Mega Thread The Western Bulldogs - The Sack Macca saga

[_Mike_]

Griffen was a great player 2 years back.

So Griffen is no good now? Based on what?

 

[TedDougChris]

Just going to play devils advocate here and say that all clubs can name half a dozen young players that have gotten better in the last 18 months(bar maybe Melbourne). That's what youngsters do, they get better.

The proof in Macca's ability to coach will come late next year. Like I said most players improve so I'm not impressed by any of that but can he build a game plan/team that can take us to the top? So far we have no evidence of that BUT that's because he doesn't have the right cattle playing together for long enough yet - so we wait.

Agreed, although I suspect there is some evidence that we are building a game plan and making the right decisions (although with respect to the match committe - I'd say they are about 50/50 in their calls this year).

For example, we recognised the need for more pace/skills in the middle and have dropped Cross. In some ways this was undeserved on Crossy, but a call needed to be made, the safe option was to keep the experience, but they brought in Hrovat.

Now, they'll slightly stuffed this up by dropping him, but you could make the argument that a fit Cooney/Boyd might be needed more than young Hrovat - problem was that neither Cooney or Boyd was fit.

We also seen Gia used effectively as the sub, rather than having creative HBF'ers run off him all afternoon.

We've also seen Dahl shift more into the middle and start to work his way out of his slump. Stevens to limp out of FF/provide a contest v Port was born out of necessity, but it still worked.

It's clearly a work in progress and mistakes are still being made. But as long as we continue to see improvement in both individuals and in the team, I'm content to give Macca more time...

 

[Butane]

Agreed, although I suspect there is some evidence that we are building a game plan and making the right decisions (although with respect to the match committe - I'd say they are about 50/50 in their calls this year).

For example, we recognised the need for more pace/skills in the middle and have dropped Cross. In some ways this was undeserved on Crossy, but a call needed to be made, the safe option was to keep the experience, but they brought in Hrovat.

Now, they'll slightly stuffed this up by dropping him, but you could make the argument that a fit Cooney/Boyd might be needed more than young Hrovat - problem was that neither Cooney or Boyd was fit.

We also seen Gia used effectively as the sub, rather than having creative HBF'ers run off him all afternoon.

We've also seen Dahl shift more into the middle and start to work his way out of his slump. Stevens to limp out of FF/provide a contest v Port was born out of necessity, but it still worked.

It's clearly a work in progress and mistakes are still being made. But as long as we continue to see improvement in both individuals and in the team, I'm content to give Macca more time...

Problem is that those that want to disagree can find counter points to all those arguments.

 

[the dog's kennel]

So Griffen is no good now? Based on what?

Mike, he's saying that Griffen was a great player 2 years ago AND now - i.e. you can't attribute Griff's performances to BMac. On that point I agree with him.

 

[TedDougChris]

Problem is that those that want to disagree can find counter points to all those arguments.

You can find people that want to disagree with a lot of things... We don't necessarily have a lot of options available to us, so I think we are doing Ok with what we currently have.

Is there room for improvement - I bloody hope so, I hate losing more weeks than winning.

Do I think we'll improve under Macca - on what I've seen yes.

Will it get us a flag - far too early to tell..

I really wanted to see improved ball movement and an improved F50 structure this year. We've had games where we have moved the ball well, and then there have been other games... Our F50 structure looks better with Stringer in it, but he's not fit enough (no criticism intended). So on the two key items I wanted this year, the jury is still out...

 

[_Mike_]

Mike, he's saying that Griffen was a great player 2 years ago AND now - i.e. you can't attribute Griff's performances to BMac. On that point I agree with him.

fair enough. I didnt read the eariler point

 

[DexterTan]

fair enough. I didnt read the eariler point

Although two years ago, he had trouble shaking the hard tag....

 

[_Mike_]

Although two years ago, he had trouble shaking the hard tag....

And still does IMO. Lower is the type of player who could be used to help out Griffen with the tag.

 

[Igloo]

And still does IMO. Lower is the type of player who could be used to help out Griffen with the tag.

What makes you say that? He's pretty much smashed every tag this year. Crowley was the only one to beat him.

 

[_Mike_]

What makes you say that? He's pretty much smashed every tag this year. Crowley was the only one to beat him.

He was tagged out of the Adelaide game too. He's getting better at beating the tag and in time should be able to negate most

 

[Dogs_R_Us]

Problem is that those that want to disagree can find counter points to all those arguments.

The good points aren't due to Macca and the bad ones are

 

[Butane]

The good points aren't due to Macca and the bad ones are

I was more thinking that just because Macca got a decision right eventually doesn't mean he deserves credit. That's his job.

(Shit, I'm trying to play devils advocate here I don't necessarily agree with what I'm saying).

Using TDC's examples of good moves you could argue Cross should have been dropped earlier(I admit he looked off the pace earlier much to me and my old mans disappointment), Gia should have been sub/dropped earlier. Has Dahl really moved into the midfield, is he really out of a slump? Has he improved this year?

See how the arguments become circular?

I'll add few that need to be addressed but haven't been yet. What are we going to do with Cooney? Where does Picken fit in? Does he at all at the moment? Can Campbell and Minson play in the same team as tried earlier in the year - probably not. I actually expect some of those questions answered tonight when the teams are released but is that acting too slowly when 'keyboard warriors' like me are pointing them out?

 

[TedDougChris]

I was more thinking that just because Macca got a decision right eventually doesn't mean he deserves credit. That's his job.

(Shit, I'm trying to play devils advocate here I don't necessarily agree with what I'm saying).

Using TDC's examples of good moves you could argue Cross should have been dropped earlier(I admit he looked off the pace earlier much to me and my old mans disappointment), Gia should have been sub/dropped earlier. Has Dahl really moved into the midfield, is he really out of a slump? Has he improved this year?

See how the arguments become circular?

I'll add few that need to be addressed but haven't been yet. What are we going to do with Cooney? Where does Picken fit in? Does he at all at the moment? Can Campbell and Minson play in the same team as tried earlier in the year - probably not. I actually expect some of those questions answered tonight when the teams are released but is that acting too slowly when 'keyboard warriors' like me are pointing them out?

Fair comments mate and I know where you are coming from.

I think you are allowed to expect good players to continue to be, and give people time to prove/demonstrate themselves. The Crossy/Gia situations are examples where you can potentially err on the side of caution and show some respect to the older guys - I'm not too upset with the timing/decisions that have been made - but I do understand your point.

My response to your questions. Continue to play Cooney when fit. I have suggested playing him at FF before, rather than in the middle. I think we need to develop a new look midfield which doesn't include Cooney or Boyd. They can still be picked and be part of rotations, but not the main men any longer. Picken doesn't fit in unfortunately. Give him a few games to get to 100 and then look at trading him. No - Campbell and Minson cannot play in the same side - at the moment. For all Minno's good work in matches this year, he's not a Cox type mobile ruckman, nor a NicNat althletic amazement machine. He's a big lumbering ruckman. Campbell needs to add something to his game to get a shot. Unless we give Will a rest V GWS/Melbourne ??

Potentially some of these issues would have been resolved if we didn't have Higgins, Wood, Dickson, Cordy out injured...

 

[DogDays]

Every week Earnie gets someone. Stop Feeding the troll people, cross a different bridge. If his irrational, one eyed and record on repeat posts get you hot under the coller, just use the ignore feature. I personally enjoy reading his posts, his misery cheers me up.

Its kinda like going to visit your grandmother in the nursing home --- she talks and you nod politely and answer yes every so often... but you really don't know what she said and you can't wait to get out of there.

 

[House_of_Dahl]

Just going to play devils advocate here and say that all clubs can name half a dozen young players that have gotten better in the last 18 months(bar maybe Melbourne). That's what youngsters do, they get better.

The proof in Macca's ability to coach will come late next year. Like I said most players improve so I'm not impressed by any of that but can he build a game plan/team that can take us to the top? So far we have no evidence of that BUT that's because he doesn't have the right cattle playing together for long enough yet - so we wait.

I get your point but I actually named 15 players (13 young), not 6, but wasn't trying to be exhaustive anyway.

People can say player X's improvements are nothing to do with Macca, but seriously - nothing to do with the improvement in any of those 15? Its naive to say the coach is irrelevant to all those cases.

And those that reckon Griffen hasn't improved are wrong IMO. He was a gun 2 years ago but he has gone up another level again. Ask Griffen if thinks BMac has helped him improve! I definitely remember an article with Griffen last year talking about Macca helping him become a more complete footballer, not have games or moments where he goes missing - consistent effort, and working more on his inside game as well. Surely I am not the only one that recalls this?

 

[yebiga]

You know one of the many pleasures of winning a premiership will be reminding ErnieSigley of his many posts

 

[MrDOK]

It's funny reading back on Ernie's posts. Talk about living in the past.

 

[Some Idiot]

He was tagged out of the Adelaide game too. He's getting better at beating the tag and in time should be able to negate most

He got injured early in the third quarter, before that I think he was struggling with the conditions more so than his opponents influence, but I guess you can attribute it to the tagger.

 

[Proffessor]

fair enough, we are all entitled to express our views without being professed right or wrong

Talking in terms of sponsor dollars and members list (which at 2010 was close to 35,000 - a club record), had we won a flag in that time period (2008-2010), I would be more inclined to think that

- our membership numbers would be around 40,000
- we would attract bigger sponsorship deals
- the rate of televised games would be much higher than what they are now

In saying that, the current position of the club is worse than it was then. There is absolutely no question about that however when making that assessment it should be understood that there have been a number of changes withion the club itself in terms of staff and playing list. These are major contributors.

Why do people blame our culture? I think thats fairly easy to understand. We havent been a club that has been hard on its players, instilled a level of self respect and been subject to playing favourite sons over players who earnt theeir spots.
We have been a club which has relied heavily on luck in the past but luck will only get you so far. The current BMAC tenure aside, I could safely say that a large majority of WB supporters are fed up with the previous management of players/recruiting and soft stand on not making players accountable for their form. Can you honestly sit there and tell me that losing 7 prelims in a row is ok, because we were close?

My comment about three years was based on McCartney's current contract length (not - lets wait another 3 years). I thought thats was very clear in how it was implied based on the perception/response of other posters in this thread.

Anyway, I respect your opinion that your not happy with the current standing of the club under McCartney but that in turn should be reciprocated when I say that in my opinion, I'm patient enough to wait until his first contract expires before making a decision in haste as to whether or not he is good for the future of the club

I appreciate the considered and respectful reply, Mike.

A few clarifications though. Firstly, when I said wait three years, I was including the 18 months already past, meaning that we didn't need to reserve judgement until the end of the contract term.

3 years is actually quite a long contract to give a rookie coach. I think 3 years is also far too long to be a designated evaluation period, it shouldn't take that long to evaluate a person's suitability for any job. The recent trend of giving longer contracts appears to be driven more by a desire to minimise media scrutiny and hence provide the coach with stability and security. It has already achieved that purpose.

Although I have been very positive in my comments regarding our performance in Eade's era, it doesn't mean that I don't think we made mistakes, or that I wasn't disappointed with the end results. I think Eade made plenty of mistakes and we missed a great window of opportunity. However, he also did a lot of things right that created that window. Everybody has strengths and weaknesses.

The funny thing is that even with the mistakes of the recent past, we still performed so much better than we have under McCartney, which suggests to me he is making a lot more mistakes than his predecessor. I don't buy the "blame the playing list" excuse. It simply doesn't add up, not only because the list hasn't changed enough to justify the fall in team performance, but also because McCartney has been the one making those changes.

I understand and respect, the desire for people to show faith in McCartney and hope that some of the strengths that he was reputed to have when he got the job actually come to the fore. However, I place a lot more weight on tangible evidence than hearsay. My observations of McCartney's actions (and the scoreboard results) suggest to me his weaknesses outweigh his strengths as a senior coach. It is frustrating seeing the same mistakes being repeated over and over again, and AFL playing careers wasting away.

 

[the dog's kennel]

I understand and respect, the desire for people to show faith in McCartney and hope that some of the strengths that he was reputed to have when he got the job actually come to the fore. However, I place a lot more weight on tangible evidence than hearsay. My observations of McCartney's actions (and the scoreboard results) suggest to me his weaknesses outweigh his strengths as a senior coach. It is frustrating seeing the same mistakes being repeated over and over again, and AFL playing careers wasting away.

I appreciate your contributions to the board, Proff. And I also appreciate that you are not completely dogmatic, but are simply a person who demands evidence before investing faith in people.

I am also aware that to date we may be seeing plenty of positive "signs" in the team. But they are just that - "signs", nothing more. They aren't conclusive of anything, or necessarily demonstrative of anything more than the normal turn of events at a footy club (e.g. some young players improving, some brief periods of good play, wins against cellar dwellers). There are also plenty of negative signs, if we chose to look for them instead. We could still very easily find ourselves in a little over a year concluding that the McCartney era has been a miserable Rhode-esque failure.

Where you and I differ markedly however, is that I feel you will NEVER turn a club over completely and see such evidence within 18 months. It just doesn't happen - never has, never will. And there is no doubt that McCartney is trying to completely turn the club over. Given that, I think 3 years is actually a relatively short period of time to start seeing tangible results we can point to. And I am very comfortable giving BMac until mid 2014 to provide incontrovertible evidence as to why his contract should be renewed to finish the job.

I guess the next question is - Should the club have been completely turned over? After all we did just come off 3 PFs, and Eade did seem to have the club running well. I guess the answer to that question depends on how you feel about Mike's culture point above. Personally, I agree with him - that our culture did need changing. I would also add that the fact we only really genuinely contended for 1 season in our last cycle (2009) points to there being something wrong with the club that demanded addressing.

You may disagree with that. You may feel that persisting with Eade or at least with the general thrust of Eade's club leadership would have seen us back to the top soon enough. The truth is though, that that horse has bolted. And protesting it, is just howling into the wind. Right now we have two practical choices - 1) See whether BMac's vision is leading anywhere in about 30 rounds' time. And if not, either start again completely over, or remodel his vision with a different leader. or 2) Tear up his vision root and branch now before we even know what it looks like, and start again. If he is leading us nowhere, this is the smart move.

In my opinion, it is far from clear that he is leading us nowhere. In my view the evidence is not yet in. What we see is a club in huge flux. And they play like that too.

Which is why I feel it is well worth waiting that extra year and a bit before we start getting itchy trigger fingers. BMac knows that's his time frame. If he can't prove to us why we should rehire him by then, then he deserves to go. But until then, I'm watching to see if those "signs" turn into evidence.

 

[ErnieSigley]

You know one of the many pleasures of winning a premiership will be reminding ErnieSigley of his many posts

You think I'll be upset if we win one?
I gladly take it all back but under McCartney it won't happen.

 

[ErnieSigley]

It's funny reading back on Ernie's posts. Talk about living in the past.

What's changed? We still lose more often than not.

 

[_Mike_]

I don't buy the "blame the playing list" excuse. It simply doesn't add up, not only because the list hasn't changed enough to justify the fall in team performance, but also because McCartney has been the one making those changes.

One additional point to that topic of debate, speaking to Christian Howard at the player sponsor night last week he said that he was find it challenging to adapt to the McCartney game plan. He also stated that when he was drafted under Eade, his game style was quite different from what McCartney has asked of him.

 

[DogDays]

One additional point to that topic of debate, speaking to Christian Howard at the player sponsor night last week he said that he was find it challenging to adapt to the McCartney game plan. He also stated that when he was drafted under Eade, his game style was quite different from what McCartney has asked of him.

Good - because the Eade game plan didnt win us the ultimate prize. And while some posters will say "yes, but we got close" - ultimate close isnt good enough... all the most successful clubs don't accept close enough is good enough - neither should we.

Good on BMac for changing the game plan and making these players work harder... if we win the ultimate it will all be worth it! (and you'll hear me all the way down there in Vic celebrating!)

 

[TedDougChris]

One additional point to that topic of debate, speaking to Christian Howard at the player sponsor night last week he said that he was find it challenging to adapt to the McCartney game plan. He also stated that when he was drafted under Eade, his game style was quite different from what McCartney has asked of him.

Makes you wonder how they will assess the players at the end of the year when it comes to delistings/tradings etc.

Players like Howard, Grant, Tutt etc all divide the supporter base, but hopefully they are at least looking at those trying to change their game styles and adapt, not just on the actual results... Those who make no effort can go, but those that at least try deserve to be looked at closely before a decision is made.