Coach resigns

[boydogs]

Hawks made the eight in his third year, and we're on the way up.
Silly comparison

Yeah I noticed Clarkson had coached 2 extra games. 8 wins more is nothing to sneeze at either

[LostDoggy]

All the doom and gloom from you guys
New coach
Tom Boyd/Cameron? ++for 29 yo Griffen
Everybody might be happier next week
Im a bulldog thru and thru
Throw away lines from some leaving the club... definately not true supporters

Hate so say this but one week and a cool head makes a big difference
Tony lockett part 2

[Bulldog4life]

Haven't got the link to it but it was emailed to me by my sister. Article by Jon Ralph.

"Brendan McCartney’s expectations and assessments of his players when he was coach of the Western Bulldogs were too personal and cost him his job, says the Herald Sun’s Jon Ralph.
His reputation as a tough leader was always well known but it seems the 53 year-old became an unpopular figure at the Whitten Oval after questioning the personalities of various players.
“So, basically the things that he said to them were game-changers, they irreparably damaged that relationship.
“Maybe he just snapped and felt that he had had enough.
“He said things to Adam Cooney and Will Minson that were insults that rocked them to the core,” Ralph explained on Hungry for Sport.
It was initially thought that players were unjustifiably whinging because they were unhappy with the McCartney’s particularly harsh evaluations in their end of season exit interviews.
A former Bulldogs coach Rodney Eade was famous for his demanding and fiery character but the senior players felt McCartney took it a step too far.
“It’s not only the senior players, some of the younger players love him but others felt like he was too tough.
“What some of the senior players are saying is that we can accept sprays, but he basically ripped into their personalities.”
Those players who took offence to the negative feedback clearly made their issues with McCartney known to senior figures at the club and ultimately led to his ‘resignation’.
“If someone rips into the core of your being, it’s pretty hard to come back from that.
“He attacked their personalities, and attacked them as people.
“So those players asked how they overcome that, this is the person I am at 30 years of age.”

[hujsh]

Hard to know what to think without more specific examples. How personal could the criticism be?

[Rocket Science]

The venom suggested doesn't exactly correlate with a guy who's been a fairly effective manager of men for two decades.

Though it correlates perfectly with the current 'Dogs are a train wreck' narrative.

[bulldogsthru&thru]

There are some fairly nasty rumours floating around on BF. Some by reliable posters....obviously could be made up but proof could be in the pudding

[bornadog]

I have said it before, there are ways to rip into people and there are ways that go way beyond on how to handle a person. We are all different and respond in different ways.

Whether true or not, MACCA certainly has done things that cost him his job.

We heard similar stories about McKenna at GCS, ripping into Harbrow and telling him in front of everyone he cost the Bulldogs a place in the GF.

One thing in the article that is true, Rocket did get stuck into players but knew where to draw the line.

[Throughandthrough]

There are some fairly nasty rumours floating around on BF. Some by reliable posters....obviously could be made up but proof could be in the pudding

Humour me, like what?

[Greystache]

Some of the comments are well known and the response from some of the players goes to show Macca was on the money.

- Lack of preparedness to play team football
- Unwillingness to run two ways
- Unsupportive of younger team mates
- Expect everyone to pour adulation on them for what they believe they've achieved and don't give anything back.
- Elitist and all round quite selfish

Pretty much all the things the Bulldogs culture has been accused of for 30 years.

[bornadog]

Some of the comments are well known and the response from some of the players goes to show Macca was on the money.

- Lack of preparedness to play team football
- Unwillingness to run two ways
- Unsupportive of younger team mates
- Expect everyone to pour adulation on them for what they believe they've achieved and don't give anything back.
- Elitist and all round quite selfish

Pretty much all the things the Bulldogs culture has been accused of for 30 years.

Too bad he didn't know how to deliver his message.

[Greystache]

Too bad he didn't know how to deliver his message.

There's only one way to deliver that message, too bad people didn't want to hear it.

[Sedat]

We heard similar stories about McKenna at GCS, ripping into Harbrow and telling him in front of everyone he cost the Bulldogs a place in the GF.

I've never been a McKenna fan and this misinformed drivel just reinforces this. Harbrow was one of our best players in both the 2008 and 2009 PF's. If you're going to sledge someone, actually know what the hell you are talking about.

[bulldogtragic]

I just realised on the AFL app (through Telstra TV) you can watch the press conferences from the last 4-5 years. Having some time to burn, I watched the the presser from the 2014 loss to GWS which was obviously BMacs last one. If you have some time and an interest in the macabre, it's worth watching.

With the power of hindsight, it's a very interesting thing to watch. The responses from BMac may have just pushed his own fate with some of the players. I get he was disappointed, but it seemed pretty heavy handed in what could've been said privately. Gia was sitting next to him in the presser (his last game as a player), and some of his body language to some of the responses I read as 'leave me out of this press pack, I don't endorse it'. I wonder what effect, if any, this had on things that transpired and whether BMac would have been as he was, if Stringer held the mark late and we won by a few points? I also wonder with the arse kicking BMac got from Gordon over the Macrae public comments (about 6 weeks earlier), and his apology over same, were then seen as a pattern of a guy that wasn't going to change or another reinforcing thing to players that they wouldn't play for bloke that did the dirty laundry publicly?

Often the comparison is made between BMac & Bevo for coaching, tactics, game style, ethos, culture etc. But watching it I began to compare them in a small part as ambassadors for the club &/or players, but moreso the public defence or non-comments a coach goes to that makes a coach a so called 'players coach'. With a shoe string budget, I wonder if BMac had the right amount of media training and his thoughts spewed out inadvertently or whether he actually thought he had to do things publicly. I'm not potting BMac despite appearances, but as much as at times I've wanted Bevo to sometimes go a little harder after average results, from the perspective of being the leader/mouth piece/defender in chief of the players I'm happy, and I guess the players would be for the most part that strong dressing downs happen inside the walls and not in front of the media pack.

As I say, I thought it was really interesting watching as the last media event before the events, that well, led to a premiership 2 years later.

[jeemak]

BMac was no idiot and was a decent developer of talent compared what Eade was at the end of his time, but he himself realised at the end his hard lined messaging was genuine gun to the head stuff with those he wanted out of the club, without understanding the impact it would have on the rest of the playing group.

He was always going to get rid of the likes of Cooney and Lake for next to nicks, alongside others like Jones to break the playing group, but I don't think however he'd have gotten rid of Higgins or Griffen if given the choice.

A lot is made about our young players like Stringer contacting Peter Gordon at the end of 2014 and telling him what they thought about the culture of the club at the time, I'm still fifty fifty as to whether that was about the playing group or the coaching.

Jacko is on record as saying his dropping by Bmac was the best thing for him at the time. Jacko had no issue with it and he's now a genuine tough nut gun. Irrespective of whether Peter Gordon pulled his skirt over his own head as a result of Bmac's comments over that particular incident is irrelevant. Jacko is a better player than he was, and pretty much as good as he could be, and Peter isn't the messiah. If you listen to the latter enough, you realise he says just as many silly things as you read on this forum week in and week out to balance out the good things he says.

Luckily for us he nails the things required to be a good president for us aside from that.

[bornadog]

BT, I will look at that press conference out of interest. I have read through most of the comments in this thread and had a good laugh. The doom and gloom was over the top. It was just another coach being sacked, happens all the time.

This was the best post of the read

For what it is worth, we have to make it seem like we're trying to hold onto Griffen if we want to get the most out of GWS.

And there has been a sense for awhile that BMac is not as good at "managing men" as advertised. I mean, it should never have come to this, and it is the coach's role to deal with feuds and similar tensions between players.

Basically it is shambolic at the moment, but the club needs us to stick with them, so I'll put back on my Bulldogs glasses and try and look at this with some optimism.

Hopefully Dalrymple and Monty (presumably they are in charge at the moment) work some magic, ransack GWS for Griffen, I get a new avatar, a new coach comes in who melds the group together while making sure that the youngsters are empowered, and we become a flag-winning dynasty.

(I really don't want to think about the possibility of Griffen staying.)

I never ever thought Macca was suited to being a senior coach. He may be a good developer of players, but the senior role is poles apart from just developing.

I am so happy the events took place back in October 2014. No Pain, No gain.