Re: Post Game Pandemonium!: AFL 2020 Rd 17: Carlton vs Adelaide
Reply #71 –
Other clubs, all other clubs have had the same handicap, so that excuse or justification doesn't wash.
Time to take off the rose coloured glasses.
And to respond to another couple of your points, Tiggers came good because 1. Balme, 2. A creative 360 degree variant around heroes and Hardwick being removed from some areas and told to focus on coaching only. That session changed the culture, it was brilliant and the concept bound the blokes together in a short period of intense stuff and they've not looked back. Pussycats had a brutal 360 feedback course with Leading Teams and never looked back after that...
For us to toughen up there needs be a conscious exercise of strong confrontation / 360 feedback. Holy crap, we have a culture where players whine about a coach and get him the bullet - been doing it for years. Softness is ingrained, leave everything up to the superstars is ingrained. Relying on a 'tipping point' is living on 'someday isle.' We already have an ingrained tipping point... it come when opponents hit us with sustained pressure - we fold, we go to water, we crap ourselves.
We need to address these issues honestly and even brutally, that'll thin out a few non-hackers, and focus on deep cultural/psychological change. What do we stand for? What is our brand? How does the footy world see us? Chokers, that how we are viewed... big time chokers.
Holy mackerel did you see during the lockdown and no games the senior coach and one of the captains of the club spend a half hour on Zoom or Skype going through the playing list and taking the piss out of most players? I couldn't believe what I was watching.
Then, today (and there are plenty of other examples from the season) too many of our blokes are laughing and joking with opponents after an embarrassing loss. Seems the only people who hurt when we embarrass ourselves is the members and supporters. Too many players don't seem to give a crap... bar Walsh, do you see him after a loss - he hurts, hates losing, there are a few others but not enough. As I said, it is ingrained in our culture, losing... trying for a while... dropping our bundle when heat is applied... This will not change by expecting natural progression to take care of everything. It won't. Choking needs important and strong intervention.
There is nothing ruthless about our club. We're nice, we're talented, and we'll put up a fight... for a while, then... we'll choke.