Coach Men's Senior Coach: Brad Scott

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5 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?
I give him 8 years to win a final
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?
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.
 
5 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?

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?
Did Wilson mean that Dodoro was impeding Scott? That was really the only thing i could think of.

Also, what do you mean by Scott going rogue and having the authority to re-contract players? Do you mean Heppell?
 
I give him 8 years to win a final

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.
Or Mahoney.
 

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Totally lost me by not playing Heppell at home in a must win game against Sydney.

Disrespectful to Heppells contribution to the club. And would have given the players a rise.

Just a stupid decision all round.
I'd bet he's lost the players respect.
 
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What if the rebuild was ****ed before the coach started?
It looks like they have made a few contract errors for sure but the n reality this list management group has had 1 draft .
The build may have started at the end of 2020 but there have been too many changes off field since nice then .
You can not compare us to GWS or Collingwood . They were sides that had finals winning experience.
Can not really compare to the Hawks either.
The only thing you can question is why a few of these guys landed long term deals.


I said I wasn't comparing us to GWS or Collingwood. I was using examples to illustrate that coaches do not need time for its sake. It is quite clear to me that, based on the way it is discussed, leeway is afforded to coaches because it takes years to teach players a system. But it doesn't. It takes a really young group time to develop the physical maturity and experience to be able to implement the plan that a group of quality, experienced players doesn't need more than a few months to learn.

If we botched the rebuild, he shouldn't have let us commit to every part of it. No one at Essendon believes we are years away. That is a smokescreen that clears as soon as you see the list of uncontracted players. I look forward to the next round of mediocre free agents we will bring in to fix up the culture of the place.

We're told that the path to overcoming addiction is to admit you have a problem. Essendon has never even considered going to a meeting.
 
Did Wilson mean that Dodoro was impeding Scott? That was really the only thing i could think of.

Also, what do you mean by Scott going rogue and having the authority to re-contract players? Do you mean Heppell?


I was making up hypotheticals that I think would give Scott a genuine claim to having a hand tied behind his back. Caro's reference will be to something cultural or mean words from Sheedy or something else that has nothing to do with Scott's ability to coach the team and develop the list.

It was supposed to be Dodoro going rogue and committing us to the latest rebuild.
 
Totally lost me by not playing Heppell at home in a must win game against Sydney.

Disrespectful to Heppells contribution to the club. And would have given the players a rise.

Just a stupid decision all round.
I'd bet he's lost the players respect.
You can't really have it both ways. Scott's options were to either gift Heppell a game for sentimentality or pick the best 22 players he can for a 'must win' game.
 
You can't really have it both ways. Scott's options were to either gift Heppell a game for sentimentality or pick the best 22 players he can for a 'must win' game.

Heppell should have played before Weidemann, Kelly, Perkins to name at least 3.

Brad Scott had a chance to give the players a lift in a must win game. But instead he did the opposite and ripped even more soul out of the club.
 

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How did we go from hating Brad Scott for saying we owe Heppell a debt of gratitude to hating Brad Scott for not gifting Heppell a farewell game? Guy cannot win seriously.
The big footy brains trust isn’t happy unless there’s something to be unhappy about
 

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Coach Men's Senior Coach: Brad Scott

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