Roast Sack Horse

Sack Longmire tomorrow?

  • yes

    Votes: 71 64.5%
  • monday

    Votes: 39 35.5%

  • Total voters
    110

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I am not authorised to conduct a coaching search 🤣. I just know doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is madness. Also trying to redefine success when there is a clear prize (premiership) to justify keeping someone is bonkers .
Recent history has shown that coaches tend to most successful early in their tenure.

Horse is not early in his tenure.

Senior execs typically only stay 4-5 years in a job. There’s a reason for that.
 
Humphry B Bear would be a better option than Horse. Horse hasn't come out with anything that resembles an honest assessment of the last 2 GF efforts.

I don't expect in depth specifics but at least give the fans a framework of things that need to be worked on instead of bulltish cliches.

It's really disappointing that all we've heard is at least we were there and it doesn't define us.

At least Humphry would have more to say
Humphrey B Bear wouldn't have his pants pulled down every grand final day, that's for sure.
 
If you look at the last 3 Sydney coaches Eade, Roos and Longmire all were rookie coaches. Roos and Longmire were understudies at Sydney before getting the top job.

We have done well with rookies so that would seem to work and then it’s just a case of internal/external.

Internally - Cox
Externally - King, Skipworth were close in the Eagles run.

Experienced coaches if that was the path, not many but Dew, Simpson are an option.
 

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Recent history has shown that coaches tend to most successful early in their tenure.

Horse is not early in his tenure.

Senior execs typically only stay 4-5 years in a job. There’s a reason for that.

I suspect in Horse's case it's going to get to a point where he himself also acknowledges he's run his course. His tenure has been pretty remarkable to keep this club so competitive for so long and to change with the changing list over time, but 4 GF losses in a row (three of which were over before halftime, and three of which were as the minor premiers) will take a big toll on him. I think he'll step down after the 2025 season.
 
I suspect in Horse's case it's going to get to a point where he himself also acknowledges he's run his course. His tenure has been pretty remarkable to keep this club so competitive for so long and to change with the changing list over time, but 4 GF losses in a row (three of which were over before halftime, and three of which were as the minor premiers) will take a big toll on him. I think he'll step down after the 2025 season.

I think if he was going to have that level
Of self awareness he would’ve had it a long while ago

He’s going to be dragged out kicking and screaming when he does go
 
I suspect in Horse's case it's going to get to a point where he himself also acknowledges he's run his course. His tenure has been pretty remarkable to keep this club so competitive for so long and to change with the changing list over time, but 4 GF losses in a row (three of which were over before halftime, and three of which were as the minor premiers) will take a big toll on him. I think he'll step down after the 2025 season.

I think he is a stubborn bastard which to be fair has often served him well. Heck as a player that determination ,stubbornness won him a premiership, as his body was falling apart.

He has also backed players into spots and left them there and seen things been successful .

Stubbornness is the wrong word- he is determined and want to keep going and doesn't give up which is a great strength until it isn't .
 
Humphry B Bear would be a better option than Horse. Horse hasn't come out with anything that resembles an honest assessment of the last 2 GF efforts.

I don't expect in depth specifics but at least give the fans a framework of things that need to be worked on instead of bulltish cliches.

It's really disappointing that all we've heard is at least we were there and it doesn't define us.

At least Humphry would have more to say
I love Humphrey B Bear Horse not so much
 
Can we just ****en get rid of him already
I'm sort of here myself.

Have defended Horse for a long time, though never blindly.

I've always believed that a club and team is only as good as the decisions it makes. Simple calls one way or the other can make or break a team. Horse has just gotten too many decisions wrong.

I genuinely think he has no idea what he's doing with the midfield. He cooked what could've been an outstanding two-way midfield duo in Rowbottom & Warner, instead doing the opposite and sending them to the polar extremes of their strengths. He showed awfully limited judgment with a quality mid in Hewett, who, even if you think we were right in trading, has clearly since proven himself to be much more than just the tagger that Horse saw him as. He waited til both Heeney and Mills were well into their mid-careers before moving them into the midfield where they've played their best footy and clearly made us better. (I advocated for keeping them up forward and down back, respectively. But I am not a senior coach being paid seven figures to get these things right...)

Deadset how are we supposed to trust him to get a midfield group functioning and firing when he can't even get his basic assessments of midfielders right?

But oh, it's the ruck's fault. We just haven't had a quality ruck to make the midfield better. Like I haven't just watched Darcy Fort, Darcy Cameron, Rhys Stanley, Nathan Vardy and Jordan Roughead walk up and have premiership medals put around their necks in recent years.

Then you move to the back-line. Rampe, Aliir, T. McCartin, P. McCartin, Melican, Grundy, Francis. Only one of these Swans defenders from the last eight years has won All Australian honours, and it was the one we traded because Horse wasn't convinced by him. Aliir was having close to an All Australian season with us in the first half of 2019. Callum Sinclair injures his shoulder in round 15, and Horse takes Aliir out of our already-vulnerable defence and moves him into the ruck, where he's not good and we get killed in there anyway, but we also get destroyed in defence without Aliir and it's a decision that kicks off a 6-game losing streak after we'd won the previous three in a row. Aliir loses form and confidence, and for what? Then the form he showed in 2020 which supposedly wasn't good enough to guarantee him a future with us is the same form now shown by McCartin this year when he was supposed to be Horse's guy to anchor our defence for the next decade while Aliir plays 24 games in defence in his first year at Port and earns All Australian honours. Another great piece of talent assessment by Horse. This is not me shitting on McCartin btw. I didn't think his season was that bad, but I didn't think Aliir's was in 2020, either. Perhaps this is why you don't get overconfident with your stocks and give up on young, fit, developing defenders. You might spend the next four or five years scrambling to find one as good.

Then the forward line. Was never able to truly make Buddy work in our team. The Buddy-centric issue was clear and plain for all to see the entire ten years he was at the club. Ten years, was never resolved. His commitment to the three talls was logical to a degree, it's the structure that generally made us one of the highest-scoring teams of the last 3-4 seasons. But he committed to it even when the talls weren't playing well enough. He committed to it even at the expense of having more pressure at ground level inside 50. Horse then goes into a grand final with ONE small forward and ZERO elite pressure players in his forward line, after seeing Melbourne, Geelong and Collingwood win the last three flags all having three such players at the very least in their forward lines. And we're then beaten by a team that have four. Bravo Horse.

The grand final issues of the last decade, haven't been resolved. Midfield issues of the better part of the last decade, haven't been resolved. The slow starts that plagued us all season long, weren't resolved.

All of this is not to say he's not still getting a lot of things right. But sometimes it's the things you get wrong that cost you the most. I feel that is where we are at with Horse.

Apologies for the rant.
 
I'm sort of here myself.

Have defended Horse for a long time, though never blindly.

I've always believed that a club and team is only as good as the decisions it makes. Simple calls one way or the other can make or break a team. Horse has just gotten too many decisions wrong.

I genuinely think he has no idea what he's doing with the midfield. He cooked what could've been an outstanding two-way midfield duo in Rowbottom & Warner, instead doing the opposite and sending them to the polar extremes of their strengths. He showed awfully limited judgment with a quality mid in Hewett, who, even if you think we were right in trading, has clearly since proven himself to be much more than just the tagger that Horse saw him as. He waited til both Heeney and Mills were well into their mid-careers before moving them into the midfield where they've played their best footy and clearly made us better. (I advocated for keeping them up forward and down back, respectively. But I am not a senior coach being paid seven figures to get these things right...)

Deadset how are we supposed to trust him to get a midfield group functioning and firing when he can't even get his basic assessments of midfielders right?

But oh, it's the ruck's fault. We just haven't had a quality ruck to make the midfield better. Like I haven't just watched Darcy Fort, Darcy Cameron, Rhys Stanley, Nathan Vardy and Jordan Roughead walk up and have premiership medals put around their necks in recent years.

Then you move to the back-line. Rampe, Aliir, T. McCartin, P. McCartin, Melican, Grundy, Francis. Only one of these Swans defenders from the last eight years has won All Australian honours, and it was the one we traded because Horse wasn't convinced by him. Aliir was having close to an All Australian season with us in the first half of 2019. Callum Sinclair injures his shoulder in round 15, and Horse takes Aliir out of our already-vulnerable defence and moves him into the ruck, where he's not good and we get killed in there anyway, but we also get destroyed in defence without Aliir and it's a decision that kicks off a 6-game losing streak after we'd won the previous three in a row. Aliir loses form and confidence, and for what? Then the form he showed in 2020 which supposedly wasn't good enough to guarantee him a future with us is the same form now shown by McCartin this year when he was supposed to be Horse's guy to anchor our defence for the next decade while Aliir plays 24 games in defence in his first year at Port and earns All Australian honours. Another great piece of talent assessment by Horse. This is not me shitting on McCartin btw. I didn't think his season was that bad, but I didn't think Aliir's was in 2020, either. Perhaps this is why you don't get overconfident with your stocks and give up on young, fit, developing defenders. You might spend the next four or five years scrambling to find one as good.

Then the forward line. Was never able to truly make Buddy work in our team. The Buddy-centric issue was clear and plain for all to see the entire ten years he was at the club. Ten years, was never resolved. His commitment to the three talls was logical to a degree, it's the structure that generally made us one of the highest-scoring teams of the last 3-4 seasons. But he committed to it even when the talls weren't playing well enough. He committed to it even at the expense of having more pressure at ground level inside 50. Horse then goes into a grand final with ONE small forward and ZERO elite pressure players in his forward line, after seeing Melbourne, Geelong and Collingwood win the last three flags all having three such players at the very least in their forward lines. And we're then beaten by a team that have four. Bravo Horse.

The grand final issues of the last decade, haven't been resolved. Midfield issues of the better part of the last decade, haven't been resolved. The slow starts that plagued us all season long, weren't resolved.

All of this is not to say he's not still getting a lot of things right. But sometimes it's the things you get wrong that cost you the most. I feel that is where we are at with Horse.

Apologies for the rant.
Can't argue with any of that other than Horse can only work with the cattle he has at his disposal, so much of the blame should also be passed onto the list managers and its becoming very clear that they've also done a very poor job over the last 10 or so years. Ultimately one piece of that puzzle has be changed with Chris Keane but horse remains. If horse gets an extension after next season I reckon there'll be riots out the front of Swans HQ.
 
I'm sort of here myself.

Have defended Horse for a long time, though never blindly.

I've always believed that a club and team is only as good as the decisions it makes. Simple calls one way or the other can make or break a team. Horse has just gotten too many decisions wrong.

I genuinely think he has no idea what he's doing with the midfield. He cooked what could've been an outstanding two-way midfield duo in Rowbottom & Warner, instead doing the opposite and sending them to the polar extremes of their strengths. He showed awfully limited judgment with a quality mid in Hewett, who, even if you think we were right in trading, has clearly since proven himself to be much more than just the tagger that Horse saw him as. He waited til both Heeney and Mills were well into their mid-careers before moving them into the midfield where they've played their best footy and clearly made us better. (I advocated for keeping them up forward and down back, respectively. But I am not a senior coach being paid seven figures to get these things right...)

Deadset how are we supposed to trust him to get a midfield group functioning and firing when he can't even get his basic assessments of midfielders right?

But oh, it's the ruck's fault. We just haven't had a quality ruck to make the midfield better. Like I haven't just watched Darcy Fort, Darcy Cameron, Rhys Stanley, Nathan Vardy and Jordan Roughead walk up and have premiership medals put around their necks in recent years.

Then you move to the back-line. Rampe, Aliir, T. McCartin, P. McCartin, Melican, Grundy, Francis. Only one of these Swans defenders from the last eight years has won All Australian honours, and it was the one we traded because Horse wasn't convinced by him. Aliir was having close to an All Australian season with us in the first half of 2019. Callum Sinclair injures his shoulder in round 15, and Horse takes Aliir out of our already-vulnerable defence and moves him into the ruck, where he's not good and we get killed in there anyway, but we also get destroyed in defence without Aliir and it's a decision that kicks off a 6-game losing streak after we'd won the previous three in a row. Aliir loses form and confidence, and for what? Then the form he showed in 2020 which supposedly wasn't good enough to guarantee him a future with us is the same form now shown by McCartin this year when he was supposed to be Horse's guy to anchor our defence for the next decade while Aliir plays 24 games in defence in his first year at Port and earns All Australian honours. Another great piece of talent assessment by Horse. This is not me shitting on McCartin btw. I didn't think his season was that bad, but I didn't think Aliir's was in 2020, either. Perhaps this is why you don't get overconfident with your stocks and give up on young, fit, developing defenders. You might spend the next four or five years scrambling to find one as good.

Then the forward line. Was never able to truly make Buddy work in our team. The Buddy-centric issue was clear and plain for all to see the entire ten years he was at the club. Ten years, was never resolved. His commitment to the three talls was logical to a degree, it's the structure that generally made us one of the highest-scoring teams of the last 3-4 seasons. But he committed to it even when the talls weren't playing well enough. He committed to it even at the expense of having more pressure at ground level inside 50. Horse then goes into a grand final with ONE small forward and ZERO elite pressure players in his forward line, after seeing Melbourne, Geelong and Collingwood win the last three flags all having three such players at the very least in their forward lines. And we're then beaten by a team that have four. Bravo Horse.

The grand final issues of the last decade, haven't been resolved. Midfield issues of the better part of the last decade, haven't been resolved. The slow starts that plagued us all season long, weren't resolved.

All of this is not to say he's not still getting a lot of things right. But sometimes it's the things you get wrong that cost you the most. I feel that is where we are at with Horse.

Apologies for the rant.
In before "Hewett was a free agent, he wanted to go".
 

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I'm sort of here myself.

Have defended Horse for a long time, though never blindly.

I've always believed that a club and team is only as good as the decisions it makes. Simple calls one way or the other can make or break a team. Horse has just gotten too many decisions wrong.

I genuinely think he has no idea what he's doing with the midfield. He cooked what could've been an outstanding two-way midfield duo in Rowbottom & Warner, instead doing the opposite and sending them to the polar extremes of their strengths. He showed awfully limited judgment with a quality mid in Hewett, who, even if you think we were right in trading, has clearly since proven himself to be much more than just the tagger that Horse saw him as. He waited til both Heeney and Mills were well into their mid-careers before moving them into the midfield where they've played their best footy and clearly made us better. (I advocated for keeping them up forward and down back, respectively. But I am not a senior coach being paid seven figures to get these things right...)

Deadset how are we supposed to trust him to get a midfield group functioning and firing when he can't even get his basic assessments of midfielders right?

But oh, it's the ruck's fault. We just haven't had a quality ruck to make the midfield better. Like I haven't just watched Darcy Fort, Darcy Cameron, Rhys Stanley, Nathan Vardy and Jordan Roughead walk up and have premiership medals put around their necks in recent years.

Then you move to the back-line. Rampe, Aliir, T. McCartin, P. McCartin, Melican, Grundy, Francis. Only one of these Swans defenders from the last eight years has won All Australian honours, and it was the one we traded because Horse wasn't convinced by him. Aliir was having close to an All Australian season with us in the first half of 2019. Callum Sinclair injures his shoulder in round 15, and Horse takes Aliir out of our already-vulnerable defence and moves him into the ruck, where he's not good and we get killed in there anyway, but we also get destroyed in defence without Aliir and it's a decision that kicks off a 6-game losing streak after we'd won the previous three in a row. Aliir loses form and confidence, and for what? Then the form he showed in 2020 which supposedly wasn't good enough to guarantee him a future with us is the same form now shown by McCartin this year when he was supposed to be Horse's guy to anchor our defence for the next decade while Aliir plays 24 games in defence in his first year at Port and earns All Australian honours. Another great piece of talent assessment by Horse. This is not me shitting on McCartin btw. I didn't think his season was that bad, but I didn't think Aliir's was in 2020, either. Perhaps this is why you don't get overconfident with your stocks and give up on young, fit, developing defenders. You might spend the next four or five years scrambling to find one as good.

Then the forward line. Was never able to truly make Buddy work in our team. The Buddy-centric issue was clear and plain for all to see the entire ten years he was at the club. Ten years, was never resolved. His commitment to the three talls was logical to a degree, it's the structure that generally made us one of the highest-scoring teams of the last 3-4 seasons. But he committed to it even when the talls weren't playing well enough. He committed to it even at the expense of having more pressure at ground level inside 50. Horse then goes into a grand final with ONE small forward and ZERO elite pressure players in his forward line, after seeing Melbourne, Geelong and Collingwood win the last three flags all having three such players at the very least in their forward lines. And we're then beaten by a team that have four. Bravo Horse.

The grand final issues of the last decade, haven't been resolved. Midfield issues of the better part of the last decade, haven't been resolved. The slow starts that plagued us all season long, weren't resolved.

All of this is not to say he's not still getting a lot of things right. But sometimes it's the things you get wrong that cost you the most. I feel that is where we are at with Horse.

Apologies for the rant.
No need to apologise. You hit the nail on the head.
 
I'm sort of here myself.

Have defended Horse for a long time, though never blindly.

I've always believed that a club and team is only as good as the decisions it makes. Simple calls one way or the other can make or break a team. Horse has just gotten too many decisions wrong.

I genuinely think he has no idea what he's doing with the midfield. He cooked what could've been an outstanding two-way midfield duo in Rowbottom & Warner, instead doing the opposite and sending them to the polar extremes of their strengths. He showed awfully limited judgment with a quality mid in Hewett, who, even if you think we were right in trading, has clearly since proven himself to be much more than just the tagger that Horse saw him as. He waited til both Heeney and Mills were well into their mid-careers before moving them into the midfield where they've played their best footy and clearly made us better. (I advocated for keeping them up forward and down back, respectively. But I am not a senior coach being paid seven figures to get these things right...)

Deadset how are we supposed to trust him to get a midfield group functioning and firing when he can't even get his basic assessments of midfielders right?

But oh, it's the ruck's fault. We just haven't had a quality ruck to make the midfield better. Like I haven't just watched Darcy Fort, Darcy Cameron, Rhys Stanley, Nathan Vardy and Jordan Roughead walk up and have premiership medals put around their necks in recent years.

Then you move to the back-line. Rampe, Aliir, T. McCartin, P. McCartin, Melican, Grundy, Francis. Only one of these Swans defenders from the last eight years has won All Australian honours, and it was the one we traded because Horse wasn't convinced by him. Aliir was having close to an All Australian season with us in the first half of 2019. Callum Sinclair injures his shoulder in round 15, and Horse takes Aliir out of our already-vulnerable defence and moves him into the ruck, where he's not good and we get killed in there anyway, but we also get destroyed in defence without Aliir and it's a decision that kicks off a 6-game losing streak after we'd won the previous three in a row. Aliir loses form and confidence, and for what? Then the form he showed in 2020 which supposedly wasn't good enough to guarantee him a future with us is the same form now shown by McCartin this year when he was supposed to be Horse's guy to anchor our defence for the next decade while Aliir plays 24 games in defence in his first year at Port and earns All Australian honours. Another great piece of talent assessment by Horse. This is not me shitting on McCartin btw. I didn't think his season was that bad, but I didn't think Aliir's was in 2020, either. Perhaps this is why you don't get overconfident with your stocks and give up on young, fit, developing defenders. You might spend the next four or five years scrambling to find one as good.

Then the forward line. Was never able to truly make Buddy work in our team. The Buddy-centric issue was clear and plain for all to see the entire ten years he was at the club. Ten years, was never resolved. His commitment to the three talls was logical to a degree, it's the structure that generally made us one of the highest-scoring teams of the last 3-4 seasons. But he committed to it even when the talls weren't playing well enough. He committed to it even at the expense of having more pressure at ground level inside 50. Horse then goes into a grand final with ONE small forward and ZERO elite pressure players in his forward line, after seeing Melbourne, Geelong and Collingwood win the last three flags all having three such players at the very least in their forward lines. And we're then beaten by a team that have four. Bravo Horse.

The grand final issues of the last decade, haven't been resolved. Midfield issues of the better part of the last decade, haven't been resolved. The slow starts that plagued us all season long, weren't resolved.

All of this is not to say he's not still getting a lot of things right. But sometimes it's the things you get wrong that cost you the most. I feel that is where we are at with Horse.

Apologies for the rant.

Can you email that to the club?
 
Dear John

I have admired your work from your playing days at North Melbourne (years later hearing about yourself and Wayne Carey being transferred by the Swans to North for a total of $70,000 astonished me to say the least) to the head coaches position at the Swans.

Watching you during your coaching apprenticeship under Paul Roos and later taking the reigns of the mighty bloods was a great achievement and well deserved.

I personally thank you for the wonderful memories over the years and in particular for 2012 and the ultimate success of a premiership.

Since then, the Swans under your leadership have played in four Grand Finals (which I've attended) and have unfortunately not been successful, to the point of, other than 2016, being humiliated.

I'm not a psychologist, but now must question the mindset that you and possibly the team have as you prepare for these important games.

I know from experience that if you go into a game, business meeting or any other important event in life with an overbearing 'fear of failure' or a negative mindset that you are generally defeated before you even begin.

My concern is that the team and possibly yourself are going into Grand Finals with this fear.

In 2012, the teams' effort and mindset seemed different.
We also had a team that seemed able to play with injuries or niggles, including Adam Goodes, Ted Richards, Shane Mumford plus others. The team played with an attitude of let's meet this opportunity face on and did not die wondering!

This year, as in 2014 and also 2022 the team seemed hesitant on the field and afraid to make a mistake, to the point that they were almost frozen as the opposition pushed them aside, tackled harder and just ran faster for longer.

Being afraid to make mistakes, without doubt, will continue to limit the potential success (ie. Winning a premiership) of the team.

Any doubts and concerns from the coaching group will undoubtedly flow through to the players.

My question to you is, if you make the 2025 Grand Final, will you approach it with vigour and a positive mindset or have doubt and fears of possible failure? If it's the latter, it might be best to step aside for a new voice to take over.

It's time for reflection, but importantly more about planning for the future and learning from our past mistakes.

All the best.
 
We should swap Horse for Hinkley. Serious post.

Horse can’t win grand finals and Kenny can’t make them. Kenny is the cheaper option for long suffering grand final attending swans fans.

Kenny might actually win one with us.
Mercy Madison GIF
 
He needs to make the players accountable next time they dish up one of their soft as butter, non-competitive performances.
This current group has dished up at least couple of these results every year since 22, he absolutely needs to make a statement at selection next time it happens.
Don't expect him to drop half the side, but he should be dropping a couple of out of form best 15er's when a 50+ loss happens to occur, even if it's just a token dropping for a week. We always just rotate the bottom 6 players when this happens, there's never a consequence for the regulars who can't be f'd trying in these performances, so it's little wonder they keep happening.

Problem with this current group is they don't seem to actually ****ing learn the lessons they say they have, keep waiting for the penny to drop and every-time you think it may have happened, they dish up an all too similar diabolical performance...so if the message isn't getting through in words, at least try and get it through with actions. Too soft on the top 15ers.
Slow starts similar, they talked about it a lot...but next week first bounce we go in with the same centre bounce crew that started slow the week before...never appeared to try and get a change from actions....could've just trialled a different mix in there for the first 5 minutes or something.

If we were in the pack I could get being stubborn or scared to not do what works 8/10 times, but our coaches didn't manage being 3 games clear very well from a whole different range of things -could've trailed different personnel/positions/tactics or just rotated the squad better - not wholesale changes to any of these things that would completely **** with our form but subtle things to try improve the clear deficiencies.
3 games clear was such a rare golden opportunity to grow into an even better rounded team ahead of finals, but we wasted it - and then virtually pissed the advantage away just doing the same old anyway.....and of course cumulate in getting exposed in the exact same way we always do....and learnt the exact same lessons we seemingly failed to learn from the times before.
 
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I just can't fight the feeling that Brisbane deserved to win, not only in terms of ability, but in terms of culture.

Imo, a coaches main job is player management, and I always thought that was Horse's strong point, but after watching the team capitulate again and again, and after hearing about how we acted during the week, and even seeing how we've treated players in our team, I'm starting to think that Horse might not be the man in any sense.

People criticise getting a new coach, but the best time to change coaches is when you're on top of the ladder, when all the pieces are there. You don't want to hand a coach a time bomb (see Richmond), you want to hand a coach a list that is fully formed and ready to have new ideas implemented (see Collingwood).

Imo, the benefits of changing coach outweigh the risks.
 

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