'Twas here: Brett Montgomery
85, 92, 97, 98, 08, 09, 10... Break the curse!
Geelong -- fail.
What's with the fascination with 'going with a fresh approach'? How about 'building on success' ie. rewarding stability, valuing embedded knowledge etc.? Teams like Geelong that have been up for a while forget how hard it was to get up there in the first place, and assume that anyone else they pick to come in will succeed, albeit with fresh ideas, but they are just as likely (more likely, probably) to fall right back to the hard chasing pack.
Collingwood and Sydney have placed a premium on internal stability, and will reap the rewards. There seems to be a real fear of the players' getting tired of an old message, or the perception that an outmoded gameplan must be replaced by replacing the architects of that gameplan -- surely those creative enough to craft a winning gameplan in the first place would be your best bet in crafting your NEXT winning gameplan, rather than some untried dude with a nice powerpoint?
This is Essendon appointing a totally disconnected outsider in Matthew Knights post-Sheedy all over again -- sure they have great facilities, and sure they have a pretty impressive list (at the moment), but it's Thompson's list, and one that underperformed for a long time before it clicked. For a list starting to fray you need more stability, not less -- Scott is coming into a job to arrest the end of a mini-dynasty, with the list on a downward slope which just lost its best player, with zero experience as a senior coach and very little experience as a assistant.
This will end in tears.