I have a foot in both camps. Our midfield was comprehensively beaten nearly every week this year....we barely won an inside 50 count at all...however our defence and forwards generally outperformed others (factoring in the massively lopsided inside 50 count)....so....if we can fix this one thing we will be contenders....if not, we won't. So you have to question Brett Kirk and Dean Cox....
On the other hand, as a general rule, the best players make the worst coaches - Hird, Voss, Leppitsch, Frawley, Watson anyone??? Buckley has taken 9 years to (possibly) become a decent coach. 9. Years. The players who should make the best coaches are those who REALLY had to work on their own games and then did so to become champions DESPITE not being very innately talented. So, by my theory Brett Kirk, de-listed rookie who became an All Australian, premiership player, captain and (I'm guessing) club champion, fits that bill perfectly. He is also very intelligent, unselfish and a real people person.Don't forget the Cox was a rookie too, so it's not like he had it on a silver platter. In my opinion Hird, Voss and Buckley - the tripod of legendary players from when I first became hooked on football, literally cannot comprehend what it is like to play the game without the talents they possessed themselves. - and that is why they failed as coaches. Maybe, just maybe, Buckley has learned from his failure and will prove to be a decent coach. If he had been coaching any other team, with any other president he would have been fired last year. Leigh Matthews is the great exception. Malthouse, Sheedy and Thompson were moderately talented players who had to fight and scrap to get every last ounce out of themselves, but rose to become champions anyway. that would be the preferred pedigree for a coach because he needs to inspire that grit in 44 players under his management. Can you imagine having that charm magnet Michael Voss as a coach? "Geez Brendan I don't understand why you didn't kill that first bloke, fend off the second, carry half the team on your own back, do a 360 then kick it post high from 50 on your left? - That's what I would have done! what's wrong with you, you useless mongrel?"
Bookmarks