Simpson has got one thing right

[Ian Dargie]

That's so stupid. I agree that every other job should be but not his. He inherited a bad list and arrived at a once proud club that is in it's darkest time. He'll be swinging axes this spring and I look forward to seeing the progress of the players that have stayed.

Some people felt the midfield was already good enough to win a flag.

 

[Smotie]

school you mean. good try though.

You live in Sydney, that explains everything. Shouldn't you barrack for GWS or something?

 

[flamingEMBERS]

Some people felt the midfield was already good enough to win a flag.

is that what you thought coming into 2014?

 

[ziad]

You live in Sydney, that explains everything. Shouldn't you barrack for GWS or something?

afraid of the big world are you?

 

[SpaceClef]

Hutchings has shown he can hit targets on the run when in space, take marks under pressure in our backline, he can win the hard footy, he can lay a shit load of tackles (16 in one game), kick goals and now tag. McGinnity can tackle and try hard, that's about it. If you can't see the difference then that's your loss.

haha just razzin' ya EM

 

[Ian Dargie]

is that what you thought coming into 2014?

No. Relevance?

You say Simpson "inherited a bad list" and the club is "in its darkest time". You've changed your tune, haven't you? It's a dramatic climbdown from insisting the midfield was good enough to deliver a flag.

And now, here you are, calling someone else "stupid" for having high expectations. Maybe you should take a look in the mirror and acknowledge that you were singing the same song not so long ago.

In any case, now you know how your previous, unrealistic arguments about the midfield appeared to me. Maybe one might even describe them as "stupid"?

 

[flamingEMBERS]

No. Relevance?

You say Simpson "inherited a bad list" and the club is "in its darkest time". You've changed your tune, haven't you? It's a dramatic climbdown from insisting the midfield was good enough to deliver a flag.

And now, here you are, calling someone else "stupid" for having high expectations. Maybe you should take a look in the mirror and acknowledge that you were singing the same song not so long ago.

In any case, now you know how your previous, unrealistic arguments about the midfield appeared to me. Maybe one might even describe them as "stupid"?

still missing the point and arguing with me a year and a half later. geesh

 

[dajesmac]

I think Alec Waterman will add a dash of peppermint to our vanilla midfield.

 

[ChampRevesby]

I think Alec Waterman will add a dash of peppermint to our vanilla midfield.

Lets hope he isn't like a Ferrero Rocher, hard on the outside but soft in the middle.

 

[wolmeister]

Not just publically. Back him to the absolute hilt with everything our organisation has. But also be smart enough to keep every option open. You have run an impassioned defence of Simpson which is great, I hope he turns this all around. But bottom line is his record doesn't back you up. Its been a shit of a year and I suspect we might be the furtherest from a flag than any other club. All I'm saying is if a seasoned coach comes up then we need to take it.

Its better to be classy losers huh? As a pissed off supporter I reckon every job in the club should be up. I like Simpson but the cold hard fact is he hasn't improved our performances one iota. If anything we have gone backwards. I get the rationale that he deserves a shot at moulding his own squad. Alternatively I'm flagging option B, which is to keep options open with respect to a proven coach.

What did you really expect this team to achieve? Top 4? 8th? To be honest I'd rather this kind of season so there is no excuse but to clear out some dead wood. Hopefully there is some pressure on to make the correct selections at draft time.

 

[Smotie]

Ian dargie. I may have missed it but where do you sit in terms of Simpson? Will he be an effective coach for us?

 

[Eastern Rangers]

No I dont. And whats remotely controversal about anything I'm saying about Simpson. We've had a poor season and he's the coach.

We've had a poor season ........................................................................ ect and he's the coach.

You can fill in the blanks.

 

[Ian Dargie]

still missing the point and arguing with me a year and a half later. geesh

There's no longer any argument. You were wrong. Case closed.

It's simply a case of reminding you what you said when you condescend to someone else for taking a position you held previously.

 

[Ian Dargie]

Ian dargie. I may have missed it but where do you sit in terms of Simpson? Will he be an effective coach for us?

Too soon to say definitively. It's unfair to judge a new coach before they've had at least one off-season to alter the list.

That said, I certainly wouldn't give him a free pass for the disappointing results this season. He hasn't strengthened his hand by steering us into 11th place. He has to wear that. But he's still entitled to have a go at changing up the personnel before any real verdict can be passed.

I think he inherited a list that was stucturally sound – very solid in the spine with a strong ruck division, settled backline and three dangerous forwards. The midfield, as documented, appears to be less than the sum of its parts but plenty of first-year coaches have inherited much shitter lists than ours and found a way to extract improvement. In light of that, what's been our best win this season? Think about it – it's pretty grim. Depressingly, you could argue our best performances have been losses. That grinds people down.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong but he was in charge of Hawthorn's midfield. He's meant to understand how that shit works. He's meant to have some idea about how to take a midfield rotation and make it click more effectively. That hasn't happened. So while some turnover may be required, it's not good enough to simply say 'they're all duds, we need to start over'. That doesn't get him off the hook. Good coaches also need to be able to work with what they've got and I think, even allowing for the fact he needs more time, he's still short of a pass mark this year.

The most troubling thing for me is not that we probably won't play finals. It's that our best footy has been pretty good but we've thrown away games after being in winning positions. Port Adelaide, Carlton and Collingwood. If we had won those games, I think people would have a far more positive outlook. We'd be 10-7 and pushing for a home final. That would constitute immediate improvement on 2013 and I think most people would be on board as a result. But we didn't win those games and most people therefore feel we've underperformed. In those games, we played well for a bit and then absolutely shat the bed. There was no excuse for losing those games, particularly Carlton and Collingwood. And that's bad news for everyone involved.

It's one thing for a team to be blown away because it simply doesn't have the cattle; it's another for a side that we know is capable of competing to get in front and then fall apart when the screws turn. The latter is probably more damaging for a coach because it suggests that, under pressure, the group can't execute and systems don't stand up.

Fast forward. If we're sitting here in 12 months at the tail-end of another season like this one, those in Simpson's corner will have a much tougher job than they do now. If he turns around and decides that he needs another contract to 'rebuild' after twice missing the finals, how will that be received?

 

[flamingEMBERS]

There's no longer any argument. You were wrong. Case closed.

It's simply a case of reminding you what you said when you condescend to someone else for taking a position you held previously.

lel. you love your ego

 

[Jarlcorbz]

Adam Simpson is the best coach ever and he will win us 29 premierships in a row staring next year.

 

[Falco]

Adam Simpson is the best coach ever and he will win us 29 premierships in a row staring next year.

I like your optimism.

But seriously, how can anyone be that critical of his first season? He had no influence in the delistings and recruiting of players in the off season. He had little time to cobble together a coaching staff. He's a first year coach without an experienced assistant. We've been over it again and again on this board. I for one think he's doing ok.

 

[Smotie]

Too soon to say definitively. It's unfair to judge a new coach before they've had at least one off-season to alter the list.

That said, I certainly wouldn't give him a free pass for the disappointing results this season. He hasn't strengthened his hand by steering us into 11th place. He has to wear that. But he's still entitled to have a go at changing up the personnel before any real verdict can be passed.

I think he inherited a list that was stucturally sound – very solid in the spine with a strong ruck division, settled backline and three dangerous forwards. The midfield, as documented, appears to be less than the sum of its parts but plenty of first-year coaches have inherited much shitter lists than ours and found a way to extract improvement. In light of that, what's been our best win this season? Think about it – it's pretty grim. Depressingly, you could argue our best performances have been losses. That grinds people down.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong but he was in charge of Hawthorn's midfield. He's meant to understand how that shit works. He's meant to have some idea about how to take a midfield rotation and make it click more effectively. That hasn't happened. So while some turnover may be required, it's not good enough to simply say 'they're all duds, we need to start over'. That doesn't get him off the hook. Good coaches also need to be able to work with what they've got and I think, even allowing for the fact he needs more time, he's still short of a pass mark this year.

The most troubling thing for me is not that we probably won't play finals. It's that our best footy has been pretty good but we've thrown away games after being in winning positions. Port Adelaide, Carlton and Collingwood. If we had won those games, I think people would have a far more positive outlook. We'd be 10-7 and pushing for a home final. That would constitute immediate improvement on 2013 and I think most people would be on board as a result. But we didn't win those games and most people therefore feel we've underperformed. In those games, we played well for a bit and then absolutely shat the bed. There was no excuse for losing those games, particularly Carlton and Collingwood. And that's bad news for everyone involved.

It's one thing for a team to be blown away because it simply doesn't have the cattle; it's another for a side that we know is capable of competing to get in front and then fall apart when the screws turn. The latter is probably more damaging for a coach because it suggests that, under pressure, the group can't execute and systems don't stand up.

Fast forward. If we're sitting here in 12 months at the tail-end of another season like this one, those in Simpson's corner will have a much tougher job than they do now. If he turns around and decides that he needs another contract to 'rebuild' after twice missing the finals, how will that be received?

That is a good analysis of the year and Simpson.
We could have beaten Fremantle in the first derby too. We were in front heading into the last quarter iirc.

 

[MIKE85]

That is a good analysis of the year and Simpson.
We could have beaten Fremantle in the first derby too. We were in front heading into the last quarter iirc.

Could have easily won both derbies. Both games we dominated for 2 quarters and couldn't score. First we kicked 1.8 in the second quarter, then in almost identical situations the second time around we kicked 1.7 in the second quarter. Easy to look back now and say should have won etc, but I reckon we "should" have another 4 wins, maybe 5 and the whole thing changes, our perception of certain players, and the coach.

 

[The Dodger]

Things don't seem right at the club around him as well though.

Our fitness staff must be the worse in the league. Our players aren't huge but still get over run in the last quarter anyway. So what exactly are they building for not having good strength and size while also not being able to cover the ground better than other teams?

Also with injuries adding up now this is the 3rd year in a row and it was a few before that as well with 2011 being the outlier in terms of having a reasonably fit list to choose from. '07 - '10 had massive injuries to big names or large chunks of our list and the same '12 - '14.

We have players like Selwood playing too long on a bung ankle and it seemed like Simpson was suggesting he had been hiding the severity of it to play on. The "we'll let NN try and heal naturally to ok a month until the season starts lets get him surgery". That bullet needed to be bitten earlier. He either stays out as long as it takes even if that meant most of '13 or gets surgery immediately and begins the recovery. This in-between not sure lets wait nope lets get surgery ruined more than '13.

I am still hoping that this can be sorted on a day to day level but get the feeling there is some deep rooted crap as this mismanagement or lack of proper prep has been occurring since 2007.

 

[Xsess]

What did you really expect this team to achieve?

Like most of us here I expected we'd be playing finals. Starting the year we had few injuries, a solid defence, strong spine, dominant rucks and an envious forward line. I expected us to win most games where our midfield broke even, some games where we marginally lost it and all of the games where they won. That simply hasn't eventuated.

Breaking down those losses paints an even worse picture. The inexcusable indictment on this club in season 2014 is that for all our losses weve been in winning positions in every game bar two, yet somehow weve found ways to lose. Also we dont have a single hard fought victory this year that we can hang our hats on. Not one. There's something very broken on and off the field where a team gets into this headspace. Obviously our midfield has a pentient to fall over at key moments, but in addition to that weve also kicked ourselves out of games, been run over (Carlton), slowly ground away, and had general lapses in concentration at key moments and in positions all over the field. Just like last week against Richmond. In the final quarter with us 10 points down - did anyone expect us to win? No.

Clearly there's structural issues with the team itself and thats not Simpsons cross to bear, but at some point an endemic failure of a team to get the job done against teams with similar levels of talent.. is. Its like we get a few goals up and the whole team switches off, waits for the opposition to get back into it before we fail at the final hurdle. When we get behind its like the team goes into honourable loss mode, happy to just play it out without really threatening. Thats cultural.

Obviously 12 months is not a long time for a coach to put a stamp on a team, on the flip side it is. Roos is doing that with Melbourne as we speak. Lyons done it. The coach at Port has done it. Its where my unease with Simpson is starting to gell, I just dunno if he's got the results out of this group of players. I see no improvement in this squad whatsoever, no killer instinct, no discernable change in our playing style.

 

[Chris_6678]

Like most of us here I expected we'd be playing finals. Starting the year we had few injuries, a solid defence, strong spine, dominant rucks and an envious forward line. I expected us to win most games where our midfield broke even, some games where we marginally lost it and all of the games where they won. That simply hasn't eventuated.

Breaking down those losses paints an even worse picture. The inexcusable indictment on this club in season 2014 is that for all our losses weve been in winning positions in every game bar two, yet somehow weve found ways to lose. Also we dont have a single hard fought victory this year that we can hang our hats on. No one. There's something very broken on and off the field where a team gets into this headspace. Obviously our midfield has a pentient to fall over at key moments, but in addition to that weve also kicked ourselves out of games, been run over (Carlton), slowly ground away, and had general lapses in concentration at key moments and in positions all over the field. Just like last week against Richmond. In the final quarter with us 10 points down - did anyone expect us to win? No.

Clearly there's structural issues with the team itself and thats not Simpsons cross to bear, but at some point an endemic failure of a team to get the job done against teams with similar levels of talent.. is. Its like we get a few goals up and the whole team switches off, waits for the opposition to get back into it before we fail at the final hurdle. When we get behind its like the team goes into honourable loss mode, happy to just play it out without really threatening. Thats cultural.

Obviously 12 months is not a long time for a coach to put a stamp on a team, on the flip side it is. Roos is doing that with Melbourne as we speak. Lyons done it. The coach at Port has done it. Its where my unease with Simpson is starting to gell, I just dunno if he's got the results out of this group of players. I see no improvement in this squad whatsoever, no killer instinct, no discernable change in our playing style.

All Paul Roo's has done is stem the floggings with flooding for 4 wins... Wouldn't say that is anything to be excited about.

 

[Xsess]

All Paul Roo's has done is stem the floggings with flooding for 4 wins... Wouldn't say that is anything to be excited about.

Point is they are playing Roos style of footy.

 

[Eaglemaniac]

Point is they are playing Roos style of footy.

Your whole point about Simpson was that he's no good coz we havent had enough wins, so why are you letting Roos off the hook?
Double standards again.

 

[Miguel Sanchez]

Like most of us here I expected we'd be playing finals.

I didn't. And I suspect I was in the majority