There is IMO, a difference between a couple of dissenting voices (inevitable when you have 40+ players, assistant coaches and other support staff) and the seemingly en masse switching off,
I think in Pagan's case, he had Carey and he had Archer, and that made a huge difference because it greatly diminished the opinions of the rest. But that might be normal for any club.
In all my years in and around football clubs, I've never found a club with undisputed and unequivocal unity, such claims usually come retrospectively after a flag or other similar success, but they are a mirage.
So perhaps losing some players is normal, and it is who you lose that makes all the difference.
But I'd still assert, if the top leadership and by top I mean above the coach, is stable, consistent and gives the coach unconditional support. Usually issues never grow beyond a seed. Whiteants live in rot.
And governance of the playing group lies with the football manager and senior coach. Again we land at inadequate leadership.
I think that's an oversimplification.
We've had an issue spanning too many coaching regimes for this just to be the coaches, it's most likely having too many of the wrong type of people with close access to the playing group. Too many cooks.
Personally, I see it in the outbursts of Mathieson Snr. When Dick Pratt was up and about, and to some degree Sayers, the faceless types were schtum. In between we get noise and we see chaos result, in my opinion that is a huge tell!
Whiteants are always about, some caretakers are good at keeping watch and staying the threat, others not so much! Whiteants are the biggest threat to success because they are opportunistic and driven by reward, they are more insidious, more devious, when the prize is large.
I remain highly skeptical that the typical discourse(s) conducted by supporters bears much resemblance at all to the discourse conducted by football people within the four walls. If one measures this "losing the players" by on field performance, then I guess our fluctuations under Voss are like a case of lost and found ? First half 23, lost. Second half 23, found. First half 24, found, etc.
Sorry but I don't buy it. I should make it clear that my ire is not directed at you.
I suspect it's more likely there are factions between players than a specific issue with the coach.
If there are factions in our group they are enabled and driven by the culture at the club, these things do not form bottom up without some failure of governance.
Piastri is correct to be pissed off with the penalty that cost him the race, this is F1 politics at it's finest.
Interesting also that it's again Red Bull involved, because Verstappen did the exact same thing in a race earlier this season and wasn't penalised at all, while last night Piastri got what is probably the maximum penalty for the same action. Who complains makes a difference.
Perhaps karma got even with Max for bleating about Piastri slowing, but it doesn't help McLaren who now have two drivers head to head, but it helps Red Bull to have Piastri and Norris squabbling.
btw., IN case somebody thinks it's spitting chips for Piastri, he was basically the clear best driver on the day, passing Verstappen, maintaining and growing a gap in front. While Norris only gained ground through other driver errors and penalties.
Well the debacle continues, the only players to fire a shot today are some of the ones the NSW Cricket mafia want kyboshed!
In the meantime someone like Boland remains relegated to watching on, as the entrenched bowling solution will no doubt mop up cheap wickets in trying conditions. Then the mafia will point to the stats and claim they already have the better options.
Yet it seems the same doesn't apply to the batting selection, the batting failure is written off as a sticky wicket.
It's good bowling, relative to something mystery measure, and the batting is only poor due to the wicket!
We've seen a roll out of a change in tactics, and it's fine, but it's new and we haven't seen it capably implemented yet at AFL level, we are doing it in bursts and as we go we are learning about opposition countertactics.
For a long time we bemoaned the apparent absence of a Plan B, now we have it some fans want it thrown out because we aren't getting an instant result, but it's new and fans need to be patient.
I'm not nearly as upset about the tactics and coaching as I am about the poor implementation, because where it falls down are in the execution of basic skills.
We only need one or two quick players, or one or two quality bilateral players, and time and space opens up for everybody and you'll see the basic errors diminish. This is what the likes of Daicos, Pendelbury and Sidebottom bring to the Filth.
In the past, our slower endurance and strength based list missed a massive trick, they all should have been incessantly training their offside and the lack of leg speed would be a non-issue, like it's a non-issue for Sidebottom and Pendlebury. If our list had developed 80% of Diesel's handball skills and the same percentage of Scotland's kicking they be laughing, but it's too late as 28 year olds!
The idea that someone like Saad can make it through a whole AFL career and still be effectively a unilateral ball user is a condemnation on our club and the AFL system in general. It's a fundamental high level skill that is almost completely absent in our list.
Whether they are capable or not has little relevance to how hard they are trying, I'm arguing the assertion that they aren't making an effort is bullsh1t, in fact it's an insult!
Someone like Evans tries just as hard if not harder in the AFL, he wants the gig desperately, but he is competing against a whole other level of opponent.
The solution to last Thursday was Saturday night. Keep running forward, keep moving forward, don't go in your shell when you make mistakes, trust your team mates will keep having a go, and try and kick and handball the ball to your team mates, and finally, don't give up.
Send them a note.
Do you genuinely think the AFL team aren't trying to do this?
I think it's easy to confuse a perceived difference in tactic with an inability to implement a tactic. Structurally I can't see any real difference between the AFL and VFL game tactics from last weekend, but the tactics are significantly easier to implement against Port Melbourne in the VFL than they are against even a weaker AFL opponent. We can do it in the AFL, but not for 4-qtrs.
Anyone watching Evans and Durdin struggle in the AFL should be acutely aware of that.
Could Cowan and Carroll do in the AFL what they did in the VFL for 4-qtrs, possibly, but most likely only partially, certainly it would be to a lesser extent. Without Cowan and Carroll breaking lines and hitting those targets forward of the contest, Evans, Durdin and Camporeale would find themselves in heavy traffic and the outcome would be very different, they would lose effectiveness. That surely seems familiar.
If it was as easy as moving into the AFL and repeating the VFL procedure everybody would be doing it!
Glad Luke Power seems to value the modern more expansive style than the 1960s game the seniors play.
I think our VFL game tactics Saturday night were closer to the AFL teams tactics than they have been all season, which against Hird's group make the game a shoot out.
The difference Saturday night was basically that we had Cowan and Carroll who both played 4-qtrs and mopped up in defence to kick things off on the attack with plenty of rebound.
There will be a lot of fans boosting Evans, Durdin and Moir, but they all really only played 1/2 a game, they can't do that at the next level and get away with it like they did Saturday night.
Austria was probably the best first 5 or 10 laps of the season, the racing between Norris and Piastri was as good as it gets before the team orders put the kybosh on it.
I felt sorry for Piastri, he suffered a bit from his past with Alpine doing it's best attempt at a trip pitting cars twice to send them out in front of him on fresh tyres while he was trying to close the gap between himself and Norris. In effect F1 politics robbed us of a grandstand finish, but that's F1.
The only thing that was a bit unsavoury was in the late stages Norris started begging the team for help as Piastri was 0.5s per lap faster and closing rapidly. Norris has a big weakness relative to Piastri, Norris burns tyres faster and is nowhere near as neat and tidy around the track.
