AFL Merkin was Head of Performance. We didn’t perform.
There’s my internal review.
However, if you read the whole post you would know that I wasn’t just referring to AFL Merkin. It seems no one will be held to account for the 2018 season.
FFS, Penrith were a top 4 side when they punted their coach and Brisbane are doing well and for whatever reason, have already decided that Bennet won’t be extended. These are the kinds of clubs who hold their staff to account.
Righto, it just seems that AFL Guy was the guy (along with BA) that has been thrown under the bus in these forums. Our form started to turn around after the first Cows game and many here attributed this to AFL stepping aside. My lay understanding of strength and conditioning is that if you have been poorly prepared, you can’t swing your strength and endurance base around that quickly. So there must be more to it.
My observations of the first dozen games was that we got found out by teams who “worked us out”. We failed to change what worked for us in late 2016 and in 2017. We were stunned mentally as a playing group and the coaching staff that what used to work now found us being dominated. We may have looked cooked on the field, but we were a team who were starved of possession due to a cluster f**k of unforced errors, stale tactics and shattered confidence. We looked cooked as a consequence of only having 30 or 40% possession and having to make sometimes twice the number of tackles.
For mine, if you wish to attribute blame to our failure this season you need to analyse the circumstances of each game and what could have been done better. Once isolated, these flaws can be attributed to individuals. IIRC we lost nearly 10 games by less than a few points and 8 games when we scored an equal number of tries.
In those games which we lost by a close margin, I thought that our biggest flaw was the failure to come away with points in the red zone. We would work hard to get down there and then run predictable block plays or just run sideways.
I don’t mind holding players and staff to account, but when going through this process it needs to be done with clear realistic eyes, making sure that you don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. You don’t pay out a coach or move on a player unless you have something better lined up. The last thing I want are rookie halves and a new coach who needs to embark on yet another 5 year plan so he can build his squad.
IMHO if the club does not see a future with BA, then I think they need to move him on now. I say this on the basis that they have a better coach (not just a merkin with potential) lined up. We have a huge number of players coming off contract at end 2019 and the new guy should be able to be active in the market from November.
