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A defence of David Teague and why it must fail

I started writing this as a comment of the Port debacle, it morphed into a rant on the coaching position.  I am a long time admirer of David Teague and was rapt he got the job and had high hopes at the start of the year.  Over the course of the year it has become increasingly untenable to support his retention of the position.  The post started looking at the injury list and how it has cruelled us of late, indeed all year and how it explained to some extent our poor year.  But the inexorable logic took hold of me and it headed off in the opposite direction.  As per the Sherlock Holmes quote "Once you eliminate the impossible whatever is left is the truth" or something to the effect.  The unpalatable truth.  Below is a cut and paste of what as I say started as a reflection on the Port game and what it told us that showed that to some extent events conspired against David Teague - as indeed they have.

Haven't seen any of the game bar the clip of Honeys 2 goals.  First time since I have had home internet (and I was an early adopter) I have not seen either live or delayed at least the majority of a game.  But Coles rostered my daughter on for a shift that covered the game time and we decided it being Murphy's 300th we'd watch it after she came home, neither knowing anything of the game (nor having any great hopes).  I managed to avoid all news but my daughter rings just after getting off work to tell me when she turned her phone back on the result hit her as the top item and maybe it would be best not to bother with our delayed viewing ...   So I haven't watched it and probably won't except for the 5 minute edit from Kayo - that and the feedback on here will I think more than tell me enough.  Sad that I can't stomach watching the game, but in fairness to the team it seems we tried but when Port decided to try we just got over-run by a far better team than the one we were ABLE to put out today.  Last week I wrote a rant saying we should pick all fit players who did not play in the Suns game and top them up with those who least deserved to be dropped.  That amounted to about 10 players when injuries and so forth were factored in and i noted that of course such a selection would never happen and such a team would be absolute cannon fodder - but we ended up halfway to that number of changes and the outs were not our worst but amongst our best.  Little wonder we were thrashed on that view.  And looking at it we were down nearly to bare bones.  Who COULD have been in instead of the 23 + 3 we picked, injury taken into account?  By my calculation there were only 6 other players that could have been chosen - 2 uncapped (Carroll and Ramsay), 3 barely more experienced (Owies Parks & Cottrell) and the comparative veteran Fogarty.  No gamechangers there.  And considering that, I think we have collectively failed to give enough weight to the impact of our injury curse this year.  Suppose the worst happened on the "available for selection" front - and given our trend this year it would be no shock - and neither Cripps nor Martin come up next week, nor Saad, nor any of the players who have been a test or worse according to the injury list from Tuesday.   By my calculation that would leave us 29 players from whom to select our 26.  And given the impact on our taller stocks - we had 9 of out 11 tallest players out I heard from one commentator in the preview - our structure was pretty completely shot.  And of course the talls have been that way for a good part of the season.  And in the first half of the season we pretty much won when we were favoured and lost when we weren't - which is not good but is by definition "pretty much" meeting expectations.  The second half we were cruelled by injury and there is a fair excuse in that - except for the fact that our best and worst so fluctuated, our worst all contained the same issues and the playing and coaching staff seemed to have no clue how to stop an opposition run-on.  If this week we lose Saad to injury and Murphy to retirement if no-one else falls over and no-one comes up from injury it becomes 27 from whom to choose 26.  Embarrassing for whoever misses out!  The equivalent of being the last kid picked in the schoolyard game.  But surely that goes a long way to justifying our non-competitiveness of late and maybe our good performances should be lauded as triumphs of will rather than our poor ones decried?  Nah, no matter how you look at it, in the Norf and Weagles games (at least) we choked when it was ours for the taking.  And last week it was threadbare talent pool against threadbare talent pool, the other mob just rose to the occasion and we didn't.  And as for today, well we can no longer say "at least the days of the massive belting are gone" - 19 goals straight conceded!  A 118 point turnaround in 2 and a half quarters!  Am I having a nightmare?  Will I wake to find the reality is  nowhere near that bad?  Surely no AFL 23 should be that outclassed by another, COULD be so outclassed if having a real go?  My hope for today was that we would come and show real intent and commitment and endeavour and if we weren't good enough so be it, weight will stop a train as the punters say and injuries will hobble any side.  And just looking at the score worm - midway through term 2 it looked so much better than that, even at half time one could still say they must have brought the endeavour, but thereafter undeniable and utter capitulation.  I just saw the headline "Teague concedes woeful effort could cost job"!  I have long been a Teague fan - I was rapt when he came to the club I always thought he had the makings of a senior coach, I was pleased to see him get the job and at the start of this year had genuine optimism.  But how can he survive the utter inability to defend that is the hallmark of his teams?  Blame the players sure, they are lazy one way runners in the main, or else limited in skill or footy nous or otherwise but isn't that what the coaching staff are there to work on - skills and strategy and buying in to the collective endeavour?  Three strikes and you're out batter, none out of 3 is bad Mr Loaf, and when you hit the iceberg every friggen voyage Captain Smith you go down with the Titanic no other choice.  As I say I was a Teague booster, I admired his courage as a player and his promise as a coach but this year has eaten away at optimism to the point where surely he has to go.  I know the coaching fraternity has its respect for each other - see the Hardwick approach - and no-one wants to be the guy who the incumbent coach gets sacked for, but the results make this a mercy killing rather than an assassination.  No longer could a prospective coach feel he is kicking a man when he is down, the results of the experiment cannot be interpreted any other way than complete failure of the coaching team to implement a plan, strategy or ethos  in the playing group.  And yes that blame gets shared with the playing group (some of whose papers are surely stamped - veterans time to go, battlers we know you've tried your best, injury victims we know it's not your fault, guys who don't want it bad enough, enough said) and spread amongst the coaching group (all of whom surely face the question of why they deserve to keep their job rather than why they deserve to lose it) but in the end whilst a big part of being a senior coach is bringing together the good work of those supporting you in the coaching and playing ranks and you can't pull your socks up if you don't have any, the job is mainly man management and the simplest and most logical explanation is not that the whole body of assistants and players as a collective just don't stack up, it's that their leader isn't getting it to gel.  And Ockham's razor says the simplest answer is the one to go with.  And here the simplest answer is the head coach can't get the collective to gel.  And if that is the conclusion reached, as sadly I think it must be (for as I say I admire much about Teague and held high hopes), there can be only one verdict members of the jury and only one sentence that that verdict entails.

Any way, I think I have used up every cliche possibly relevant and try as I don't want to digress into a coach by coach analysis here (in brief the development coaches are all relatively fresh and seem to have had some successes this year when players have finally been given a shot in the seniors, the forward and defence coaches have their admirers, and if the midfield has seemed shallow it has been off the back of not playing the younger brigade at all (eg Dow most of the year) or where they made themselves known (eg SPS) and these are coaching decisions that even if the strategy if you can call it that comes from the assistant/s should be overruled by the senior coach when, or I should say IF, he sees it is not working, but all Teague's public pronouncements are that he sees that it is working.  **Another cliche I can dredge up "insanity lies in repeating the same actions expecting different results" - not suggesting Teague is insane, but replace "insanity" with "delusion" and measure him up against that amended version of the cliche and it's an ugly picture.**  And don't tell me the defensive strategies are the responsibilty the defensive coach, the offensive of the offensive coach, the transitions of the transitions coach etc etc, first they have to get the "very well, carry on" from the head coach when they pitch the idea originally AND if they aren't working the head coach has the OBLIGATION to say tear up that strategy and play one that works - Teague has presumably ticked off the strategies and has clearly not abandoned them.  One on one defence - yeh let's go with that unlike every other team in the comp, let's do whatever is we do on transition from defence (can anyone discern a plan), let's bomb it long when all our talls are missing (for that matter it usually doesn't work when you have the cattle except when it's a bomb to a mismatch, the quality of intercept marking means "bomb it long create a contest and crumb the spill" works out instead to be "bomb it long and the intercept turns into a rebound" and in our case too often the rebound slices all the way through the midfield who by and large have left their man and don't seem to have any urgency to chase anyway and generates inside defensive 50 entries no defender can be expected to keep out TIME AFTER TIME AFTER TIME. 

The architects of this mess called the Carlton Football Club may be many but the architects of the mess called the Carlton game plan are the coaches and ultimately their leader and, one last cliche, this is surely the straw that breaks the back of the camel called the Teague-supporters, or at least this one.

Re: A defence of David Teague and why it must fail

Reply #1
This sounds a little like a David King rant. Seems to take both the black and white position, then goes for the position which was established before the post was even started. There's no doubt in my mind you write very well, but it sounds like the conclusion was formed before the pros and cons were laid out.

The mitigating circumstances (injuries, review, pressure, time in job, covid, lack of support etc.) are completely real and completely legit. I stated elsewhere that before the club reverts to type (yet again) that they need to clearly understand that in our situation, sacking the coach should be a last resort only, a genuine last resort after all avenues for evaluating the future potential of the coach have been exhausted. For Carlton, sacking coaches has been done far too easily. You wonder why the players can't handle pressure when they see the Board bail at the first sign of trouble.

Re: A defence of David Teague and why it must fail

Reply #2
@Paul

You have a very valid point. How can anyone as a member of an organisation really feel loyal or fully commit to it when they see it blame and turn on its people when there are setbacks or tough times?
Reality always wins in the end.

 

Re: A defence of David Teague and why it must fail

Reply #3
It honestly started out as "in fairness injuries killed us this game, indeed all year, give Teague that much slack" and turned into the exact opposite.  Maybe the breaking of the dam wall I had built in my mind in defence of the coach caused an irresistible tide that looks like premeditation but I genuinely mean the Teague-booster turning into broken-backed camel analogy.  In my defence on another forum where I posted and was asked how I could review a game I hadn't watched after pointing out I never claimed it was a review of anything but rather a comment/reflection/rant I proferred the following " ... the possible explanations are or at least include:

1. Frustration :mad:;
2. Lack of sleep:tired:;
3. Alcohol:drunk:;
4. Lack of desperately needed professional psychiatric help (the cathartic process of getting on fan forums not counting as "professional"):warning::sick::warning:; and/or
5. All of the above 🎯😜

Maybe I should run a poll or just go get that option 4 happening😜."

So thank you for your much kinder response and for saying I write well.  I would appreciate everyone's response to suggestion 4 - I may need urgent intervention😜.

Re: A defence of David Teague and why it must fail

Reply #4
I can only speak for myself, but I'd like to see you post more. I have no idea what you're like away from the forums, but no psychiatric evaluation required, based on what I can see.  ;D

Your thread title is quite provocative, maybe more than the actual post. I can see why you feel that way, but I'm firmly in the "let Teague see out his contract" camp. Last night we had a team of VFL players (who are in the main flyweight midgets) against a flag fancy at near full strength on their home deck. Port can be flaky, but their best is premiership quality IMO. When you take into account the toll taken by the review, Eddie's issues with addressing racism and all the rest, last night's result was probably not surprising. I know some say these are excuses, but I don't think so.

Re: A defence of David Teague and why it must fail

Reply #5
Bolton was too defensive, Teague too offensive, both gsme plans too hard.

Shut the doors, because simple doesn't work there is no chance that being both offensive and defensive would work.

Maybe we can trade our players out for draft picks, throw the next ones to the wolves, and then we can spend the next 6 years destroying two more coaches reputations before we concentrate on standards.

Hinkley was appointed when we appointed malthouse.

Since then we've had 3 senior coaches and they've had one coach coaching one style and they haven't imploded and sold the farm along the way.

We would have sacked him last season after not winning the flag to go with the minor premiership.
"everything you know is wrong"

Paul Hewson