Pack your bags McCartney...

[azabob]

Re: Pack your bags McCartney...

Wood did it against the Suns, bravely got crunched blocking the hole.

If I had to back anyone on the list in for the spare man role, I'd nominate Stringer. Uses it well, reads the play and has the size to impact on a contest.

I did note that Lyon went with a 5 man forward line at the opening bounce and at the start of quarters - the style of game that was going to be played would never be a shootout.

Is Stringer mobile enough?

Everitt can play the 3rd man up role well - where is he at?

[GVGjr]

Re: Pack your bags McCartney...

You can't question the team's endeavour and the stats across the board show we get our fair share of possession.
McCartney has got that part of the equation right.

But...we play without any poise or incisiveness and our skills are often embarrassingly poor.
That is McCartney's problem.

Agreed on both points

[kruder]

Re: Pack your bags McCartney...

McCartney's other major problem is list management.

We have put hell of alot of development time into Jones,Cordy,Howard,Tutt,Grant,Roberts,Redpath and Pearce. You can also add Darley, Fuller and Young to that list and thats ~30% of the list with serious question marks against it.

If you take the glass empty approach, if some of these players don't come on we are in for an extended run at the bottom of the ladder.

[F'scary]

Re: Pack your bags McCartney...

McCartney's other major problem is list management.

We have put hell of alot of development time into Jones,Cordy,Howard,Tutt,Grant,Roberts,Redpath and Pearce. You can also add Darley, Fuller and Young to that list and thats ~30% of the list with serious question marks against it.

If you take the glass empty approach, if some of these players don't come on we are in for an extended run at the bottom of the ladder.

Yep, because you get 1 1st round draft pick, 1 2nd round draft pick, 1 3rd round draft pick, etc per year. After that it is trades and delisted players It is very difficult to transform the list in a relatively short period of time.

[azabob]

Re: Pack your bags McCartney...

McCartney's other major problem is list management.

We have put hell of alot of development time into Jones,Cordy,Howard,Tutt,Grant,Roberts,Redpath and Pearce. You can also add Darley, Fuller and Young to that list and thats ~30% of the list with serious question marks against it.

If you take the glass empty approach, if some of these players don't come on we are in for an extended run at the bottom of the ladder.

Which McCartney? Yes you are right though quiet a few changes need to be made at the end of the year.

[jeemak]

Re: Pack your bags McCartney...

Yep, because you get 1 1st round draft pick, 1 2nd round draft pick, 1 3rd round draft pick, etc per year. After that it is trades and delisted players It is very difficult to transform the list in a relatively short period of time.

Yeah, first of all Redpath is a rookie, while each of Darley and Fuller will be into their second year (the mandatory amount for a draftee) next year meaning it's likely the club will keep them on (unless there's serious attitude issues that need addressing IMO).

Even so, if we decided to delist all of the 10 listed players we could upgrade rookies to fill some gaps, and go to the preseason draft to supplement the national draft selection (last year's had nine rounds).

[F'scary]

Re: Pack your bags McCartney...

Yeah, first of all Redpath is a rookie, while each of Darley and Fuller will be into their second year (the mandatory amount for a draftee) next year meaning it's likely the club will keep them on (unless there's serious attitude issues that need addressing IMO).

Even so, if we decided to delist all of the 10 listed players we could upgrade rookies to fill some gaps, and go to the preseason draft to supplement the national draft selection (last year's had nine rounds).

I think the number of kruder's question marks is pretty reasonable and 3rd year rookies who don't look like they are going to be promoted are part of the issue. But I don't think some of the question marks are ready for the chop just yet - mind you, they have form when it comes to one or more of chequered careers, inconsistency and skill or physical deficiencies.

[whythelongface]

Re: Pack your bags McCartney...

Good passionate debate. I don't like the headline but certainly a lot of the recent debate is warranted, especially considering we have been disappointing based on our expectations coming off last year.

In saying that we have been disappointing I still believe that we are on the right path and that McCartney will continue to develop our team into a hard team that plays an uncompromising tough brand of no-frills football. I don't think we will have the cattle to play an attractive brand of football as we currently a) don't have the runners and b) don't have the forwards. This may change if we are able to draft/ trade for players that we are in short supply of. However in the short term we will probably grind out wins. It is tough and frustrating to watch at times, but unfortunately it is what it is.

McCartney also as a coach is still developing and has no doubt made mistakes on game day. Whilst he probably doesn't admit this publicly he probably self reflects and discusses what he and the coaches could do better on game day. However in saying that he can't take full responsibility for all our performances, some of this has to rest with the players - last weekend we had 67 inside 50's and managed 6 goals. At one stage we were 1.8 - surely this can't all be the coaches fault. The fact that we were able to control large chunks of the game against the beaten Grand Finalists says that our MC had some aspects of what was happening on game day right. If we had of been 5.3 or 6.2 even we would have had a good lead over Freo. Anyway my point is that whilst he is still developing as a coach, the whole club needs to take responsibility for the overall disappointing start to the season.

As supporters we want to see continuous improvement in our team and it is frustrating when things don't appear to be working, however as we are still a developing team I would like to see McCartney in his role for this season and next season. If by this time next season there has not been some serious improvement then it will be time to seriously look at his position, but until then I will continue to support him as Head Coach (this doesn't mean that he is beyond criticism).

[Go_Dogs]

Re: Pack your bags McCartney...

Nice post WTLF.

[LostDoggy]

Re: Pack your bags McCartney...

If we trade for a quality tall forward and don't improve next year I'll call for Macca's head. Until that point he still gets my support as I like 80 percent of what I see in his approach. You can paint a horse and cart bright red and its still not going to be a Ferrari. He needs this piece of the jigsaw before we can accurately judge.

[jeemak]

Re: Pack your bags McCartney...

If we trade for a quality tall forward and don't improve next year I'll call for Macca's head. Until that point he still gets my support as I like 80 percent of what I see in his approach. You can paint a horse and cart bright red and its still not going to be a Ferrari. He needs this piece of the jigsaw before we can accurately judge.

What happens if two or all of Boyd, Murphy and Gia retire (or get retired), Dale gets injured and we don't have Higgins because he was shipped off as part of a deal to GWS for an under-performing Patton, and finish on the same wins, or one less than we do this year?

Because, even though I doubt the landing of Patton is much of a chance the others I'm pretty nervous about and think will have a pretty negative impact on the performance of the team!

[Topdog]

Re: Pack your bags McCartney...

David king just described us as "difficult to watch". Talk about an understatement.

[The Bulldogs Bite]

Re: Pack your bags McCartney...

David king just described us as "difficult to watch". Talk about an understatement.

Yep - and not so long ago David King was a huge wrap for us, he was the first 'media personality' to jump on board last year before we even hit that late run of good form.

You don't have to be a genius to see that we're difficult to watch, but I really rate King and his footy opinion.

[Remi Moses]

Re: Pack your bags McCartney...

Yep - and not so long ago David King was a huge wrap for us, he was the first 'media personality' to jump on board last year before we even hit that late run of good form.

You don't have to be a genius to see that we're difficult to watch, but I really rate King and his footy opinion.

We're difficult to watch ( as are quite a few teams) David King swings in the breeze a bit with his opinion.
That whole hypothetical trade scenario he threw up was unrealistic .

[jeemak]

Re: Pack your bags McCartney...

David king just described us as "difficult to watch". Talk about an understatement.

By chance did he provide an insight on how we can go about fixing things? We all know we're difficult to watch, but apart from comments to that nature nobody seems to have tangibles aside from landing messiah key forwards to get us out of our current predicament.