Ottens strikes me as a confidence player, and if he was in a good team he'd probably be a star. But I don't think he is the type of player who burns with desire to turn the tables when things are going bad, as they are at Richmond. In my opinion, a player's character comes to the fore in troubled times, when everything is shot to schit. We are experiencing those times now, and Ottens hasn't stepped up at all. I don't think he is mentally strong enough to thrive in an environment where he has to make something happen rather than just rely on playing in a good team to kick start everything. He is too lackadaisical and lacks any killer instinct whatsoever.
If we improve as a team, I'm pretty sure we'd start seeing his form improve too. But seeing that we are probably going to be cellar dwellers for the next 3 years, i don't think we will get anything out of him in that time but the same limp wristed tap outs and taking the occasional good grab, as he is doing now.
I understand your line of thinking and agree with your comments to an extent JohnF. However, in assessing Otto, you’ve probably described many players at AFL Clubs. So you have to ask why those who are similar to Otto at other Clubs can perform better. It could well be because they are in a better team or at a better Club. So it’s not that you can’t do something with such players, but more that we just can’t do anything with them. Do we then give up on them? And where’s the certainty that any new player will perform any better or become any different? History, at our Club, says they won’t. From that perspective, it’s probably criminal that we have talented players at this Club, because no one will get to see that talent, unless we change our ways.
We can blame recruiting for the fact that we have accumulated players who possess the necessary commitment to play at this level and not necessarily the required ability. But who do we blame for those who seem to have lots of ability, but a perceived lack of commitment, amongst other things? As others have pointed out, I agree that any responsibility needs to be equally shared between player and coach. But I think there’s a lot more to it than just that.
I don’t know if it’s rare, or I just think it’s rare because I’ve been watching Richmond for too long, that you get players with all the necessary attributes to be a good footballer. And this is where coaching comes into it.
Paul Dimattina was on 3AW last night talking about Peter Rohde and his view was that it was the Coach’s responsibility to communicate, inspire, motivate and develop confidence in his players (nothing new there) and he didn’t believe Rohdes has that ability.
My eternal frustration has been that we can’t be seen to have done any of that for a sustained period of time, regardless of who the coach has been or what players he has had at his disposal. And as far as confidence goes, our players would be at the bottom of the pile, not too far from where we are on the ladder at the moment. Building confidence in players is the responsibility of the coaching staff. How some Clubs manufacture, generate and instill the necessary team spirit, that seems so lacking amongst our playing group, seems a mystery to all at RFC.
Regardless of a player’s character and personality, it is the coaching staff’s role to work with the talent and ability players possess and to get out of them what they are already capable of and more. Otherwise, they might as well be left to fend for themselves. It wouldn’t surprise me to know that this is what has been happening at our Club, to a certain extent, and would explain a lot of things.
We can blame the coach and/or players for all of this, but because it has not just been one coach in particular or the same group of players who never seem to reach anything like acceptable standards then you could say that it has to do with the workings of the Club as a whole. Mind you, we’re not alone in this.
And unless the people that run the place wake up to the fact that we need to put in place a structure, from top to bottom, that supports the playing group and gives them every opportunity to develop then we’re just kidding ourselves if we think we just need to recruit better players or get a better coach in order to improve.
You only have to look at the well run and administered Clubs to see how they get the best out of their players and magically seem to recruit all the good players. All Clubs have their fair share of talented players, but not all of them seem capable of doing something with it.
The truth is that our set up has been shoddy for a long time. And it’s definitely not right to blame anyone in particular for the way things are. However, someone, somewhere along the line, has to start taking responsibility, if we are ever going to get out of this black hole.
