Re: If Not BB, Who?
Reply #86 –
We’ve been patient and trusting. In fact trusting to a Herculean level. And we’ve made progress, the CFC is now a world leader in how to lose really, really well. It’s not a catastrophe, yet.
From my understanding it was a commitment from the club, based on surveying us, that we wanted no quick fixes and no more blowouts.
Well, the club and senior coach have delivered on that. The ‘old Carlton’ would have sent BB, and others, packing long ago. We stayed the course for the first 2 years, with stoic persistence and moved the club away from way too many massive losses. These high number of blowouts are sure a thing of the past.
But…
We are now faced with a massive problem. We do not know how to win. We’ve got the blokes to win games, of that I am certain. Many sides have achieved a lot more with much less.
The problem is that a mind-set of avoiding huge defeats, is now ingrained in our club. It’s now the culture. Conservative, safe coaching is the norm.
Our players are now delivering exactly what they been trained to do over the past 3 years… avoid a bad loss. That’s their focus. That’s our focus. And it’s rock solid.
But when it came time to change that focus, realising we had to start kicking winning scores, to be more offensive, we seem to have found ourselves stuck in the initial mental conditioning/programming. Remember the start of last year? We announced over the summer of ‘17/’18 that we were adding an ‘offensive layer’. Lasted about 15 minutes into the 2018 season, then as soon as bona fide pressure was applied to our blokes, we ‘reverted to type.’ And we are still to this day, ‘reverting to type’ when pressure is applied. We do not know how to win, but we do know how to avoid a blowout, and this is BBs very obvious strength.
We need someone else to help transition the players to a winning mind-set. Not a Messiah, just someone who understands how to develop a winning mind-set in a sporting club.
To ask BB to suddenly become a very different senior coach/person with a different message is an horrendously difficult transition, not to mention whether the players will buy it. Looks like they’re not (as I assume he’s trying just that, now). And how could they? Some will (looks like Ed bought it big time), but most won’t. Do we want Walsh to have a safe/conservative mind-set?
What makes suggesting the need for strong change in coaching approach/style all the more difficult is that saying anything apparently negative about BB is like shooting Bambi. The bloke is so likeable, affable, bubbly… even sweet, so how dare you, Baggers, suggest he’s not the bloke for 2020 onward!!?? Doe like eyes, a smile that lights up the room… sheesh, even the media is going easy on him, cutting him way more slack than just about anyone else.
We probably made a rod for our backs with the initial brief to BB, which he delivered on, in spades, in the first 2 years… but he couldn’t change the course of the ship… stick to the coast, avoid rough seas (to use my former RAN life speak).
Arguments around ‘too many kids’ don’t cut it. Plenty of sides have an imbalance of kids and still find ways to win, ways to kick more than 100 pts. We definitely looked good enough to win our first 3 games this year, we just don’t know how to win.
Even when this side achieves perfect cohesion, it’ll only deliver brave, spirited, honourable losses week in week out (sound familiar?). Sure we’ll win a few games, but only against opposition in really bad form.
Wonder if anyone in the media will have the macaroons to ask hard questions about where our rebuild sits at this very minute. I bet the club expected us to be way better now than we presently are – equal bottom and with an uncanny ability to get into winning positions then sabotage it. If we stay this course for much longer we will run aground.