![](https://images.bigfootymedia.com/icons/mobile-bullets/essendon.png)
I give him 8 years to win a final5 years into a rebuild? Surely it would be.
It doesn't take 3 to 4 years for a coach to implement plans and to bed down a system. We see coaches immediately get good results with mature teams all the time. Most recently this was McRae and Kingsley. Even Lyon at St Kilda last year got an immediate result and we're seeing it with Mitchell in live time. The length of time a coach should be given is determined by when the talent forming the core of the side is taken, not when the coach is appointed (although they often coincide). It is the maturity of players clubs are waiting for, not the intricacies of game plans to be understood.
Our current rebuild started in 2020 (having started another just 5 year earlier), not when we appointed Scott. This is not to say that we have the squads available to McRae and Kingsley, and should expect preliminary finals and premierships, but we're are not on track based on where we are in our rebuild compared with the 'precedents' which are held out as a reason to justify giving coaches an absurdly long time to get results. Not premierships, results which are noticeable and quantifiable improvements as a stepping stone used to become a good side. It looks like winning a lot of matches and finals.
The precedent is 7 years to win a premiership but those premierships do not materialize out of thin air, contrary to the way in which the precedents seem to be remembered and relied on. Neither Geelong nor Richmond persisted with coaches whose teams had a bad year 6 as a result of blind faith.
Bomber's first season was 2000. Geelong's legendary drafts were 1999 and 2001. By 2004, which is year 4 of the rebuild that started with the 1999 draft, Geelong finished fourth, won a semi and lost a prelim. It won a final again in 2005.
Hardwick's first season was 2010. In the 2009 draft they added Dusty, Astbury and Grimes. They didn't then do anything in the draft (Brandon Ellis aside) until 2012 when they recruited Vlaustin and McIntosh. The run of 15 wins a season started in 2013, the fourth year of Hardwicks tenure, and lasted until 2015. Richmond is a bit different to Geelong in the sense that it recruited key players much earlier but it hardly recruited a player in 2008, 2010 and 2011, it's didn't get the glut of 7 to 8 players in 24 months.
As I was saying last time I could be bothered discussing this issue, we are committed to a core 20 odd players for 2 to 7 years. As fans we project criticism onto the recruiting and the players, that's the poor old coach couldn't possibly work with these guys. So why did he allow them to be re-contracted?
Say what you like about Caro, but I'm certain she still has Brad Scott feeding her bits of information. I'd love to hear more about this one handed approach. But alas, Caro just takes her little shots, chipping away at her enemies without providing any other value than to be a manipulator herself.We should be very wary of claims, which are being credited here to Caroline Wilson, that Brad Scott has had one arm tied behind his back. What could this possibly have been that would have stifled his ability to coach the team? Do the faceless men of the coteries select the side and the game plan and did they then re-contract all of the players? Did they force Scott to waste 2 more seasons with Heppell, and was he required to talk about Dyson being owed by the club? Was it Dodoro who went rogue, extending his authority to decide which players to recontract? Doesn't this just look exactly like his time at North?