CentralCoastEagle said:
Tc I'm not buying your argument about needing players with footwork etc etc. There is nothing wrong with our roster. Lawrence, Rose, Kite, Symonds and co all have great footwork and have demonstrated it from time to time.
There are three teams above us and all of them are expert at getting a fast play the ball. Every member of their team goes to ground face down and gets the fast play the ball. They are coached to do it and are very effective. Souths are the best at it and two seasons ago they were one of the worst....why, because they have been coached to do it. If our boys are being coached to do it, it has been utterly ineffective.
Similarly with our attack. We are predictable and are using the same moves as 5 years ago.
It all points to the coach.
I'm not saying Tooves or Hasler are not to blame I'm stating the attacking issues go well beyond this year and simply blaming the coach is not the be all and end all.
Players are old enough to grow and learn as players and don't always need a coach to improve their skillset or attacking structures. Do you honestly think all the plays Melb come up with are created by Bellamy.
The big 3 at Melb are always looking to improve their games and study their own plays in more intricate detail than what our halves and backs have been doing.
I believe it is 50/50 the players need to get out of their comfort zones and create more plays to improve as ballplayers and the coach has to encourage and lay the platform to allow this growth to flourish.
Tooves has been working on the flaws in our attack that Hasler has left behind but a lack of depth in the forwards an aging forward roster and not making some hard decisions are working against us at the moment.
But i do agree if i could see these issues 4 years ago why didn't the coaching staff and players at the time address it, they are paid big bucks to think ahead.
Now this is not some jump on the bandwagon as we are not performing well in attack thread people on these forums thought i was a nut for expressing these same issues years ago when we were almost leading the attack.
Many times your weakest component in the future is what appears to do well in the present. You have to look deeper and develop a more complex mindset that is capable of extrapolating forward the data into what may progressively happen.
I don't always look at what works well and admire it to the point of enjoyment i prefer to look at what is wrong with it to stay ahead of the curve.