No, but Dal said on radio a week or two ago, that he was really good with the players, getting them together etc to rebound when they were down etc.asiu wrote:have those two suggested that course of action ?lefty wrote:Bring back Grant Thomas, I'd gladly have him. I trust Rooey's judgement / Dal Santo etc.
Roo spoke about how it was wrong to remove Grant at the time. Last year (IIRC) when Butters came out on the footy show, you could see how angry Roo was about it and how it was the wrong decision, because Butters was a mess on drugs and alcohol from memory.
I personally think the players got along well and played for him, but also respected him. Pretty sure Hamil wasn't happy when Blight left, but that quickly changed.
Again, this is all from an outside perspective, so I cannot personally claim anything as pure fact. I haven't read Roo's book.
All I know is we went from easy beats to a team that with force. We shared the captaincies etc, there was heaps of things we did pro-actively, not re-actively and we didn't cop s***. Grant stuck up for the players and the club stood strong. It wasn't excuses and focus on the 'positives' each week after poor performances. Losing is one thing, getting belted is another. I just can't see our game plan at the moment, we started the first quarter with 1 or 2 extra in defence. How many times did Patty, probably the slowest player be seen chasing two or more players. I don't understand the extra man or two back, did we even go in with the aim to win or was the aim to restrict the damage/loss? Either way, keeps happening, there's going to be a lot of pressure at the end of the season.
I personally don't think it's the players. There's no way a team that belted Richmond last year can succumb to this level. Our development of players has been very poor as well. But I'd rather have a good team of players than a few stars players and nothing else, because you end up relying on those star players too much. Richmond won last year with players you've never heard of, that's a system / culture / coach. Essendon is in the same boat as us at the moment. It is what it is at the moment. Our pressure / hunting in the forward line is non existent, not that it helps when its 4 vs 6 etc.