Just read this page full of posts and the general tenor of those posts is overly harsh at best, for the following reasons:
1. Any coach coming to a faltering club that has been on one track for years and given the imprimatur to invoke change cannot be fairly judged on their first half season, longer if they don't get a chance to field a stable team in that time.
2. Yze has walked into a perfect storm for a coach. Off field changes galore at the club, unfair umpiring, unprecedented injury & stability issues. That is basically all he has known.
3. If we are looking to judge him based on what has happened so far then judge him on the team's performance in matches before the fair chance to compete was removed.....
Rd 0 Give him a mulligan for his first game in charge interstate away v a coach who knows us inside out with no Lynch, no Martin. Lost by 5.9 to the Suns.
Rd 1 We were probably beating Carlton until injuries took their toll late and we lost by 5 points with a -7 free kick differential that appeared to involve some significant bias towards Carlton. Carlton are currently 2nd Premiership favourite.
Rd 2 Beaten by 5.0 by Port at the MCG but a punishing 10 free kick deficit and key midfielder Hopper missing v a Port team not miles off full strength.
Rd 3 Beat current hot Premiership favourite by 0.5 as Lynch in particular came back to his best. Martin and Hopper missed. 2 savage injuries late to Lynch Balta and Baker gets suspended.
Later, in Rd 13 we got a game against Adelaide where they had significant outs in Walker, Milera, Rankine, Murray, Crouch, Thilthorpe and probably some others, so they were vulnerable and Richmond cashed that under Yze, comfortably, despite our own travails.
Those are the only realistic chances Yze has had to compete on any sort of level terms with the opponent, and with fair umpiring he comes out of that 3-2 v a strong group of opponents, including beating both the flag favourite and second favourite.
The coach cannot control unfair umpiring or injuries. The former has cost him by my calculations on average around 9 points per game on the scoreboard, and the latter has decimated any chance he had of fielding near full strength teams or even stable teams well below full strength. The most troubled areas by injuries have been our midfield and forward line. But let's just have a look at who has played forward for us outside our best 7 forwards:
Best 7 forwards:
Balta Lynch Lefau(who had never played with any of his team-mates to any real extent before this season)
Martin Bolton Graham Rioli Jnr
Who else has played there:
12 matches Campbell - 19yo in first real season. No previous experience playing with the team.
11 games Mansell - is probably the only player of all these who has had time to settle into his role, and consequently is very close to being in the best 7 forwards if he is not already.
9 games Sonsie - Very limited experience both in the team and forward line. We suspect he will be more a mid than a forward as he settles into his career.
5 matches Koschitzke - for reasons that could not be pinned on Yze, he has not been good enough. He had no previous experience playing in our team.
5 matches Cumberland - played out of necessity, sub 20 gamer with very limited experience playing with most of the other forwards he has played with. Every chance of being delisted.
3 matches - Ryan, limited experience in the team & even less in the role.
3 matches(2 mainly in the forward line) - 31yo Naismith, no previous experience in this team
2 matches Green - 19yo debutante no previous experience in this team
1 Match Coulthard - not near his best handful of games prior experience in the team's forward line but none with the players he actually played with.
1 Clarke - Another who was played when not near his best due to necessity, limited AFL experience, almost none with the forward line he actually played with.
Dusty, Lynch have clearly played games way below their best for physical reasons, out of necessity. Others to be tried forward: Baker, Pickett. 19 players have played matches in our forward line. There were years we would have got this deep into the season that figure would be closer to about 10 players.
So on average there have been at least 4 forwards there each week who would and should not be playing there in a near full strength team, and even the players who have played have not been able to get continuity with each other due to injuries. This is in a sport that relies on teamwork as much as any sport does. So familiarity with team-mates around you is hugely beneficial.
That is just the forward line, the midfield is at least as ugly, and even more important to the team's fortunes.
It has got so comically bad the club would simply be saying to Yze let's make the best of this, blood youngsters, learn for the future and make sure we get a very high draft pick.
No supporter can even begin to make fair judgements of Yze at this point. In fact if you go by the small sample of games where he had any realistic chance of competing, he comes out of that very decently.
It appears we may have a new nomination for the Noble Prize for Literature.
**** dude, that shit was even too long for me