It's been what 18 months so we've surely moved on from the Spud era.
He's legacy will be getting us to the finals with his one and only plan A of two big marking forwards while grinding out 4 quarters of negating footy everywhere else on the park
. Then opposition coaches worked us out and Spud had no plan B. Add to that pathetic recruiting and delusions of being close to a flag and we spirialled towards the spoon instead.
While he was responsible for our onfields woes by then end, I don't blame him entirely for what happended to our Club off-field. We'd been a basketcase for a long time before Spud arrived. It was our own fault that Spud ended up coaching us. Remember because of the past 20 year habit of sacking coaches every second year
, we were left at the end of 1999 with a choice between Spud and ex-bomber Tony Elshaw (sp?). No one else and especially no one decent wanted to touch us.
While 2004 was hell on earth for the Club, IMHO it will go down as a watershed year where we had to hit rock bottom before waking up to ourselves to what a sham our Club had become. There would be no Wallace, Lids, etc .. if we had sacked Spud a year or two earlier. We had to go through that pain.
