Sharp Axes

[Sedat]

Playing group wants Ameet and Grant to go, they want Bevo to stay, mostly sparked by the treating of Rohan Smith, no one wants him to leave but the board/CEO.

This is coming directly from a player.

It's a positive that Bevo hasn't lost the players. Now if only they played like it.

[ledge]

Thought I saw somewhere that another club was chasing Baines.
TBH playing bad for a coach you like doesn?t make sense, it would get the coach sacked not the admin.
Most of us played football and what happened within the management walls made no difference to how we played football.
Apart from that Grant and Baines would have been the ones crossing the Ts on all the contracts. Would think the players would be happy with them.
Didn?t someone post here somewhere that we were also looking at changing Bevos role and being more like an EPL manager ? If that?s so well changes are being made.

[bornadog]

It does feel like a really unsettled period. In more ways than one.

When will the Whitten Oval construction be fully complete? It does look like we are going to have a truly world class facility that can compete with what any club in the land has with the bonus of still being at our original spiritual home. Hopefully that can play a role in keeping and attracting talent.

Early next year

[josie]

We aren’t losing by massive margins. I’m guessing the players or most of them are still listening to Bevo. We’re all stabbing in the dark as to inner club reasons why we continue to perform poorly. Major review led by external person(s) is what we need. If it’s the wrong time to do it and it potentially negatively impacts next season that’s a bitter pill we have to swallow. I want forensically logical and sound methods, not knee jerk response. If we lose some members for a while rather than meet their calls to sack Bevo without good reason we’ll have to swallow that too. I do hope if Bevo stays he opens up to tagging players that are ripping us up though.

[bornadog]

We aren’t losing by massive margins. I’m guessing the players or most of them are still listening to Bevo. We’re all stabbing in the dark as to inner club reasons why we continue to perform poorly. Major review led by external person(s) is what we need. If it’s the wrong time to do it and it potentially negatively impacts next season that’s a bitter pill we have to swallow. I want forensically logical and sound methods, not knee jerk response. If we lose some members for a while rather than meet their calls to sack Bevo without good reason we’ll have to swallow that too. I do hope if Bevo stays he opens up to tagging players that are ripping us up though.

Good post Josie.

We need to find out why we can't finish the job with so many games under a goal. If we were getting thrashed every week like under Rhode and BMacc, I would be the first to say time for a change.

[Boots]

We aren’t losing by massive margins. I’m guessing the players or most of them are still listening to Bevo. We’re all stabbing in the dark as to inner club reasons why we continue to perform poorly. Major review led by external person(s) is what we need. If it’s the wrong time to do it and it potentially negatively impacts next season that’s a bitter pill we have to swallow. I want forensically logical and sound methods, not knee jerk response. If we lose some members for a while rather than meet their calls to sack Bevo without good reason we’ll have to swallow that too. I do hope if Bevo stays he opens up to tagging players that are ripping us up though.

Agree Josie - we're reading a bunch of possibly disconnected things as signs of a vast conspiracy. This could all go terribly and we could have a new coach by next year, or it could be just what it looks like - a few bad losses, some motivational problems, and a bit of noise from some high-profile trades.

Bevo's style is as a motivational coach. It means he tries to grab on to whatever is going on inside his players' heads and act as a multiplier for their positive traits. It works super well when they're up, but when they are down - or when he's down - it's ineffective. What we're seeing is consistent with a coach and players struggling with a big shift in game plan (from run and gun to chip and mark) that failed and needed tweaks on the fly.

That doesn't mean it won't all explode - it might be as bad as it looks. But a bit of calm here won't hurt. We're just going a bit mad in the absence of more info and the looming end of a poor season.

Two other things:
- KWW isnt' a problem. For every Smorgon and Gordon there's a Kennet, Macguire, Sayers, or Brasher. I'd vastly prefer a silent President to a lunatic, racist, grifter, or bungler. Even if she does start making public pronouncements, she won't say anything we want her to, and you'll complain about that. She doesn't fire and hire people (other than Baines), so she can't solve Grant or Bevo.
- I really don't understand the Kornes hate either. He was super reasonable in that Footy Classified segment, and the others called him out on his more controversial takes (which amounted to 'sack the coach', a point many of us make on a daily basis). As far as journalism goes, it was fine.

[Mantis]

We aren’t losing by massive margins. I’m guessing the players or most of them are still listening to Bevo. We’re all stabbing in the dark as to inner club reasons why we continue to perform poorly. Major review led by external person(s) is what we need. If it’s the wrong time to do it and it potentially negatively impacts next season that’s a bitter pill we have to swallow. I want forensically logical and sound methods, not knee jerk response. If we lose some members for a while rather than meet their calls to sack Bevo without good reason we’ll have to swallow that too. I do hope if Bevo stays he opens up to tagging players that are ripping us up though.

Whilst we do need to find a way to shut down the opposition's influential players, we need a complete change in mindset across the entire as our work to a man without the ball is pitiful.

[bornadog]

- KWW isnt' a problem. For every Smorgon and Gordon there's a Kennet, Macguire, Sayers, or Brasher. I'd vastly prefer a silent President to a lunatic, racist, grifter, or bungler. Even if she does start making public pronouncements, she won't say anything we want her to, and you'll complain about that. She doesn't fire and hire people (other than Baines), so she can't solve Grant or Bevo.

I can't see the issue with KWW either. The President is almost a figure head and represents the club overall, not football decisions.

KWW grew up going to the Western Oval as it was known and standing with her family watching games. She is a through and through who just happens to have worked her way up to head a major Global company for the Asia Pacific region.

Alot of the fights with the AFL which Smorgon and Gordon had were necessary at the time, but there are few battles to be fought these days. (other than pathetic fixturing which is on going). Baring a major disaster at the club, I am happy with her performance.

[mjp]

Whilst we do need to find a way to shut down the opposition's influential players, we need a complete change in mindset across the entire as our work to a man without the ball is pitiful.

LOL - I love it mate.

I was in a coaches box maybe 6 weeks ago and the senior coach said (they were winning):

"After the game I want all of those mids to line up and just ADMIT that 'xxxxx' is a good player. I just want them to bloody well acknowledge it because no-one has gone near him ALL DAY".

It was a 5+ goal win but just the "I want them to just acknowledge it" had me laughing and thinking of our own problems with oppo mids running around with very little physical pressure.

[JanLorMill]

We aren?t losing by massive margins.

That?s a relief.
Enough losing home games to bottom teams.

[Mantis]

LOL - I love it mate.

I was in a coaches box maybe 6 weeks ago and the senior coach said (they were winning):

"After the game I want all of those mids to line up and just ADMIT that 'xxxxx' is a good player. I just want them to bloody well acknowledge it because no-one has gone near him ALL DAY".

It was a 5+ goal win but just the "I want them to just acknowledge it" had me laughing and thinking of our own problems with oppo mids running around with very little physical pressure.

The ease at which the opposition moves the move ball and the freedom given to all opposing players is quite frankly embarrassing... it's come to a head over the last 2 weeks against 2 of the worst teams in the competition when our players have flat out refused to defend.. and from where I am sitting, it seems it's tolerated.

There really should be 4-6 changes this week, but it's too far gone now.

[DOG GOD]

The ease at which the opposition moves the move ball and the freedom given to all opposing players is quite frankly embarrassing... it's come to a head over the last 2 weeks against 2 of the worst teams in the competition when our players have flat out refused to defend.. and from where I am sitting, it seems it's tolerated.

There really should be 4-6 changes this week, but it's too far gone now.

Our MC can drop others in a blink of an eye, but god help if you are a ?name?. U seem to get free reign. For starters Smith and macrae should not be playing this week, but it?s a god given they will.

[Sedat]

The ease at which the opposition moves the move ball and the freedom given to all opposing players is quite frankly embarrassing... it's come to a head over the last 2 weeks against 2 of the worst teams in the competition when our players have flat out refused to defend.. and from where I am sitting, it seems it's tolerated.

There really should be 4-6 changes this week, but it's too far gone now.

What happened from R3-11? We were very hard to move the ball against in that stretch where we only lost one match (in Adelaide against Port). It is probably the best stretch of defending when we didn't have the ball during our entire tenure under Bevo. Is it as simple as Jones getting injured, who was covering a lot of our previous sins?

[bornadog]

What happened from R3-11? We were very hard to move the ball against in that stretch where we only lost one match (in Adelaide against Port). It is probably the best stretch of defending when we didn't have the ball during our entire tenure under Bevo. Is it as simple as Jones getting injured, who was covering a lot of our previous sins?

Don't forget we lost Jones and Richards, followed by JJ

Not sure why we haven't recovered from that position.

[Sedat]

Don't forget we lost Jones and Richards, followed by JJ

Not sure why we haven't recovered from that position.

That would explain our lack of run out of D50, but we were full-ground defending very well in that stretch. The mids and wings appeared to be running hard defensively to support the backline, our D50 ground positioning wasn't overly-aggressive so we were defending turnover much better, and our forwards were applying AFL standard pressure to ensure repeat F50 entries.

Personnel issues are a factor but the drop off in effort when we don't have the ball has been pretty evident in many games in the back-end of the season.