If you discount Rawlings, Wallace really left early, Hardwick is our 3rd coach in 13 years with 1 finals appearance and none in 11 years.
I like what Hardwick has done but the facts are 14 wins from 44 games and several heavy defeats in both years.
To effectively give him another 3 years is to provide him with a 5 year tenure with as poor a win/loss record as you can get.
I get all the reasons for the poor record but fact is on field results rest with head coach and playing group.
We are a football club not a country club and the reality is that crap clubs get nervous and jump the gun - demons dean Bailey, bombers Mattie knights and the good ones wait - hawks.
The club simply has to be better, work closely with the coach and his manager and let him know what they are looking for in the last year of a contract without coughing up a contract before the final year has started.
The coach needs to be realistic and mature enough to realize that this is good management and be confident in his ability to deliver.
Both need to be bigger than to react or seen to react to external pressures such as media
speculation.
I think the leadership of the club has proven (again) to be unable to hold it's nerve in a high pressure situation (sacking or resigning a coach too quickly).
We could've and should've waited and the posters on this thread who have applauded the decision are allowing emotion to get in the way of the facts which is exactly what they have in common with the clubs decision makers and is why we continue to behave like a suburban football club
Totally disagree and if you know as you stated in your post the reasons why we have such a poor win loss ratio then that is only half the picture.
Culture of the club has changed. His appointment has brought stability and a new crop of people all working in one direction rather than each marching to the beat of their own drum.
14 from 44 wins is not great but the team is pllaying a much better more accountable brand of footy and the implementations put in place on and off the field have benefit the on field side of things and boosted the off field.
Not all will be happy y&b and that's fine but if nobody can see the upside of the list and what Dimma has done then I can't help that either.
You say country footy club: Another country footy club in Hawthorn offered a contract extension to Alastair Clarkson in 2006 his second season with a similar win loss ration around 14 wins in 2 seasons and the following year they finished 6th and then won a flag. The dye is not cast for us to follow those steps but the romance of Sheedy or Mick or some other RFC legend to come back to the club and coach us to the promised land has come and gone a long time ago.
I applaud this and do not think that the club have been hasty in this at all. It seems that the club have known this along a long and chose the Season Launch to inform the fans and sponsors. We could always go back to 2007 and have Walla$$ tell us about winning a flag in 2011 and anything else that went down like a wet balloon that night.
