Coaching Staff Past Coach: Matthew Knights - Finally gets his second shot - 5/5

[Knight Ryders]

After the Collingwood game, I was wondering where Knights was going with our list. What has happened since has been an improvement, no doubt at it. I was really ****ed off yesterday at losing, but the bottom line is the players brought the effort and pressure required. Where we fell down was players backing themselves in to win and the fact that Port had a few more class finishers than ourselves. Knights wasn't the problem yesterday, it was our senior to mid tier players. It's up to them to grab the group by the scruff of the neck when we are in a position to win, not the coach.

If we keep laying 80+ tackles and winning the contested possessions, we will win more games than we lose for the rest of the year. Knights has the team playing hard contested football, which was the mocker on him and our team. As someone else said, we were a kick away from a "roast" to a "toast". It's just hard to stomach a loss under a goal.

 

[Shane Hird]

If an Essendon supporter is happy, or even worse, content with where we are now, then I don't think you can be called an Essendon supporter.

If you are happy with a 'good show' and a good effort, happy with the endeavour, then seriously, piss off and go barrack for a lesser side.

I am a member, and I am TIRED of this.

It is NOT good enough that our coach be given leeway.

He has coached for three years, what, WHAT do we have to show for it?

ENOUGH!!

I want wins, I want them now and I don't want anymore bullshit excuses from our coach, players or fans.

If you are Essendon then this is totally bloody unacceptable.

Were you stamping your feet and holding your breath when you wrote this?


It's not going to happen any time soon- being a top 6 side, so why just not accept it and make your life a whole lot better....

 

[TheDon35]

Sigh

What does Knighta have to do to please some people. Hes not the one out on the ground making stupid skill errors, not ,manning up and not backing himself.

Put together a side that at a minimum challenges for a flag within the next few years.

And it will be on his ability to do that that he'll ultimately be judged.

 

[The Donners]

ThE LOSS WAS NOT MATTHEW KNIGHTS FAULT.

WHY THE **** IS EVERYONE SO OBSESSED WITH BLAMING KNIGHTS.

IF PLAYERS CANT HIT A ****ING TARGET AND HAVE NO INITIATIVE TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY UPON THEMSELVES HOW THE **** DO YOU WANT US TO WIN.

GTFO YOUR HATE WITH KNIGHTS.

Knights is involved in drafting the players, training the players and picking the team.

 

[marcuz]

Get on us next week, we give st kilda all sorts of problems.

Pears
Hooker
Melksham
Gumbleton
Hurley

Find me a better young spine to build a team around, just be patient kids as not one of those guys has played 50 games yet.

 

[sainter69er]

Jesus. Some of you are pathetic. Both sides played very good football today, shame someone had too lose (and that it was us). We played a very mature side who are in form, with a young inexperienced side and if a few things went differently, we would be talking up a great win for our club.

ur average age for the game was 24yrs 69 days, ports was 24yrs 260 days... thats not much difference. Fact of the matter is ur not that young and thats all we keep hearing... '' WE'RE A YOUNG SIDE''
you guys kicked over 100 points u should be able to defend that score and thats exactly where ur problems lie.

 

[The Donners]

Playing Hurley lost us the game, he's already got a bung hand and now a bung knee... yet Knights still played him. Pathetic.

 

[LB#16]

Get on us next week, we give st kilda all sorts of problems.

Pears
Hooker
Melksham
Gumbleton
Hurley

Find me a better young spine to build a team around, just be patient kids as not one of those guys has played 50 games yet.

This. Providing they all last the GC-GWS period, in 3-4 years time they are likely to be our best players.

 

[The Donners]

ur average age for the game was 24yrs 69 days, ports was 24yrs 260 days... thats not much difference. Fact of the matter is ur not that young and thats all we keep hearing... '' WE'RE A YOUNG SIDE''
you guys kicked over 100 points u should be able to defend that score and thats exactly where ur problems lie.

Average age means nothing if you have a 35 year old, the oldest player in the league, in your side.

 

[bomberfan101]

I would agree, we are moving forwards..if you cannot see that then you are clearly only looking at the win/loss ratio. Yes, last year we made the finals - with 10.5 wins, but this season we are actually playing better imo.

Same kind of results as last year:

We have lost against top 4 sides in Geelong, Freo and Collingwood.
We have beaten (imo) 2 of the bottom 8 teams in Carlton and Hawthorn
We have lost away from home - west Coast

Only really bad loss has come from being beaten by Port yesterday - and they are actually playing well this year.

Wait until we play teams like Richmond, Melbourne, Adelaide, North, Sydney and Brisbane to compare our season and see how Knights is doing!

I think we are about 30-40 games away from being really competitive against top teams, nothing to do with Knights, but to do with experience and playing together as a team.

 

[Hencho]

OP...you are the sort of supporter I can't stand. If we'd kicked one more goal yesterday you'd be yapping on about the positives whilst glossing over these negatives.

When this letter arrives at Essendon, they'll do what they do with all the other junk they receive from spuds like you, straight into the trash.

Knights can't stop Watson from taking a bounce through the centre and getting caught.

Knights can't control Winderlich giving the ball off 40 out from goal.

Knights can't control Hille's up and down form.

etc

etc....

What he can control and encourage is passion and effort and going by the contested possessions and tackle count, he's had them cherry ripe for most of the year. Our player's poor skill execution can't be blamed on Knights. I agree that he has had some poor coaching moments but you can't blame him for eveything, the players must take responsibility too.

 

[LB#16]

I would agree, we are moving forwards..if you cannot see that then you are clearly only looking at the win/loss ratio. Yes, last year we made the finals - with 10.5 wins, but this season we are actually playing better imo.

Same kind of results as last year:

We have lost against top 4 sides in Geelong, Freo and Collingwood.
We have beaten (imo) 2 of the bottom 8 teams in Carlton and Hawthorn
We have lost away from home - west Coast

Only really bad loss has come from being beaten by Port yesterday - and they are actually playing well this year.

Wait until we play teams like Richmond, Melbourne, Adelaide, North, Sydney and Brisbane to compare our season and see how Knights is doing!

I think we are about 30-40 games away from being really competitive against top teams, nothing to do with Knights, but to do with experience and playing together as a team.

As in the flying, top of the ladder Sydney that we play at the SCG?

 

[WeAreEssendon]

I would agree, we are moving forwards..if you cannot see that then you are clearly only looking at the win/loss ratio. Yes, last year we made the finals - with 10.5 wins, but this season we are actually playing better imo.

Very strange post. We are playing better this year even though we are 2-5. We've looked pretty soft for most of the year. The last 2 weeks have been better but they've been against an ordinary Hawks outfit and a Port side that will struggle to win another game interstate.

You need to ask why we are playing more committed and spirited football at round 7 and not the first 5. The goose is cooked at 2-5 and we have one winning game in the next 5. That will bring us to 3-9.

We have a pretty good second half of the season but the way we are playing and improvement from other sides then we can only safely say Richmond and WC here are 80-20 chances of wins and the rest we'll start as underdogs.

 

[BrunoV]

^I haven't though it through too much so this argument will probably fall down...sometimes you have to take a step back to go two steps forward.

Last year we were being smashed in contested ball and clearence stats. This year we have won those stats more than we have lost. We have also had 100 tackles two weeks in a row now.

Contested ball and tackling are the cornerstones on which successful teams are built. The struggle all year has been to recapture the attacking instincts that served us well last year.

Once we strike the balance between the two sides of our play we will snap into gear.

Remember that it was only round 7. Finals look a long way off but we could win 9 games for the rest of the season. We'd end up with more wins than last year.

 

[Burzum]

I'm still trying to figure out how this loss can be blamed on Knights.

 

[Childish Gambino]

Very strange post. We are playing better this year even though we are 2-5. We've looked pretty soft for most of the year. The last 2 weeks have been better but they've been against an ordinary Hawks outfit and a Port side that will struggle to win another game interstate.

You need to ask why we are playing more committed and spirited football at round 7 and not the first 5. The goose is cooked at 2-5 and we have one winning game in the next 5. That will bring us to 3-9.

We have a pretty good second half of the season but the way we are playing and improvement from other sides then we can only safely say Richmond and WC here are 80-20 chances of wins and the rest we'll start as underdogs.

This.

Why has it taken until now (when the season is basically over) for us to play good football? There are no excuses, it is not like we had many injuries or can't get our best 22 on the park.

Again we have people overestimating the performance of Port Adelaide yesterday, the same as Hawthorn, the same as Geelong. Port Adelaide won't win too many more games in Melbourne, they were pretty bad at the contested ball and we almost won every match up around the ground. Yet, we still failed to win.

Why? Were we unlucky? No, when you're three goals up half way through the third quarter and have an oppurunity to put the opposition away you grasp that oppurtunity. You don't let Port kick three of the EASIEST goals in a row to bring them back on level terms. Then come the last quarter to win the game do we back ourselves? No. Ok so we're not backing ourselves to win the game so what are we doing? Are we trying to defend the game? Are we playing with any desperation and intensity? No. We are just sitting back and watching Port Adelaide take the game away from us.

You can look to blame Winderlich for passing off, or Monfries for missing an easy set shot. I don't buy into that. What I see is a team that didn't want to win in the last quarter and that is most disappointing for me.

 

[Dkid]

OP...you are the sort of supporter I can't stand. If we'd kicked one more goal yesterday you'd be yapping on about the positives whilst glossing over these negatives.

When this letter arrives at Essendon, they'll do what they do with all the other junk they receive from spuds like you, straight into the trash.

Knights can't stop Watson from taking a bounce through the centre and getting caught.

Knights can't control Winderlich giving the ball off 40 out from goal.

Knights can't control Hille's up and down form.

etc

etc....

What he can control and encourage is passion and effort and going by the contested possessions and tackle count, he's had them cherry ripe for most of the year. Our player's poor skill execution can't be blamed on Knights. I agree that he has had some poor coaching moments but you can't blame him for eveything, the players must take responsibility too.

exactly. the only thing ill add is that Knights should improve on his reaction to opposition coaches' moves. although yesterday i believe he reacted fairly well. (particularly to taking cornes out of the game after q1

 

[Valve Bounce]

What lost us the game:

1. Umpires


/thread

Funny!

I thought it was bad kicking and some very ordinary handball.

 

[caboose]

lulz, did you watch the next 3 quarters?

Cornes was absolutely on fire at the start of the game, nothing you can do about that. But then Knights absolutely shut him down with some awesome tactical coaching. Everytime I looked somebody had dragged him back to the square etc...

Lulz indeed. I can only assume you're not making a serious post, but being sarcastic?

After being seriously down on his normal output lately, Cornes was outstanding all day.

If you want to ignore that and think that Knights somehow did an "awesome" job first in not playing him back into form and then in shutting him down (LOL), knock yourself out.

If we lose.. KNIGHTS FAULT! SACK HIM!

Where did I ever say that?

It looks like you paid about as much attention to my post as you did to Cornes' game yesterday.

 

[LeeARM]

I don't wanna get onto the sack Knights bandwagon but there's something I really don't get.
Why do we flood into our forward line when it means we're chasing them once they get it out? Far too often most of the team's in the forward line, we'll screw around, trying to get a goal then they'll get a touch, pass it out of our 50 and then we have no one to stop them from getting it right into their goals.
Please tell me if I'm missing something because it doesn't make any sense at all to me.

 

[Mitch Power]

Jesus. Some of you are pathetic. Both sides played very good football today, shame someone had too lose (and that it was us). We played a very mature side who are in form, with a young inexperienced side and if a few things went differently, we would be talking up a great win for our club.

Spot on Jonesey, it could have gone either way. In the end I think it was a combination of a bit of luck and a good tactical move by Choco to rest Rodan and bring him on with fresh legs in the last 5 minutes.

 

[OB1]

Its pretty straight forward. Knights' gameplan encourages extra handballing & so when in trouble the players fall back to their core instructions. The problem with this is that the vast majority of teams who overuse handballs fail & the only teams who can pull off that style are far more skilled through the midfield (Geelong for example can win with more handball). In fact since Knights has been coach we have not won any games when we have had more handballs than kicks. Against Hawthorn we kicked more & won, against Carlton we kicked more & won. Against Port, WC & Collingwood we handballed more than we kicked & we lost all those games.

Handball is a very important part of the modern game but its obvious that our players are instructed to handball 1st & this brings us undone. FFS we actually handball to contests - thats just totally against all football logic. We have Gumby getting better by the second, Hurley although injured still danderous & some dangerous smalls in Gus, Zaka & Davey so why don't we give these guys every possible opportunity? Why are we sooooooo scared of kicking the ball long at the 1st opportunity. Why do we see every other clubs snap goals when they get the chance but our guys look to handball (Winders refuses to have a shot). Why when we have the ball 70m from goal do we think kicking accross groung to a contest 50m from our goal is a better option than kicking to a contest 20m from goal where we have numbers.

All these things are killing us & they are all attributes of the gameplan that Knights is instilling into the players.

 

[Dr Moose]

Why have a coach then?

Have a look at American Football then. Players who aren't all that bright, agile or athletically gifted in comparison to AFL players perform well on a high pressure stage by having the discipline to execute the plays set out by their coach. Do our boys spend training nights running laps and playing kick-to-kick? Kicking out is a clear example of where we go so dreadfully wrong. Under Sheedy we had a definite plan for Fletcher to follow. Often he would signal which way he wanted the players to move, and get the ball moving. Now, too often we see him, or whoever's at FB, playing on with a chip kick to BP, and the ball being caught inside their 50 with subsequent goal.

Set plays just don't happen with us. The whole reactionary game plan we're caught in, which completely comes undone if the players are too stuffed to provide a running target coming past the player in possession, is too predictable. Jobe gets the ball from the tap-out often enough that we should have 5-6 set options ready for him to execute that everybody on the team knows.

But that would require proper coaching, and without that, the rest of it's theoretical...

 

[LeeARM]

I'm still trying to figure out how this loss can be blamed on Knights.

Because he told the players to fumble the ball all day and miss targets.

 

[OB1]

Because he told the players to fumble the ball all day and miss targets.

Because he tells the players to handball when in trouble & this skill is something we don't have the players to pull off. Its plain to see that Knights has us handballing at all cost. This comes undone continually & we turn it over far far far to often by hand in dangerous spots. Knights' gameplan allows oppositions easy access to their goals & we don't have anything that resembles a good defensive structure. Going forward we pull all our numbers into the overpossesing gameplan so we don't have options when we get it forward. Even when we do have forward opportunities again we have too many player unwilling to take their oportunities & we handball to often inside fwd 50. These are all areas that Knights is responsible for & he is failing.