Re: blues played better footy under ratts
Reply #35 –
The loser mentality is no more exemplified than by the twats that wanted Ratts gone because because they thought we could win a premiership and now that they have their new coach, blame the players. That's a loser mentality if I ever saw one.
One of our cultural negatives at the moment is the wish for instant gratification. We, as a club, have fallen into the habit of expecting it. Not even the great Ronald Dale Barassi managed a premiership in his first year. It took 4 years to reach the reward after a generation of mediocrity. We went through huge changes in that 4 years on and off the field and we changed over a large portion of the list to do it.
We have to be patient now: nobody is going to turn us into a premiership team overnight. Ratten should be acknowledged for the job he did with our list: he turned a bunch of battlers into finalists. It IS where our expectations came from. However, I doubt that Ratts would have won us a flag: he was too comfortable with the list as it was and didn't move players on. In fact, his biggest weakness was his faith in the players: he wouldn't move them until too late.
He will be a better coach now for the experience at Hawthorn, but that is another issue.
The blow torch is now on the players, as we DO have a proven coach. Fair enough. But that lack of support and a negative comments towards our players isn't helping them gain any confidence.
Yes, we will have to make considerable changes at the end of the season. Malthouse took years to develop his list at Collingwood: it will take a while with us too. But the character assassinations of our players from outsiders like us do not help. Let's see if we can be a bit more realistic: our list is not going to change significantly until November and Malthouse has said that he isn't going to play kids just to play kids. He will wait until they are at least minimally ready to play senior footy. Then he will see if they have what it takes. But sacrificing them now isn't going to help us in the short or medium terms.
We have started the renewal process: we have a new off field leader. Let's have a little patience and a little faith as the changes start, because we are NOT going to beat everybody by magic! It takes time and development, not instant gratificiation.
Yep, excellent post.... Which reminds me of situation during Parko's second stint with us. In the second year of that stint (in 92 from mem), he quizzed the senior leadership group at selection, about what they thought was the reason for the sides poor performances. Sticks suggested that they needed to stop chopping and changing the side, to forgo instant results at the expense of long term stability and development.
Clearly the benefits apply to the coach as well. You simply can't keep chopping and changing, your gonna be better served in the long term by doing what's goal achieving rather than tension relieving.
And in anticipation of comparisons to having changed coach re Ratts, there's a 5+ year stint in comparison to 1 1/2 year stint. Madness to be calling for change again.