Two decades.
I was being kind. Makes the premise even worse though.
You can't buy success, you have to build it from the ground up.
This feels like the year before both Thompson and Hardwick went on their sustained run. Sometimes you need to break it all down and reinvent yourself and your game. Sometimes you need to have patience and stop with all the petty sniping and allow your footy club to be a harmonius place.
How many times a week do you reckon guys like Cripps, Doch, Weitering, McKay, Curnow, Walsh etc. - who are absolute stars in their own right - have to hear about 'how the coach is not good enough, the game plan is not good enough' - and are then absolved of responsibility themselves?
No matter what happens, another coach will go through the revolving door, the players will get a short term spike from 'hope' from the next coach, and the mafia'esque board will pat itself on the back for a job well done...until the players inevitably plateau again - and you do it all over again.
The problem with this is, it's all built around Cripps, and who knows how much more of this he can take. He's 28 now and probably has 3-4 seasons left at most before his body gives out from the intense contested way he's played most of his career. He's never played finals, and never had the same coach for more than 3 years in his life. It'd be mentally draining have so much focus from the board and powerbrokers, rather than just being able to play footy.
It's all a mess, and everyone at the club needs to be examined - not just the head coach anymore. Clearly if you do the same thing 5 times in 10 years and it elicits poor results over and over again, there's something more going on than just on field game plan and the head coach.
Yet over and over again no-one has the courage to say 'butt out' and let things play out for a while. No-one says 'hey let's break the game plan down and figure out what's not working, and get Voss some more help/less responsibility'. Nope sack the head coach and start again.
You only need to look at Dew and how the Suns are going right now, to see what a little patience does. The wheel is finally turning, and the game plan looks to be both sustainable and understood. Maybe the same needs to happen with Voss - and you guys need to try something different for once; like doing nothing and not being so reactionary for a change. Alas I doubt this will happen anytime soon.
Last edited: