Past Coach NMFC Senior Coach - David Noble has parted ways with NMFC

[ferball]

There’s certainly a disconnect between the supports expectations and results.
everyone on here prematch said we’d be lose by 80 points plus, it happens and everyone wants to sack the coach…
watched the presser and Nobel knows exactly where we’re at;
good, bad or indifferent. hes a realist, strangely enough seems supporters are not.

As an outsider, id personally love to know what their goals are this year..
maybe workloads during the week have increased, to the point the players simply can’t run on match day, maybe they’ve burnt the year, in the knowledge that increased workloads will benefit in the long run, rather then playing impossible catch ups in the preseason.
maybe that’s why players seem happy seeing results/improvement, yet full well know there going to get done on the weekend.

we’ll never know, that’s why we get frustrated.

but watching that game last night was junk; players were drifting in and out of games, not there mentally or completely gassed after one or two efforts, it looked like some players had done leg day yesterday.

Although as uncompetitive as we were it wasn’t as bad as the brisbane game, where we gave up.

I really hope that's true. Honestly three weeks ago i was kind of hoping that was the path they were on.

 

[ferball]

I'm still flabbergasted and although it's none of my business, it would be nice to at least find out what happened to dump him the way he was. The whole Shaw experiment still feels to me like it was a disaster for North Melbourne. Initially, it looked like the team lifted and there was belief but from the outside, whatever cracks were there seemed to open into trenches from the day of that Carlton game.

Three quarter time v Carlton 2020

 

[DesertRoo]

I really hope that's true. Honestly three weeks ago i was kind of hoping that was the path they were on.

You know the worst part about this theory is, we’ve probably increased workloads by 40% and players are breaking down/can’t run on match day etc.

and for all that extra effort were only up to a par of what other teams are doing.

 

[The Lone Latic]

Mighta thrown out the wrong blokes

I disagreed with the Dumont delisting. Consumate professional in terms if how to prepare, and do you have any idea how much work goes in to changing your game from going a predominantly inside clearance player which Froggy was to an outside defensive winger? The amount of change he would need to make to his body and aerobically is absolutely insane

 

[Harris 10]

I'm not going to shy away from the fact that I've been a supporter of Noble from the beginning, but there's a philosophy I have about football that I'm increasingly concerned about when you look at our predicament:

I don't care how poor your list is (and ours is poor), players make the AFL because at one point in their footballing life, they impressed and displayed characteristics that suggested they deserved a spot on an AFL list. These aren't guys who first picked up a football in the last year and are trying to work out how to dispose of it and how to find it on game day.

What this means is that even the worst of lists should look competent most weeks with solid coaching.

The fact is we have not had a single game this year in which we have looked competent for a full game. I said at the time of the West Coast win that it was as poor as a loss. I've been willing to be patient, hoping that each subsequent week there might be improvement and we'll have a patch of games that are encouraging (as there was last year) - there hasn't been. If anything, I'd argue we have almost gotten worse with each passing week.

I have no idea what we should do. On the one hand, one of the best indicators for success is stability at a club. On the other hand, this is the most alarming 8 weeks of football I can ever recall seeing as a North Melbourne fan. We looked horrid in pre-season too so you could almost extend it to 10 weeks. I don't think comparing our current performances to Mark Neeld's Melbourne is a long bow, and that Mark Neeld Melbourne was something else.

Our biggest issue Ziebell, Walker, Greenwood, Corr, Turner, Hall, Anderson, Goldy being asked to play some weird role and Cunners injured.

More than anything we need on and off field leaders in the playing group.

Our group of older players are poor leaders and seem to be all in self preservation mode trying to save their careers. Your older group should be leading the way.

We need to find a way to bring in some senior leaders who can guide and develop our young blokes. Melb did it with Lewis, Bris with Birchall.

 

[koshari]

Mighta thrown out the wrong blokes

yeah nah, none of the blokes we marched would have made an iota of difference to the result other than a couple of mm of depth, taz wasnt marched and chose to leave for his well documented reasons, ben brown may have kicked 1 or 2 but again we would have still copped a 10 goal loss. and again he had an offer and played hard ball, in the wash up prolly a blessing in disguise after all he has a premiership medal now.

Other than that i cant think of anybody except maybe Hosie for Walker fwd and maybe Durdan for Corr that could have filled a role better than the blokes that took the field last night. but thats even with the benefit of hindsight as i dont think anyone could have seen such a poor showing from Corr in defense, still were tiptoeing round the peripherals as its not going to address how far ad disadvantaged we are in the guts or the spine. other than that froggy wouldnt have been any worse but again they are a stop gap, not the future nd again wouldnt have made a hell of a lot of difference to the outcome.

It looks like we have bet the house on Phillips, Comben and Mcguinness to square us up!

not to mention the stupidity in being one short on the list with gaming the payments to tom lynch fron the rookie account rather than our soft cap.

then the debarcle going to a draft with 2 picks inside 50 ( or posibly less if we were to rise up the ladder however unlikely) to try and replace hayden, turner , goldy and polec (minimum) at years end.

this all adds up to my friends a pretty dire place to be for the next 18 months minimum.....

 

[hcd199]

I'm not going to shy away from the fact that I've been a supporter of Noble from the beginning, but there's a philosophy I have about football that I'm increasingly concerned about when you look at our predicament:

I don't care how poor your list is (and ours is poor), players make the AFL because at one point in their footballing life, they impressed and displayed characteristics that suggested they deserved a spot on an AFL list. These aren't guys who first picked up a football in the last year and are trying to work out how to dispose of it and how to find it on game day.

What this means is that even the worst of lists should look competent most weeks with solid coaching.

The fact is we have not had a single game this year in which we have looked competent for a full game. I said at the time of the West Coast win that it was as poor as a loss. I've been willing to be patient, hoping that each subsequent week there might be improvement and we'll have a patch of games that are encouraging (as there was last year) - there hasn't been. If anything, I'd argue we have almost gotten worse with each passing week.

I have no idea what we should do. On the one hand, one of the best indicators for success is stability at a club. On the other hand, this is the most alarming 8 weeks of football I can ever recall seeing as a North Melbourne fan. We looked horrid in pre-season too so you could almost extend it to 10 weeks. I don't think comparing our current performances to Mark Neeld's Melbourne is a long bow, and that Mark Neeld Melbourne was something else.

This is the bind of a club that winds up in the position we're in - stability is great, but there's no stability in a sinking ship, sticking with someone once it's clear they won't work out is nothing but sunk cost fallacy. Carlton stuck with Bolton for 3.5 years because, as slow and painful as their progress was, you could see development for a couple of seasons, then injuries hit badly... but then it should've kept going, and instead it went backwards, you'd see Cripps and the like sitting on the boundary head in hands in frustration at how they were playing, and at that point it was obvious stability was no longer worth the cost.

It's indeed alarming that we seem to be basically there scarcely 1.5 years into a new coach's tenure, but as you say, we haven't looked competent at all, nothing we're producing is encouraging or pointing to any actual development, and whatever talent (or indeed drive) exists on our list looks to be atrophying with every game. We shouldn't be making rash decisions on the coach just because he's the figurehead - I'd like to hope that internally, we're scrutinising everyone involved with the football side of things to root out exactly what's breaking down to such an extent that we're playing as poorly as we are, and make changes accordingly, regardless of whether that involves sacking or retaining Noble. But from the outside, we do look to be at exactly the point Bolton and a few others got to (though Neeld was probably the only other recent one to get there as quickly as we have), where the team as a whole looks completely bereft of confidence in what they're attempting to do - and when it gets to that point, sometimes drastic action at the top is the only circuit-breaker to stop the side sinking even further. I hope we can turn it around from here, that we don't have to basically restart with someone else, but gee, there's a lot that counts against Noble right now and not much in his favour...

 

[1975]

Christ I hope essendrugs gets belted!
Sadly this is all I have left.

 

[gokangas]

Sorry, you're saying that the player said the rumours are crap or that noble is crap?

The rumours.

 

[koshari]

I'm not going to shy away from the fact that I've been a supporter of Noble from the beginning, but there's a philosophy I have about football that I'm increasingly concerned about when you look at our predicament:

I don't care how poor your list is (and ours is poor), players make the AFL because at one point in their footballing life, they impressed and displayed characteristics that suggested they deserved a spot on an AFL list. These aren't guys who first picked up a football in the last year and are trying to work out how to dispose of it and how to find it on game day.

What this means is that even the worst of lists should look competent most weeks with solid coaching.

The fact is we have not had a single game this year in which we have looked competent for a full game. I said at the time of the West Coast win that it was as poor as a loss. I've been willing to be patient, hoping that each subsequent week there might be improvement and we'll have a patch of games that are encouraging (as there was last year) - there hasn't been. If anything, I'd argue we have almost gotten worse with each passing week.

I have no idea what we should do. On the one hand, one of the best indicators for success is stability at a club. On the other hand, this is the most alarming 8 weeks of football I can ever recall seeing as a North Melbourne fan. We looked horrid in pre-season too so you could almost extend it to 10 weeks. I don't think comparing our current performances to Mark Neeld's Melbourne is a long bow, and that Mark Neeld Melbourne was something else.

i think we trump the Neeld/Diamont Joe period and go straight back to the good old royboys of 95/96,
godees at least had 7 wins in 08/09 prolly because carlton were equally crap and they could wax the odd win of each other.

 

[koshari]

Christ I hope essendrugs gets belted!
Sadly this is all I have left.

couldnt care less frankly.

 

[koshari]

Our biggest issue Ziebell, Walker, Greenwood, Corr, Turner, Hall, Anderson, Goldy being asked to play some weird role and Cunners injured.

More than anything we need on and off field leaders in the playing group.

Our group of older players are poor leaders and seem to be all in self preservation mode trying to save their careers. Your older group should be leading the way.

We need to find a way to bring in some senior leaders who can guide and develop our young blokes. Melb did it with Lewis, Bris with Birchall.

Ellis to suns another example. but again it just highlights how poor our leaders are.

 

[RossHenshaw]

You've obviously seen a lot of footy, you've seen it before and you knew the rot had set in. Most others are out of denial now. Hopefully the Board is too.

Yep and only crickets from these NFI BigFooty North supporters defending passionately

 

[ferball]

We should have kept Atley.

 

[Harris 10]

Ellis to suns another example. but again it just highlights how poor our leaders are.

We’ve got kids learning from kids or senior players that have so many deficiencies in their own game.

 

[RossHenshaw]

Respect your opinion. I am only reporting what I have been told by some connected folk. As I posted earlier I have a strong link to a player and the feedback there was this is crap. But they persist in other areas.

Crap or not . This is inevitable.
Noble will lose the players.
It’s human nature. For how long would you put up with an incompetent continuous mistaking Manager or leader at work? Yes you still get paid etc but how does that affect your own performance eventually ?
You start serving up what our players start serving . Self preservation, low morale , no trust in each other shit .

 

[DesertRoo]

correct me if im wrong but wasnt the issue with Neeld is he didn’t have the experience at clubland?
he‘d successfully coached an amateur club for a couple of years, landed in a system at Collingwood under Malthouse.
Shortly after got the job at the D’s and when push come to shove he didn’t have the knowledge that comes with running a multimillion dollar organisation.

I believe after he left the afl brought in minimum qualifications?

 

[gerry101101]

We’re in a rebuild. Some of us got a bit overexcited by a few good games towards the end the year last year. But this thing will take a couple more years before we’re moving up the ladder again - accept it or it will do your head in. Noble is learning on the job just like the players. Of course it’s not ideal, but throwing the toys out of the cot won’t help either. Yes we can all have our gripes with selection decisions (cough Turner cough) but we’re all outsiders with no more real insights than the flog journos we rightly love to bash, and no selected 18 will make everyone happy).

It will turn around. Have faith. Look back at the Dees. At Carlton. Their supporters thought the pain would never end, and then almost imperceptibly improvements came and all of a sudden you’re in games longer and winning some. And then you’re on the up. It will come. It will just take time - there is no quick fix and some of the improvement will be borne out of enduring the current disaster. we need to show the faith we want our players to show.

Yes, we all hate “trust the process” but this is a marathon, and we’re just learning to walk. That is a process; not a fun one but a necessary one. Patience, young paduans.

The players are demoralised; but that’s a stage of any full rebuild. They’re learning resilience - one of life’s great lessons.

This too shall pass.

 

[deano28]

We should have kept Atley.

Atley knocked back a 2 year deal from GWS so it’s fair to say he checked out of footy altogether.

 

[ferball]

Atley knocked back a 2 year deal from GWS so it’s fair to say he checked out of footy altogether.

I was just ribbing Rosco.

 

[RossHenshaw]

Yep. A friend made an observation to me the other day that the players look and play like they're those workers at a toxic organisation (you know the type that has 'praise walls', lunchtime yoga, but is just not a nice place to be involved with).

We don't know what goes on behind closed doors. It's just as likely as not that this goes beyond the coach himself and his power to change things. If that's the case then no proven coach in the industry would want to join us.

On the other hand, it could literally just be the coach and a more astute and competent one looking for a challenge might take it up. I don't know.

All I can observe is that the body language of most of our players is a look of not wanting to be there.

All I know is we haven't got a plan. No discernible milestones. No targets. Nothing against which the club can be held accountable except for the nebulous 'time'. People had a crack at me for wanting the club to publish its ambitions and be held accountable against them, but the absence of any direction or vision is absolutely killing our supporters.

And killing members paying their hard earned

 

[Samsquanch]

You know the worst part about this theory is, we’ve probably increased workloads by 40% and players are breaking down/can’t run on match day etc.

and for all that extra effort were only up to a par of what other teams are doing.

I bloody hope that's the reason.

I'm wondering though - we have 3rd year players who look like they are still skinny kids. A workmate had a kid who was in the AU swimming squad. The coaches emphasised that he needed to eat chicken. Lots of chicken. Huge amounts of chicken. They didn't say why, only nodded and winked as they said it.

 

[apollo_creed]

I was just ribbing Rosco.

Hows the blind faith and being consistently wrong working out for you while you ‘rib’ people?

 

[RossHenshaw]

The list build at this point is looking like an absolute turd.

We have zero depth all across the park and we are still in a position where we have to carry players on our list due to sheer weight of players not up to it.

If you were looking at the list from afar and had the luxury of replacing players with AFL standard players, you could conceivable turn over 3/4’s of this group.

Some serious questions need to be directed at Luff and Rawlings for the current list profile.

I’ve got to the point that I’m strongly starting to believe that it doesn’t matter who or what low draft we select . JHF excepting .
The proof & fact of the matter is that most players will go backwards after their first / second year at our club .
Then at best they become a serviceable plodder for the rest of their career getting picked every week for a 100-150 game career . (they would be player 18-22 at best at any other club)
Or
at worst we eventually delist them after being a revolving door 4-5 years , injury plagued or have no opportunity at all and throw them out to the stack of shite players no other club would look at … wash rinse repeat year in year out .

 

[koshari]

WE poached some fairly decent and successful staff during the off season.

Melbourne's fitness staff for example. (Two Dans) They wouldn't have come if there was a bad smell about everything.

i have worked in large organisations long enough to see the results where people are not afforded the luxury of speaking thir mind, not saying this is the case because frankly it looks to be pretty tight and far less leaks than the scott era, but its indeed possible there are people in the ranks plugging away trying to geep their corner of the house in order as the structure burns around them.