He has backed the old warriors . He has had the best part of a season to give the older blokes on the list a go and see where they are at. It is time to make a statement.

I know most think it is a load of crap that match sim is a big part of selection but when I have watched it you do learn a few things. When Wright or Caddy beat Hayes in match sim then you sort of get why he is not getting a run at it. When Bryan can not beat Goldstien in one on one contests or the tap work you see what they see. When Menzie has more impact around the footy than either Davey . That is what has been happening. Roberts being pulled aside to run through what he should be doing most match sims.

This is what happens behind the scenes. You could say that they should just bite the bullet and see at some stage but if you can not beat blokes on our list in a specific role then what can I say. The VFL has been a shit fight of errors most of the season as well so it is hard to see system.

The time has come. They have a number of players on long term deals who are not producing. They have several veterans who need to be put out to pasture and they need their shit together before we get to the Tasmanian drafts. It is now make or break for Scott / McPherson / Rosa and Vozzo . If they have a poor draft / fa / trade period this year we will be ****ed for another 8 years. Maye more.
Click to expand...

Using match sim as a part of team selection is fine but it should be a minimal part.

Form against opposition should be the number one indicator. (AFL and VFL)

Some players always do better in practice than games and vice versa. At practice you get to play against the same guy over and over again as well and it allows you to learn patterns and form habits that then fall apart against new opponents.

Training is also alot safer than the real thing.
 
this is a personnel issue not a coaching one.

Everyone banging on about Martin playing defence, I’d like him to be a wing/fwd too but we simply don’t have any other good user back there other than Ridley.
We also play tall because we know inevitably we are gonna get a McKay chip to leverde or vise versa and bang it high and long chain far too many times a game, so we need the talls to compete. Sometimes the talls do sometimes they don’t. Which is also a personnel issue.

People love to see a couple of kids play well in the vfl and scream how they need to play, but the gap between vfl and afl is the biggest it’s ever been. We have seen davey Bryan tsatas all dominate vfl and struggle in afl. I’m guessing Scott and the coaches would have a better idea on how Robert’s, Hayes etc would go a level up than the average supporter. While we are trying to still make the finals it’s fair enough for Scott to pick the more experienced players.

I feel our biggest problem has been a good starts in our last few seasons, because at the end of the season it leaves us unsure of where our list is actually at. Then by seasons end we haven’t blooded enough youth and we have missed out on that top end pick.

I think we should cut back, trade some players 2 of setterfield shiel and Parish, delist 2 of Heppell, Kelly leverde. And see what we can get in a trade from 2mp and stringer
 
Vindicater said:
Using match sim as a part of team selection is fine but it should be a minimal part.

Form against opposition should be the number one indicator. (AFL and VFL)

Some players always do better in practice than games and vice versa. At practice you get to play against the same guy over and over again as well and it allows you to learn patterns and form habits that then fall apart against new opponents.

Training is also alot safer than the real thing.
Click to expand...
My view is it depends where you are at . If you are at step one of building the game you want to play going forward then you need to be playing the players who understand it via the match sim even if there are some with questionable output. You get to a point where we are now when some players are just finished and no amount of understanding can help but it is step one. I know 80% will not buy this but it is something that I have conversations about with coaches in suburban footy and VFL footy and a couple of ex AFL coaches and also some ex AFL players who where doing the level 2 coaching coaching course at the same time as me. It is a concept that is hard to get your head around but playing outside the system breaks the system just as much as someone trying to play the system but is like Heppell where the mind is willing but the body is not there. It is why I have been prepared to just watch it play out and understand some of the selection.

Training is a lot safer than the real thing but in what I have watched there are real contests and as a defender in the case of Hayes he knows what the game plan is and what he is trying to defend so he already has an advantage. Same for Bryan. If he can not match Goldstein then how does the coach have confidence to play him against Marshall or anyone ? He gave him a go against Moyle and he was not that inspirational then either.

They have made selection mistakes for sure and it is now time to move on for a few of them but this is stage 1 of the build right now. It is very rare that a club changes coach , president, CEO , head of football and list manager in a 1 year period. Bruno has used the Hawks as an example of how it is going quicker but they had their coach already in the system. The list manager was promoted from within as was the head of football. We have had some radical changes and it really is year 1 of another effort to change the direction. The heat is now on them to get it right.
 
https://www.theroar.com.au/2024/07/...ind-brad-scotts-bombers-ultimate-humiliation/

Footy Fix: The glaring stats and damning coaching blunders behind Brad Scott's Bombers' ultimate humiliation​

Tim Miller​
What in God’s name was that?​
​
Going into their clash with St Kilda, Essendon’s finals hopes were already hanging on a razor-thin wire.​
​
Two and a half hours later, that wire had been slashed to ribbons and the Bombers sent plummeting into the abyss – and in about as embarrassing, undignifying fashion as it is possible to do so.​
​
At the time of writing, they remain in the eight – though any notion that they will remain that way for much longer, even if results do go their way on Sunday, is a foolhardy one. For all they achieved in the first half of the season, this is not a side worthy of September action.​
​
In many ways, this was a capitulation greater than any of the losses the Dons endured at the end of last year to crash out of finals contention. Some of those losses, including an infamous one against GWS, were bigger; but none had quite as much on the line, or had victory quite as achievable, as this one. Inconceivable as it may seem to look at the scoreboard, the Bombers were favourites for this game, and relatively comfortable ones.​
​
It’s among the most insipid performances I’ve seen from a team for whom the stakes could scarcely have been higher.​
​
Deciphering what went wrong is an easy task – in one word, everything – but what’s more eye-opening is how it went wrong. And that answer lies somewhat with the Saints, who were damaging, energetic, tactically shrewd and excellently coached by Ross Lyon to ruthlessly target all their opposition’s weaknesses; but primarily, it lies in the Bombers, their shortcomings, Brad Scott’s inability to paper over them, and just like for the last two decades, how quickly the whole facade falls apart at the slightest provocation.​
​
Let’s start with the obvious one: controlling the football. Scott’s Bombers in 2024 have remained a high-marking team; only St Kilda took more than them in 2023, and this year they ranked fourth heading into the round. This leads to an equally high disposal count, ranking fifth for disposals in 2023 and outright first 12 months later.​
​
Most of these touches come in the back half, where the Bombers are patient, content to shift the ball from side to side, and regularly have their best midfielders – read: Zach Merrett – pushing into space around half-back to take pressure-relieving marks and retain possession. Once opportunity strikes, they go and they go fast: but they are confident enough in their ball use to bide their time, sometimes for frustratingly long period.​
​
The key difference this year, though – or at least, what the key difference was until recently – has been the Bombers’ shifts in denying the opposition possession. In 2023, Dons games were uniformly high-mark, high-disposal matches, meaning they sat tenth for disposal differential and eighth in marks. This year, that was up to second and third.​
​
The answer is partly pressure, partly a higher and more aggressive press, facilitated by the arrival and early-season impact of Jade Gresham as a sprightly half-forward designed to make defenders nervous, and partly more support in midfield for Merrett. In 2023, just three Bombers on-ballers – Merrett, Darcy Parish and (from limited games) Will Setterfield – averaged more than 20 disposals a game. 12 months on, Jye Caldwell and Sam Durham have been added to that trio, with Caldwell an in-and-under, hard-tackling machine and Durham an eye-catchingly explosive attacking stoppage force good enough defensively to tag some of the game’s biggest stars and hurt them offensively.​
​
All this has meant a drastic reduction in how much ball the opposition gets, and with Essendon’s numbers still high, they can have an overwhelming majority of time in possession, crucial given their forward line is still questionable and their backline increasingly leaky. In 2023, 18 times in 23 games they conceded more than 350 disposals; they did it just nine in their first 18 games this season before St Kilda, for the first time in 2024, put 400 on them on Saturday.​
​
It’s a similar story with marks: 14 times in 2023 the Bombers gave up more than 100 marks, down to just three before their Saints horror show.​
​
It’s worth mentioning all this because when Scott said, to much derision from Bombers fans, that his team are ‘infinitely better’ in 2024 than 2023, he’s right.​
​
The problem, though, is twofold: one, to play in this way requires a level of fitness in ensuring defensive coverage that the Bombers seem to still lack, and two, that there’s no Plan B if things go against them.​
​
Against the Saints on Saturday, the Bombers actually won both the clearance and the inside 50 count: but their eagerness to handball their way out of trouble from stoppages and eventually emerge into space was shut down by the Saints’ fierce pressure, and all too often they bombed aimlessly to a forward line whose two leading goalkickers this year are the mid-sized lead-up markers Kyle Langford and Jake Stringer.​
​
This is not a forward line like North Melbourne’s when Scott was in charge during their two preliminary finals a decade ago, when there was Ben Brown, Drew Petrie and Jarrad Waite to kick to in such situations: Peter Wright is woefully out of form, and all the experiment with Sam Draper and Todd Goldstein as twin rucks with one serving as a makeshift key tall is proved that neither are cut out for it.​
​
Until recently, the Bombers overcame that deficiency by being more targeted with their kicks, looking to hit leading forwards rather than bomb aimlessly: this year, Langford is the AFL leader for marks on the lead. That’s mostly why, despite minimal aerial presence, they sat fifth in the AFL after Round 19 for marks inside 50.​
​
To defend these long, aimless bombs was manna from heaven for the Saints: Josh Battle did as he pleased and plucked four intercept marks, Callum Wilkie two to go with four spoils, as St Kilda allowed Essendon just seven marks inside 50 all match – three during the 20-minute second quarter window in which the Bombers had their only period of control.​
​
Then, when the ball was inevitably turned over, the Bombers looked for all the world like a team knackered. Where once this team fiercely guarded its territory, ranking fourth-best in the league for inside 50 differential (behind, it’s worth noting, three of the league’s most powerful midfields in Brisbane, Sydney and the Western Bulldogs), this side was simply incapable of guarding space; nor doing anything to restrict the Saints’ most damaging ball-users.​
​
The mark numbers are staggering: the Saints took 149 of them at Marvel Stadium, the third-highest number for the season behind Brisbane (twice!) – 129 of them were contested. ​
​
And as if you needed more proof that once the ball was out of their control they couldn’t win it back, the Saints scored nine of their goals directly from intercepts – and early in the last quarter, had won 26 intercept possessions in their defensive 50, with precisely zero turnovers from them.​
​
Across the first 13 rounds of the season, the Bombers scored an entirely reasonable 36 points fewer than their opposition from turnovers – their strength at scoring from stoppages covered that weakness, while their flaky, Jordan Ridley-less defence justified it.​
​
But with Ridley back, that number swelled to -36 across the five weeks preceding Saturday’s horror show, and must have swelled even more now.​
​
Knowing their best bet against the Bombers’ fragile backline was to move the ball quickly and precisely, the Saints experimented with Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera playing much higher up the ground than usual – his four inside 50s were second-most for the Saints behind Mitch Owens. And going at 87.1 per cent disposal efficiency and having a hand in six scores, that move paid dividends.​
​
But the Bombers had no plan to stop him – with Matt Guelfi, their best defensive forward, out injured, the Dons had no one, and used no one, to put the clamps on the Saints’ most dangerous players.​
​
Individually, the effort wasn’t there either: if someone can explain why Essendon thought it was fine to leave Wanganeen-Milera on his own in an acre of space right on 50 in this incident, let me hear it.​
​
That’s where the lack of a plan B comes in: the Bombers have, over the past month and a half, had no recourse in stopping the opposition on a run.​
​
Geelong devastated them in a last-quarter rout after three tough quarters; Adelaide piled on nine goals in a row in the second term last week; Melbourne booted five goals in 12 minutes to kill a close match at the MCG.​
​
Now that the Saints have done the same, it’s about time to ask the question of Brad Scott what his fallback is; it doesn’t have to be a shifting of the magnets, but it does have to be something tactical to try and stop a rot.​
​
His team can be asked the same questions, too. Where was the Essendon Edge, the hard-nosed, uncompromising aggression that the Dons employed earlier in the season, and which set the tone for opponents to expect a hard and tough contest against them? Not to say that a heavy bump on Jack Steele or picking a fight with Wanganeen-Milera would have solved anything, but it would at least have given St Kilda something to think about, and showed them that the Dons weren’t just going to sit back and take being walked all over.​
​
All this is why the Bombers conceded 20 marks inside 50 to the Saints – add to that some uncharacteristic accuracy in front of goal from Ross Lyon’s team, and you’ve got all the ingredients for a flogging.​
​
The list goes on and on of the Bombers’ flaws that were ruthlessly exposed by St Kilda.​
​
Having remade a powerful midfield with the addition of Caldwell and Durham to provide pace and toughness previously hard to come by in a Dons on-ball brigade, Darcy Parish’s return in the same team as Dylan Shiel muddled the mix again. Neither are quick, nor great users; the result was that Durham, arguably behind only Merrett as the Bombers’ best midfielder this year, attended a third of the game’s centre bounces, as did Caldwell.​
​
Jake Stringer attended more than two-thirds, a move that reeked of desperation considering it was about double the attendance rate he’s had over the last month and a half: an injection of speed was certainly what the Dons needed, but with so many midfield options ineffective elsewhere it only lessened the impact actually winning a clearance could have.​
​
The lack of pressure was evident – in the 12 minutes it took the Saints to blow the game to smithereens in the third quarter, the pressure rating read 238-137. You don’t need me to tell you which team was which.​
​
Is it fatigue? Is it lack of leg speed? Is it plain and simple giving up? Everyone has a different opinion; but what can’t be denied is that Bombers were simply outworked, outhunted, outrun and outcoached on a disastrous Saturday afternoon.​
​
And with their season all but shot, just one question remains: where on Earth do Essendon go now?​
https://www.theroar.com.au/2024/07/...ind-brad-scotts-bombers-ultimate-humiliation/
 
ant555 said:
My view is it depends where you are at . If you are at step one of building the game you want to play going forward then you need to be playing the players who understand it via the match sim even if there are some with questionable output. You get to a point where we are now when some players are just finished and no amount of understanding can help but it is step one. I know 80% will not buy this but it is something that I have conversations about with coaches in suburban footy and VFL footy and a couple of ex AFL coaches and also some ex AFL players who where doing the level 2 coaching coaching course at the same time as me. It is a concept that is hard to get your head around but playing outside the system breaks the system just as much as someone trying to play the system but is like Heppell where the mind is willing but the body is not there. It is why I have been prepared to just watch it play out and understand some of the selection.

Training is a lot safer than the real thing but in what I have watched there are real contests and as a defender in the case of Hayes he knows what the game plan is and what he is trying to defend so he already has an advantage. Same for Bryan. If he can not match Goldstein then how does the coach have confidence to play him against Marshall or anyone ? He gave him a go against Moyle and he was not that inspirational then either.

They have made selection mistakes for sure and it is now time to move on for a few of them but this is stage 1 of the build right now. It is very rare that a club changes coach , president, CEO , head of football and list manager in a 1 year period. Bruno has used the Hawks as an example of how it is going quicker but they had their coach already in the system. The list manager was promoted from within as was the head of football. We have had some radical changes and it really is year 1 of another effort to change the direction. The heat is now on them to get it right.
Click to expand...

I have not been involved with high performance in football so it could be different but I have played, coached or managed high performance in two different sports (basketball and ultimate frisbee) and match sim is not a reliable indicator of match performance and never has been.
 
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Coach Men's Senior Coach: Brad Scott

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