Flagging spirit in tamer times
Damian Barrett | May 16, 2009
FOOTBALL clubs used to be ruthless places of employment, particularly for coaches.
At the first hint of under-performance, you were open to the sack. Sometimes you'd cop it even if you had more victories than defeats.
It was ruthless workplace practice, and if blood wasn't being spilt at a club, it was a mere matter of time until it was.
Clubs are less vicious these days. They work with a big picture in view, and are more considered in their dismissal methods.
That, obviously, is a good thing for coaches. But, when you combine that outlook with the embracing of an AFL system that encourages low-ladder finishes, it is reasonable to ask: has it made clubs better?
Might it, even, have slowly instilled in some clubs an acceptance of sustained mediocrity, removed from them a sense of urgency that was once paramount for employment at a club?
Once, every club set out to win that year's premiership. These days, and this year particularly, as few as five clubs seriously give themselves a chance of winning the flag.
Such an outlook is clubs being realistic. But perhaps that realism is a product of the boards of those clubs being too willing to tolerate sustained periods of failure.
The old footy ways of people like Graeme Richmond and Ron Joseph and Jack Elliott and Co are frowned upon by the modernists, but when you boil down the whole debate, can it be proven they went about it the wrong way?
They, and others around them, made ruthless decisions that ensured every single person at their clubs had it drummed into them that only one thing mattered --that year's premiership.
These days, five-year plans are talked about as though they are short-term. Hello, Richmond.
Carlton sacked Robert Walls as coach in early 1989. Walls had won a premiership in 1987 and taken the Blues to third place in '88.
Walls only got the Carlton job after David Parkin, who won premierships in 1981 and 1982 and made the finals the following three years, was sacked after a fifth-placed finish in 1985.
Richmond moved on Tony Jewell for Francis Bourke. Jewell led the Tigers to a premiership in 1980. But a seventh-placed result in 1981 saw him axed. Bourke made a Grand Final in his first year and was gone 12 months later.
In 11 seasons as Richmond coach, Tom Hafey won four flags and was runner-up once, took the Tigers to a further two preliminary finals and missed the finals just four times. Yet, he was out of a job after a seventh-placed end to the 1976 season.
From Punt Rd, Hafey went to Collingwood, which had finished last in '76 and took it to the 1977 Grand Finals (a tie and a loss to North Melbourne). In 1978, the Hafey-led Magpies finished third, followed by second ('79), second ('80), and second ('81).
Part-way through 1982, he was replaced by Mick Erwin.
Obviously, not all coach lynchings worked for a club. But, North Melbourne's greatest era can be attributed to a brutal decision late in the pre-season of 1993 when Wayne Schimmelbusch was axed for Denis Pagan.
St Kilda has made the two most recent old-style footy coach sackings. Malcolm Blight was sensationally ousted during his first season in 2001, and replaced by Grant Thomas, who similarly sensationally, was moved on himself after 2006.
It is a good thing that clubs won't return en masse to the dark old days when coaches were lopped almost for practice.
But it is not a good thing that the mindset of too many - at least half - of the 16 in the competition begin each year not only accepting they won't make the top four, but actually preparing not to make it.
Yes, times have changed, and these days there are teams in five states. And yes, there are financial inequities that virtually preclude some teams from competing for a premiership.
But, too many clubs have too little urgency in pursuing the only thing that really matters - the flag.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25489439-11088,00.html
