I've posted on this before. Calls for Harvey to be sacked are premature at this point.
Yes, he did better last year, even with the late season injury issues. I also agree that our tactics this year have been somewhat pedestrian and easy to counter. But no single coach can do everything, including Harvey.
I think there are two areas where we are poorer than last year, coaching team and fitness / sports science team.
Last year we had a very good coaching structure. This year we don't have that same structure and I believe we are the poorer for it. Losing Scott was a big loss and pulling Lloyd away from being a full time development coach to being games assistant is not the answer. My view is let Lloyd go back to where he did a sensational job and get an assistant coach to back Harvey up on gameday tactics and responses. Getting a decent plan "B' might be useful when we've become fairly predictable.
People talk about our injury crisis but lets not forget that both Hill and Mundy had interrupted pre-seasons due to over training. Morabito's injury was the result of fatigue and some bad luck. Other injuries, while probably unlucky, do not seem to have resulted in return times that would be normally associated with the types of injuries seen. They seem to be somewhat extended.
Other clubs seem to have nowhere near the injury problems we've had this year. Now you can put it down to bad luck but unless Freo has suddenly become overrun with black cats, then I'd be thinking that our fitness people aren't as good as they need to be. One of the signs of a poor fitness regime is a higher tendency to get player injuries. Before anyone brings up the obvious point, no I'm not including the 'bad luck' stuff like legs breaks or the weird ligament injuries caused by on field accidents or even stepping on sprinklers. It doesn't have to be all of one or the other, we've had a pretty bad combination of both.
Get Harvey a proper support structure around him ie like last year and then judge his worth. If he can get us into position for a shot at the flag, then he is up to the job. If he still can't then look at replacing him.
Hopefully, the club will look at fitness / sports science / medical side of things and put improvements in place as well as picking up some suitable assistant coaches to backstop Harvey in areas where he needs help. (selection, management of players, gameday tactics, rapid response to situations)
Yes, he did better last year, even with the late season injury issues. I also agree that our tactics this year have been somewhat pedestrian and easy to counter. But no single coach can do everything, including Harvey.
I think there are two areas where we are poorer than last year, coaching team and fitness / sports science team.
Last year we had a very good coaching structure. This year we don't have that same structure and I believe we are the poorer for it. Losing Scott was a big loss and pulling Lloyd away from being a full time development coach to being games assistant is not the answer. My view is let Lloyd go back to where he did a sensational job and get an assistant coach to back Harvey up on gameday tactics and responses. Getting a decent plan "B' might be useful when we've become fairly predictable.
People talk about our injury crisis but lets not forget that both Hill and Mundy had interrupted pre-seasons due to over training. Morabito's injury was the result of fatigue and some bad luck. Other injuries, while probably unlucky, do not seem to have resulted in return times that would be normally associated with the types of injuries seen. They seem to be somewhat extended.
Other clubs seem to have nowhere near the injury problems we've had this year. Now you can put it down to bad luck but unless Freo has suddenly become overrun with black cats, then I'd be thinking that our fitness people aren't as good as they need to be. One of the signs of a poor fitness regime is a higher tendency to get player injuries. Before anyone brings up the obvious point, no I'm not including the 'bad luck' stuff like legs breaks or the weird ligament injuries caused by on field accidents or even stepping on sprinklers. It doesn't have to be all of one or the other, we've had a pretty bad combination of both.
Get Harvey a proper support structure around him ie like last year and then judge his worth. If he can get us into position for a shot at the flag, then he is up to the job. If he still can't then look at replacing him.
Hopefully, the club will look at fitness / sports science / medical side of things and put improvements in place as well as picking up some suitable assistant coaches to backstop Harvey in areas where he needs help. (selection, management of players, gameday tactics, rapid response to situations)
