I keep going back to the Geelong situation in 2006. All the talk was about them being serious contenders after 2 strong and improved years in '04 and '05 under the new coach Thompson. End of '06 they finished 10th and Thompson was under severe pressure of being sacked. Instead, Costa implemented a searching, thorough, club-wide review and made sweeping changes in the football area. They gave the footy dept a lot more resourcing and took a lot of responsibility away from Thompson. They gave him set boundaries that he was permitted to work in and be responsible for, and he wasn't allowed to work outside those. It led to a much more focussed and productive coach, much more cohesion in the team and a premiership 12 months later. We don't need Hardwick to be a quasi-salesman for the new regime any more and maybe the club needs to review the things it needs/allows him to be involved in or responsible for. Surround him with more and better people, and let him coach and only coach. I think he is not far from being in serious threat of getting the flick, especially if there is not a lot of soul-searching and acceptance of real reasons for failure at season's end.
Geelong 2006 are so different to us. Their side had played finals for a few years with a very young side then had a bad year, 2006. They didn't take short cuts. We have.
Not as different as you might think YABB. Thompson took over an aging side in 2000 and took them to the finals but went out first game. For the next 3 seasons Geelong cleaned out and rebuilt their list with the core of what proved to be one of the best teams of the modern ages but in doing so, they finished 12th, 9th and 12th. As the new kids started to develop they improved and finished 4th then 6th and looked primed for a tilt but the sudden crash back to 10th was nearly the end of Thompson until the review was conducted and the rest as they say, is history. Not dissimilar to our situation at all, except for the fact that Thompson's starting position probably wasn't as dire as Hardwick's. But as TM said, whether the club has the courage and honesty about itself to do a similar review is another thing entirely, and I don't believe they do or will.
