Club Culture

[MintOnLamb]

Open for discussion.
The last minutes play against Gold Coast summed up our culture over the last 25 years.
Instead of trying to win by as much as possible when we have the upper hand and run of play,We crawl into a negative shell and fear of loss.
We lack self belief. We have the ability, we have the passion.
I would rather we went down fighting than dishing up that shocking, negative, keeping off, slow down play.
Until our team, our coaching staff, our club and supporters embrace a different attitude,
We will maintain this sort of negative attitude and culture.

[Gigantor]

as bizarre as this sounds,this embarasing loss might just be the making of this playing group..Lets see

[Simonator]

as bizarre as this sounds,this embarasing loss might just be the making of this playing group..Lets see

I find myself agreeing with this. Just quickly though, MintOnLamb, slowing it down was in-fact the right thing to do in the situation. It doesn't mean keeping's off chipping around in the back 50, all it means is just taking their time to find a good forward 50 entry and of course that will take time. We lost due to stupid errors by players, who will grow from it.

Now I was stuffin as p'ed off as any of the blokes on here when we lost this game. I normally control my temper but this really push me over the limit. We were always going to face really bad losses against clubs, were not at the level yet obviously where we can travel interstate with a winning mentality. We will get there though. Goldcoast actually played really well lets not forget that.
Not using it as an excuse but they showed some real heart and courage which our players didn't show ( apart from the 3rd quarter ).
In the press conference post game, Dimma said that he believes the loss will go one of 2 ways,
1) We will grow from it and learn and progress as a group
2) We will lose confidence and crawl back into our shells.

I hope and believe that we can progress as group from here, because that's what good clubs do. We have a stuffin solid quality of players coming in and our finals chances really aren't over,
but we will have to be right on top of our game. As a true supporter I'm going to believe we can bounce back and progress as a group, in stead of blaming the coach or Gale for selling our game.   

[Loui Tufga]

Open for discussion.
The last minutes play against Gold Coast summed up our culture over the last 25 years.
Instead of trying to win by as much as possible when we have the upper hand and run of play,We crawl into a negative shell and fear of loss.
We lack self belief. We have the ability, we have the passion.
I would rather we went down fighting than dishing up that shocking, negative, keeping off, slow down play.
Until our team, our coaching staff, our club and supporters embrace a different attitude,
We will maintain this sort of negative attitude and culture.

So why is it a Culture issue as aposed to a inexperience issue? We literally had our seconds side in, we had no leaders on the field in the dying moments and our the players that are just not up to it proved exactly that! I don't understand how Culture is to blame here?
Go back to the start of the season when we were full strenght and fighting games out against the top sides, the same top sides that have consistently flogged us over the last couple of seasons! Where we're our Culture issues at the beginning of the season? If it wasas bad as you say why wern't we just laying down and letting sides flog us by 100 points again? This rot has set in with injury and having to expose our youth and lack of real depth is costing us.
At the end of the day we have still improoved on last season by miles, we haven't gone backwards and the stats show we have Actualy been mentally tougher this season than the last 5 or 6 so how you blame a close loss with a team fielding 6 or 7 seconds players on culture is beyond me?

[Jackstar is back again]

Culture
Sydney Swans 

[Simonator]

Culture
Sydney Swans 

Watching footy classified too? 

[Smokey]

Culture
Sydney Swans 

And they didn't grow their's overnight either.

[Jackstar is back again]

No but they have never bottomed out and have unknowns playing good team footy

[Francois Jackson]

Culture
Sydney Swans 

spot on, you heard it too

Thats what makes clubs. Strong people who can lead a group of men

Jackson in the leadership group. What hope do we have

[the claw]

Culture
Sydney Swans 

you sure its not the simple fact they have about 27 players in the critical 23 plus age group. last time i looked richmond barely had 10 or 12.
they have at least 10 100 gamers  and probably about 12 15 players who have 50 to 99 games. how many do we have.
said at the start of the yr most of their list kpis pointed to top 4. just wasnt sure about their quality still aint.

[WA Tiger]

Culture
Sydney Swans 

And they didn't grow their's overnight either.

They have had it for as long as we have had a poor culture.."The Bloods"....

So why couldn't we adopt the same culture when they did, or two years ago, or last year, or this year????

[eliminator]

Need to work on our second quarters. Should have never let them get ahead by that much

[Francois Jackson]

Culture
Sydney Swans 

you sure its not the simple fact they have about 27 players in the critical 23 plus age group. last time i looked richmond barely had 10 or 12.
they have at least 10 100 gamers  and probably about 12 15 players who have 50 to 99 games. how many do we have.
said at the start of the yr most of their list kpis pointed to top 4. just wasnt sure about their quality still aint.

Of course that matters but we have had that age group of players before under Wallace, spud etc etc and guess what we still didn't have a club that played for each other

When the going get tough at Tiger land everyone crumbles like a sack of poo

Until we adopt the bloods don't flinch don't give up mantra we will continue to struggle year in year out.

We need warriors who will fight to the death for the jumper not prima donna down hill skiers

Week in week out you will only the usual guys like Cotch who believe in that mantra

[Tigeritis™©®]

Culture is the biggest issue that's never been fixed in 30 years.

It shouldve been the first thing addressed by any coach that walks in but all have failed this far.

As Richmond supporters we have a deep seated fear that no one can deny.
 The fear that we will lose the big blockbuster game & not just lose but get thrashed.
 The fear that we will lose the crunch game.
 the fear that we will lose the game we "should" win.
 The fear that we will finish 9th.
The question is why are we all nervous when these games roll around year after year?

Because regardless of the coach or the players or the administration we know that our history over this last 30 years more times than not we've failed.

Sydney were a basket case but someone identified something wrong and fixed it. Now they play finals consistantly. Many write them off but they keep on performing. They have many players from other teams traded to them but those players become better.

Collingwood won their second wooden spoon in 1999. Mick & Eddie came in 2000 identified the problems and they were playing in a grand final in 2002 & 2003.

Essendon continue to make finals consistantly. As much as so many bombers people didn't like knights they still made finals and will again this year with more injuries than any other team.

What do these teams have? The secret ingredient that gets them over the line. The one thing that can regardless of the circumstances or players or injuries are still competative inba big game, gets them over the line in a crunch game, makes them win the games they should win and gets them into the finals when it seems they don't deserve it?

CULTURE!

These teams have a culture of excellence, culture of winning, culture that demands success.

We only dream of finals, hope of playing finals.
We have a culture of mediocrity.
We have a loser culture.
We don't have a culture that demands excellence.     

[Smokey]

No but they have never bottomed out and have unknowns playing good team footy

Short memory there Jack.  They went 70 odd years between flags and back in the 60's - 70's and one of the league's legends, Bobby Skilton, only ever played 1 (losing 1st Semi) final in his 300+ game, Brownlow winning career.

Between 1990 and 1995 they finished 13/15, 12/15, 15/15, 15/15, 15/15, 12/15 before making the finals under Eade.
Between 1983 and 1985 they finished 11/12, 10/12, 11/12 before making the finals under Hafey.
Between 1970 and 1981 (the year they moved to Sydney) they finished in the bottom half 9/11 times and bottom 3 4/11 times.

By Paul Roos own admission, he and his group identified the need for a culture change and set about doing just that when he was appointed in 2003, ending up in a flag in '05 and a legacy of creating a club culture that now stands above most others for teamwork and attitude.  In taking those steps he was able to fast-track on the back of a largely talented and finals experienced playing group from the Eade days, making his task a lot easier on his path to success.  Expecting the same outcome in the same timeframe from Hardwick with the list he inherited from the debilitating Frawley/Wallace era is just not possible or fair.

And once you have turned the culture around, it becomes a lot easier to develop good players and solid citizens who will stand up to most of the rigours of senior AFL footy - a bit like the Australian cricket team back in the day, where it was harder to get out of the team than it was to get in.