GT busted on Footy Classified

[satchmo]

GT expressed his view, and quite abusingly so at the time, with a lot of vitriol directed at Penny.

Well that is not true.

Grant said that the club was surprised by the decision, because their medical advice was that Luke could overcome the problem and that they were willing to be patient because they rated him highly.

Is there a link to the "abuse" or "vitriol" that you speak of?

GT said a lot more than that...including in interviews.

At the time he was clearly having a go at Penny's (in GT's mind) lack of fortitude and character, rather than accepting that the poor buggas knee was bad.


Unfortunately most of the links don't still work, however here is a sample of Mr Supportive People Manager Coach:

"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't very shocked by it. Luke's in our best 18. He's our full-back. He's a very important player for us," Thomas said. "So we were very surprised but as time went on, it was quite obvious that he was set in his mind about what he wanted to do." Grant Thomas


Thomas stumped by Penny's exit

St Kilda coach Grant Thomas is baffled by Luke Penny's decision yesterday to retire from the AFL at the age of 24. The full-back announced he would leave the game because of a chronic knee injury. But Thomas said the decision seemed premature, especially given he still had three years to serve on his contract. "Guys have knee reconstructions," Thomas said. "They might have 12 months out, but they do come back. We thought, irrespective of the situation, it's worth a go but he didn't see it that way and that's fine. That's his decision."
The Article Peter Krupka/TheAustralian/30Nov05



Thomas said at the time he was "very shocked" and "surprised" by Penny's decision to quit and added that Penny's reasons were personal and that it "wasn't a medical decision". "He just doesn't believe he's up to doing what he does best."


Personal? Bulldust...it was MEDICAL....and GT rather than accepting it assinated Penny's character instead.

Guys have knee reconstructions yes. But not for Penny's condition.

Chemos sucks bigtime...you don't go into it lightly.

GT's other concern was the 3 years of the long-term contract to go that GT had signed him......and Hamill too.

Which part is the "abuse" and which part the "vitriol"? (GT's, not yours)

[Saintsfan]

Whilst it was sad and it is sad to see Penny have to retire and deal with his issues.

Do not sugar coat his retirement by saying he was a good player. He was close to useless and was a liability out on the field

[Animal Enclosure]

Whilst it was sad and it is sad to see Penny have to retire and deal with his issues.

Do not sugar coat his retirement by saying he was a good player. He was close to useless and was a liability out on the field

Rubbish.

Penny was a very good player until his last year when his injury caused a real lack of mobility and his form fell away. When he was at his best it allowed Max to take the 3rd forward and Goose the CHF. With Aussie, Vossy and Bakes our defensive 6 was one of the very best.

You gotta love the short memories of some people.

[saintsRrising]

Which part is the "abuse" and which part the "vitriol"? (GT's, not yours)

You're kidding right.

Questioning someone's character is abuse. Particularly when it is the coach doing so.

You think not??? If so then we certainly have a different oulook on things.

[Teflon]

Had a conversation with player at a new club and mentioned how I followed the Saints. He mentioned how his agent (I think he said) had arranged a meeting with Kosi so said player could get his head around the rigours and requirements of professional AFL. When they got talking skinfolds and beep tests and the like, said player mentioned how he'd come back from off season pretty fat and slow. Kosi apparently said words to the effect 'there was a time when I woulda got away with that. Not now though. Now if we're a point over, we just run until we're back where we have to be and don't join in properly until we're right. You just won;t play unless you're numbers are spot on.' They then talked about sacrifices and diet and no boozing the usual gamut of athlete stuff.

Now I know it's only a little innocuous snippet, and I'll prob get howled for not mentioning names - which I won't - but I don't think it's much of a stretch to establish that Kosi's 'now' and 'back then' references were clearly relating to Lyon era and GT era.

For mine, Lyon has a clue about what is needed.

GT thought he had a clue, but basically he was taking Warrnambool club footy principles and trying them out in the big time.

The former will last. The other, clearly, cannot.

The former is in player's interests. The latter, for all it's fire and brimstone and comraderie, is untenable long term. And so it proved.

Best post by mile - Ive long had the same views.

Even GT comments ALWAYS invariably relate to intangible, marketing like elements when asked what a player needs to do to get better e.g comments like "he needs to gain confidence, toughen up mentally" etc etc and these are indisputable key areas for sure......BUT they are also general platitudes that everybody knows and would trot out and they are not the level of knowledge/detail of football in any intimate sense that tells me GT ever had a technical grasp of the game at an AFL level.

In short - yes you can motivate, man manage, play the group psychologist (mehebabble likes to do it regulalry on SS..) but to actually point out technical areas where players need to get better on their games (see Luke Ball and no doubt Lyons areas he wanted improvement in...)you need to understand not only motivation but also the mechanics of the game. IMHO Lyon has this area absolutely covered off - the proof??......have a look at the success so far with recycled players....he has made them better players......how did Grant go in that area? Have a look at Geary,Mqualter, Jones....they are better players they have been developed.....IMHO.

[Milan Faletic]

Camaraderie not comraderie.

Sorry but one of my pet hates is the mis-spelling of this word.

[BAM! (shhhh)]

As I said earlier, it was only Caro that filled the blanks and tried to make it so dramatic.

BAM might be onto something, when was the interview, before or after the game? They only played a small grab, so it could of been in context to an interview about Kosi and his form.

Was Kosi (physically) fractured when Ross came to the club, yes IMO.

Was Ross blaming GT for his horror run, well you'd have to pretend to know what he was thinking when he said it.

Was always forseeable who the dominant posters in this thread would be, wasn't it?

The interview was pre-game on Saturday.

I believe it was Mark Stevens who asked the question (he stated during the show that failing a good showing from Kosi he was going to call him out in print - yes I'm paraphrasing, don't think Stevo was looking to duel with pistols at dawn), it was something along the lines of was Lyon dissapointed in Kosi that he wasn't and hadn't contributed more.

Lyon prefaced the soundbyte that FC played stating that 48 goals from a power forward isn't bad, and that it had taken 2 years to get him to the point he's at now, that there was mistrust club - player etc. (which is where Caro drew "mentally fractured" from I believe).

As to the greater query of responsibility for injury management, it's interesting to see how various people infer the events, and not surprising to see accusations of "agenda" get thrown. My view would generally be Kosi should not be held as representative of this debate.
1) As head coach, Thomas ultimately held responsibility, however in the case of injury management one would need to objectively grant that:
2) The rapid turnover of personnel in the medical dept combined with the continual injury list in itself implies that Thomas was never able to get a result in that area which he was content with. My analogy would be he's a bit like his oft-injured charges; plenty of effort, and the potential was there to improve, and while he can't be given credit for what he didn't achieve then in fairness there are extenuating circumstances.
3) Conversely, the Misson-Lyon tandem can't be entirely credited or discredited for where we're at now. Either way we're at far ends of the bell curve, which leads me to think both the awful GT injury lists and the stellar Lyon ones simply are not entirely indicative of skill.

Regardless, Kosi ends up being a poor example, because his run of injuries contains a run of strange injuries rather than anything redcurrant or degenerative. Backing into an umpire? Getting concussed in a head on head with a player a foot shorter than him? If ever a player was like to develop a complex, it'd be Kosi.

In the end-of-career Koschitzke story, injuries will no doubt play a part. Both Thomas and Lyon will have had their influence. However if the story is "why wasn't he great" and looking to assign blame, then seriously, file it under couldabeens and move on. He'll hardly be the first or last.

[satchmo]

Which part is the "abuse" and which part the "vitriol"? (GT's, not yours)

You're kidding right.

Questioning someone's character is abuse. Particularly when it is the coach doing so.

You think not??? If so then we certainly have a different oulook on things.

So which part is the "abuse" and which part the "vitriol"? Which part is "Questioning someone's character"?

I see surprise, shock, disappointment.

If your quotes from GT above are considered "abuse" or "vitriol", then how would you describe your posts about GT?

It's fair enough if you don't like him/hate him, whatever. But there's nothing in those quotes to cause such foaming at the mouth.

[meher baba]

We thought, irrespective of the situation, it's worth a go but he didn't see it that way and that's fine. That's his decision."

Withering, my dear boy, simply withering.

No wonder we have never heard from Penny again: he's probably still undergoing post-traumatic stress counselling to try to recover from GT's vitriolic and abusive attack on his manhood!!

Really, sRr, all the quotes you gave simply add up to GT saying he and the club were shocked and surprised, and they didn't share Penny's view that he had a career-ending injury. Perhaps it was unfair for GT not to give the player the benefit of the doubt, but there are far bigger injustices in this world.

Forget about GT, he isn't worth it.

[saintsRrising]

We thought, irrespective of the situation, it's worth a go but he didn't see it that way and that's fine. That's his decision."

Withering, my dear boy, simply withering.

No wonder we have never heard from Penny again: he's probably still undergoing post-traumatic stress counselling to try to recover from GT's vitriolic and abusive attack on his manhood!!

Really, sRr, all the quotes you gave simply add up to GT saying he and the club were shocked and surprised, and they didn't share Penny's view that he had a career-ending injury. Perhaps it was unfair for GT not to give the player the benefit of the doubt, but there are far bigger injustices in this world.

Forget about GT, he isn't worth it.

MB.. GT was basically calling Penny a liar.

Penny stated that he had to retire for medical reasons and GT stated it wasn't for medical reasons.

Personally I think a part of GT's angst and displeasure was due the long term contract that GT had foolishly entered into.

Anyway the main point of my raising it was that it was an example of GT's medical advice not being up to scratch.....and in it being wrong yet again.

[Thinline]

Camaraderie not comraderie.

Sorry but one of my pet hates is the mis-spelling of this word.

Comraderie: the friendship that exists between the various models of Holden's flagship family car.

Point taken MF.