Worsfold knockers

[Max zero]

You could try it once in a while though. Your in denial mate!

Whatever, your just another spoilt brat who can't handle it when the team is down. When the team picks up again (like it has every time in our history) you act like you never posted this drivel.

But I for one will remember and throw it in your face.

 

[Arecsa]

Whatever, your just another spoilt brat who can't handle it when the team is down. When the team picks up again (like it has every time in our history) you act like you never posted this drivel.

But I for one will remember and throw it in your face.

You aren't the only one who's looking forward to Woosha taking us back to the top. A few flogs are going to have egg on their faces very soon, sticking the boots in halfway through a bad season - pathetic.

 

[Crimson King]

I love how all of a sudden Woosha is a dud coach, who got an armchair ride to the premiership with Judd, Cousins and Kerr. The guy started us from scratch when he took over, sure our he has never been big on tactics, but when he did, they worked efficiently. He was the first guy to bring back the handball happy game, he was the first guy who chucked in Hunter at FF in the GF and caught Sydney by suprise. People seem to forget this. With an average forward line, we won the GF. But nope he is a dud. Look at our defence it is still strong, our midfield and our forward line is developing yes, but you cant expect youngsters to come in and start playing like 100-gamers.

A bit of patience would be helpful for some people, I believe this off-season we will see a major overhaul of staff and players. Either stick by us or ____ off.

 

[greatwhiteshark]

Whatever, your just another spoilt brat who can't handle it when the team is down. When the team picks up again (like it has every time in our history) you act like you never posted this drivel.

But I for one will remember and throw it in your face.

Ok how many years you want?
My opinion has never changed since the day Worsfold got the job, I have acknowledged his work plenty of times and been critical many times.

My view is its easy to take the road that the players are no good and let Worsfold off, but you have to consider that Worsfold is just a defensive coach and until he changes that then this rebuild as you guys put it will be much harder. Especially without Judd and Cousins. He will actually need to work on a plan of any type. Something to this point he has never done.

How many years you want to give him? My bet is that if he is in the bottom 4 end of 2009 then he will be on his way. He certainly gets a year grace simply because he won a flag. But 1 years is all he will get.

 

[Crimson King]

If by 2010 we arent lingering around the top 4 then I would be worried.

 

[Marlin01]

Nevermind that he has already rebuilt this club once and took us to 2 grand finals and a flag.

I believe the most important thing the Eagles can do right now is to develop a sense of stability and I certainly don't want Woosha to be sacked. However, the challenge facing Woosha in the current environment is different, possibly harder than the one he took on when he arrived at the club.

When he started as coach, he arrived as the Messiah. He developed enormous momentum and inspired the players. I remember he focused on teaching the players to enjoy their football again. This rejuvination will be far harder given that he was the coach when things went bad. He won't be able to close the door on the last chapter of the club's history as he did when he first arrived.

I believe Woosha is the man for the job and is a tremendous leader of men, but it's not going to be easy and he will need to grow his own skills if he's going to take the club back to premiership glory. I'm looking forward to seeing how things pan out, but I certainly don't think a few early draft picks are going to be enough to get it done.

 

[Max zero]

Ok how many years you want?
My opinion has never changed since the day Worsfold got the job, I have acknowledged his work plenty of times and been critical many times.

My view is its easy to take the road that the players are no good and let Worsfold off, but you have to consider that Worsfold is just a defensive coach and until he changes that then this rebuild as you guys put it will be much harder. Especially without Judd and Cousins. He will actually need to work on a plan of any type. Something to this point he has never done.

How many years you want to give him? My bet is that if he is in the bottom 4 end of 2009 then he will be on his way. He certainly gets a year grace simply because he won a flag. But 1 years is all he will get.

I would only give him a year or 2 as well. But until they time is up i'm going to give him the benefit of doubt and stay off his back.

You can't say "hes got a year to sort it out" then be on him 6 months in.

 

[greatwhiteshark]

I would only give him a year or 2 as well. But until they time is up i'm going to give him the benefit of doubt and stay off his back.

You can't say "hes got a year to sort it out" then be on him 6 months in.

You have to understand that I don't want him removed, I want him to change his game plan. Its time to do that now. If we lose so what at least then he can come out and say he is trying something.

 

[materamagic]

Woosha's pride in the club can never be underestimated.
He is a man who sticks to his and the clubs beliefs.
Expect him to deviate from the media fronting facade and reveal more of himself as a coach who has the biggest challange of his career in front of him in terms of onfield performance.

 

[WestCat]

The guy started us from scratch when he took over

Actually most of the premiership team was already on the list when Woosha got there. In fact, it's hard to name a player of note who wasn't already on the list at the start of the 2002 season.

Perhaps the Eagles should drive a dumptruck of money over to Dean Laidley's house?

 

[eagles rule]

Woosha`s record head to head with Laidley is far superior.

So we`re having a bad year IMO last year was worse even though we

made the finals.

 

[Max zero]

You have to understand that I don't want him removed, I want him to change his game plan. Its time to do that now. If we lose so what at least then he can come out and say he is trying something.

"I want him to change his game plan."

These kinds of statements annoy me.

I meant what does it mean? You may as well say "I want him to stop losing and start winning!". It carries about the same weight.

You want results now but you also want him to change is gameplan. Significant changes to gameplans can take a while to implement. People complained about too many handballs- this year we have been kicking a lot more.

While we would all love it if every attack was a glorious charge down the center, coast-to-coast, with a lovely running goal from 50 its just not realistic.

Players under pressure/inexperienced/out of form will take the 'safe' option.

Kicking to a contest in the center circle is a risky tactic (especially with the way we are playing at the moment) so they try to play it safe and go for the free man on the boundary.

Its not ideal but thats where our confidence and form have left us.

Change will come but its going to take some time.

West Coast will be back, surely the last 21 years have shown you that?

 

[Mastablingbling]

We all know what Woosha is doing. It's not easy to tank and please the fans at the same time. I think he is taking a short-medium term strategy that is going to cause some grief (majorly) this season but will be worth it in the near future.

There is noone better for the position, and he's proven himself to be a very worthy coach in the past.

What's the big deal???

 

[Total_Juddshanks]

Actually most of the premiership team was already on the list when Woosha got there. In fact, it's hard to name a player of note who wasn't already on the list at the start of the 2002 season.

Perhaps the Eagles should drive a dumptruck of money over to Dean Laidley's house?

Actually, no.

Exactly 11/22 of the premiership team played their first game at West Coast under Worsfold. Compared to that well known coaching hack who started in 2002, Paul Roos, and who only needed to bring in 9 new players to get a flag.

So just putting aside your demonstrable stupidity for a minute, the truth is that a coach's primary role isn't recruiting, it's development.

The measure of Worsfold's success is the fact that a 14th placed team took one season to make finals, 4 seasons to play off in a premiership and 5 seasons to win one. He did that by developing blokes like Glass, Embley, Cox and Hunter from fringe players to AA calibre stars.

Nothing makes me more amused than the idea that Worsfold got gifted a flag thanks to having two genuine superstars in Cousins and Judd...Because, you know, premiership teams are usually comprised of 22 plucky but untalented hacks.

If Geelong didn't have Bartel and Ablett, Mark Thompson would be a dud coach who had never won a flag.

If Sydney didn't have Goodes and Hall, Paul Roos would never have won a flag, and if Port didn't have the Chad Cornes and Tredrea... and if Brisbane didn't have Brown and Black..and if Essendon didn't have Hird and Lloyd... and so on and so forth back to the beginning of football. Strangely enough, having several very talented blokes is often a prerequisite to having a good team.

 

[greatwhiteshark]

"I want him to change his game plan."

These kinds of statements annoy me.

I meant what does it mean? You may as well say "I want him to stop losing and start winning!". It carries about the same weight.

You want results now but you also want him to change is gameplan. Significant changes to gameplans can take a while to implement. People complained about too many handballs- this year we have been kicking a lot more.

While we would all love it if every attack was a glorious charge down the center, coast-to-coast, with a lovely running goal from 50 its just not realistic.

Players under pressure/inexperienced/out of form will take the 'safe' option.

Kicking to a contest in the center circle is a risky tactic (especially with the way we are playing at the moment) so they try to play it safe and go for the free man on the boundary.

Its not ideal but thats where our confidence and form have left us.

Change will come but its going to take some time.

West Coast will be back, surely the last 21 years have shown you that?

Takes time? You must be joking, it is the same plan as 2002. Never been altered one bit. I know everygame the Eagles play and have played in the last 6 years that the opposition only have to kick 12-15 goals to win. Every other coach knows it as well. Thats why when we were top of the ladder playing the bottom side at Subiaco it was always still game on. Geelong showed and many other top sides of the past have showed that when you play a bottom side you take care of business and the result is over before the game has started as it was on Saturday, not a possible chance we could beat Geelong even if we had played the game of our lives, we simply cannot kick over 15 goals other than the odd blue moon and Geelong were always going to kick 20 or more. Goals win games, always have an always will, more so now than ever before.
What does he have to lose?

 

[Scotland]

For all the GWS bashing, I agree that our game plan needs work.

How we are playing has not changed from 2006 to today, despite massive personnel changes. If we were sitting where we were in 2006, there wouldn't be a problem. We have gone from a top 2 side to a bottom 2 side - there is a problem. Worsfold is the senior coach, ultimately the responsibility for how we play lies with him.

We are too unaccountable, and have a poor forward structure. This has been the case for a while, but our brilliant midfield covered it. How many times this year have you seen opposition midfielders running towards our defensive 50 unopposed drilling the ball onto their forwards chests?

Because of our current personnel, we are going to win less of the ball out of the centre. Because of our current personnel, we are going to see young forwards and defenders lose one on one contests. It happens. On Saturday night I saw Wilkes outmarked by Mooney who positioned him perfectly under the ball, and it cost us a goal. Not long later, Wilkes positioned himself more side-on in a contest and effected a spoil. That's the sort of thing you want to see from young, inexperienced players.

Because of these factors, our game plan needs to be adjusted, particularly in midfield. It's fine to let your opponent run off you when we are winning 75% of centre breaks and 3 opposition midfielders are too busy worrying what J-C-K are up to to be attacking, but when 75% becomes 30 or 40% and those 3 players are no longer tagging, accountability must become a priority.

We had 46 tackles at the weekend against Geelong. The only team to beat them (Collingwood) had 85 in their meeting. That's a fair difference, and only a fool would say that Collingwood are a better side than Geelong. Pressure forces turnovers, and makes your opponent work harder. Not only that, it seems to build confidence in your attacking play as well. If we'd come out and hit Geelong with everything we had and were run over in the second half due to lack of experience, fitness & mature bodies I'd be fine with that. We barely hit them with a feather duster and came away with a 135 point pantsing. I'd be surprised if too many Geelong players pulled up sore at Sunday recovery, it was a very easy game for them. I would love to see us come out this week and sweat on Hawthorn in the first quarter. Give them no time on the ball, tackle as hard as we can and see what happens. We look 100 times better when we do play pressure footy. See the Adelaide and Sydney games, though we dropped off vs the Swans.

Our forward line structure is wrong. We set up on Saturday with Lynch, Hunter and Hansen. As soon as I saw Mackie go to Hansen I knew we were in trouble. He had 25 touches, Hansen had 6. Can someone say 'Nathan Bock Mk II'? 3 talls is too many. Seeing Hansen on the ground and Mckinley on the pine made me cringe. Two talls, with one at FF and one at CHF is all we need. Hawthorn have Franklin & Roughead, but chuck Boyle in there too and even that starts to look less functional. The Birchalls, Bocks, Gilbees, Burgoynes and Mcleods of the World have killed us for years. Our forwards don't work hard enough, and we regularly have the balance swayed too tall. We brought in Mckinley for the derby, and instantly looked better with a forward who is good at ground level and was putting in 2nd efforts. The best thing to happen to our forward line in 2007 was Mark LeCras. If we can develop another 30-40 goal a year small forward in the side our forward line will look a lot better.

We had Kennedy at CHF who is quick and can mark above his head (thus meaning opposition can't put an Andrew Mackie on him) and we looked more straightened up. Even big Q has lifted his tackle & chase workrate over the last few weeks and looks a better player. Our small forward stocks aren't brilliant, but I'd still rather have Armstrong in the side ahead of Hansen. A hard working small applying pressure to a Burgoyne or Birchall adds more to the side than an ineffective 3rd tall. 2 talls, 4 smalls - try it, please. Hansen could well fill one of the two spots at times, but medium term I favour Kennedy & Hunter, or Kennedy & Lynch.

Our defence of kick-ins from behinds is also pathetic. Atrocious. Appalling. Any negative adjective you can think of. Our zone does not work. Its so bad I can't actually see how it is meant to work. I was under the impression that you mark an area of turf, and try to stop the nearest man to that area from marking the ball. You can't do that from 5 m away. The number of times I've seen Lynch jog from man on the mark to man on the mark to man on the mark is ridiculous. We surrender the first mark every time, then more often than not surrender the next 2 or 3. One opposition midfielder running off their unaccountable opponent and a precise kick later, and we are a goal down. We manned up once from a kick-in vs Geelong, and Lynch marked the kick-in. I lost track of the number of other kick-ins where we zoned off (usually a good 5 m off) and Geelong carried the ball to the other end easily for a goal. This zone needs to be worked out or scrapped. We are regularly manned up at the other end and struggle to find an out even against poor teams, so manning up is doable.

Our defence sets up fine as you'd expect in a team coached by a premiership captain half-back, it just needs more support from the midfield which will come from player improvement and hopefully increased defensive pressure. Glass, Jones and Wilkes (5 games!) are solid old-fashioned defenders, and we'll look better with Hurn, Nicoski and Waters all fit and in form. Schofield is going to be a seriously good player too, I love him already.

My 5c anyway (2c coins went out before 90% of posters were even born).

 

[Keys]

Very good post Scotty

 

[Kempie]

...the challenge facing Woosha in the current environment is different, possibly harder than the one he took on when he arrived at the club.

When he started as coach, he arrived as the Messiah. He developed enormous momentum and inspired the players. I remember he focused on teaching the players to enjoy their football again. This rejuvination will be far harder given that he was the coach when things went bad. He won't be able to close the door on the last chapter of the club's history as he did when he first arrived.

These are very important historical points that should be kept in mind in any discussion on Woosha's tenure as a coach.

He inherited what was an essentially good list but one which was cowed and beaten by Judge's hard-line tactics. Woosha was indeed a saviour and they all lifted, and played some great footy for several years.

However, as you correctly point out, once again they're cowed and beaten but this time under his watch. So what's his next trick ?

And I'm not a Woosha basher. I simply happened to think that he needed to be told to 'lift his game', learn and adapt. I believe that is now happening.

 

[Max zero]

"I simply happened to think that he needed to be told to 'lift his game', learn and adapt. I believe that is now happening"

Oh Lord.

So even if (when?) WC turn around the knockers are still right because Worsfold was told to lift his game.

Got to love armchair coaches.

Suffice to say i'm sick of this topic and will let time be the final judge.

 

[Haydos]

Takes time? You must be joking, it is the same plan as 2002. Never been altered one bit. I know everygame the Eagles play and have played in the last 6 years that the opposition only have to kick 12-15 goals to win. Every other coach knows it as well. Thats why when we were top of the ladder playing the bottom side at Subiaco it was always still game on. Geelong showed and many other top sides of the past have showed that when you play a bottom side you take care of business and the result is over before the game has started as it was on Saturday, not a possible chance we could beat Geelong even if we had played the game of our lives, we simply cannot kick over 15 goals other than the odd blue moon and Geelong were always going to kick 20 or more. Goals win games, always have an always will, more so now than ever before.
What does he have to lose?

Hang on a sec, are you suggesting that the answer to our problems is to kick more goals? Holy shit!! I didnt realise such a radical change in game plan is all it would take to turn our side into premiership contenders again.

Can someone pleeeaasssee go down to Eagles training and tell Woosha we need to kick more goals! Maybe he doesnt know yet?!?!?

 

[Haydos]

These are very important historical points that should be kept in mind in any discussion on Woosha's tenure as a coach.

He inherited what was an essentially good list but one which was cowed and beaten by Judge's hard-line tactics. Woosha was indeed a saviour and they all lifted, and played some great footy for several years.

However, as you correctly point out, once again they're cowed and beaten but this time under his watch. So what's his next trick ?

And I'm not a Woosha basher. I simply happened to think that he needed to be told to 'lift his game', learn and adapt. I believe that is now happening.

This is where you start dribbling shit. He doesnt need to be told anything from the likes of yourself or Brad Hardie. Harsh, but true. WCE are well and truly capable of getting themselve back up to the top of the AFL ladder without 2bit advice from BigFooty hacks or from similar arm chair experts on 6PR. This is exactly what Woosha was getting at when talking to Brad Hardie. Woosha has the runs on the board, let him do the friggin job he's paid to do.

 

[Eagles 4 Mine]

Actually most of the premiership team was already on the list when Woosha got there. In fact, it's hard to name a player of note who wasn't already on the list at the start of the 2002 season.

Perhaps the Eagles should drive a dumptruck of money over to Dean Laidley's house?

NO THANKYOU........

 

[Kempie]

"I simply happened to think that he needed to be told to 'lift his game', learn and adapt. I believe that is now happening"

Oh Lord.

So even if (when?) WC turn around the knockers are still right because Worsfold was told to lift his game.

Got to love armchair coaches.

Suffice to say i'm sick of this topic and will let time be the final judge.

I'm not really interested in going over old ground here, but since your contempt was directed at me, I'll respond briefly.

Woosha had to 'lift his game' in the sense of letting us supporters, not arm-chair coaches, but us simple fans and supporters, know what exactly he was planning to do for the future.

It had nothing to do with the contrived theatrics with Hardie - it had to do with what decisions were being made, and communicating those decisions via the media without his usual stoicism.

Clearly this is now happening, and that's all we wanted.

 

[wirra44]

Woosha is a legend and i hope he'll build up the squad again.

 

[Goldenblue]

Any club that loses 2 players such as Judd and Cousins would suffer, losing those players is not Worsfold's fault. I accept the game plan needs to be overhauled, but calling for the great man's head is not the answer.

Mark my words, Woosha will have us back in the finals within the next 2 years.