How does Richo turn this around?

[skeptic]

Yes it’s all doom and gloom here at the moment - I myself have posted more than my fair share of criticism as of late...

Serious question... it looks like Richo will lead us into 2019, how can he turn this around?

The club must see something in him... what is it?

Obviously 2017 looked a lot better, surely he was doing something right? What was it?

Richo supporters, I’m looking at you. What are his strengths, what should he do that he’s capable of doing?



This below is my thoughts back in May (updated from my end of season review last year)

Whilst stagnation was predictable, few predicted a fall from grace as great as this.
Many forumites here like myself were unsold on Richo even before this season... Bluthy comes to mind, Con G too and I’m sure many others.

For me personally my concerns have centred around Richo’s:
- Conservative nature both in terms of persisting with injured/struggling players but also in terms of how he lines plays the selected players. Acres is still yet to find his way into the centre, Minch has been on a HFF for 5 years etc etc

- Problem solving. 3 years ago the ruck dilemma was Hickey is a decent around the ground utility that can get slaughtered in the centre and Longer is a beast in the middle then goes invisible. 3 years later it’s essentially the same exact dilemma. We have yet to find a way to get 2 rucks in the team and have persevered in destroying Bruce and Acres games by playing them as rucks

- Psychology. Enough has been made of our goal kicking yips. Everybody always looks as the North game this year and the Melb + Ess game last season as examples of when we didn’t turn up... what many forget is that on all 3 occasions the opposition didn’t turn up at the bounce either and that the games were all on the line at 1/2 time. The difference was after 1/2 the opposition got their stuff together and blew us out of the water. I guess m point is I don’t remember a time more recently... pbly since the Bulldogs game where we bounced back.

[Myron Gaines]

Zero optimism if Richo remains. He is killing the club

[st.byron]

Zero optimism if Richo remains. He is killing the club

Likewise. SFA optimism with him there.

[Sainternist]

He can't turn it around; because he couldn't coach his way out of a paper bag. If he gets to coach the team into the new season, he'll be lucky to make it to round 12.

[saint-stu]

Maybe Ratten can teach him how to coach.

[Ghost Like]

He needs to instill belief in the young players, show some faith in the kids, call the senior players out for being lazy & then walk away under the premise he laid a foundation to build on...not the quicksand he's been a part of.

[Devilhead]

Stops bullshiteing the playing list, gets Bruce and Robocop back in form and some decent trades in

Its line in the sand time you are either in or out

Time to live up to our motto, time for honesty from the coaching staff, time for introspection from the players, time to start manning up and pulling together as a team

The club should be better settled at Moorabbin come the start of next season and with the few more mature bodies and more learned heads we will be more competitive which should translate to more wins.

[Yorkeys]

Honesty! Richo should be selling used cars or life insurance. Nigerian scammers have nothing on this bloke. He has nothing and we buy it in bucket loads. He is laughing.

[samoht]

Clarko should sit down and teach himself how to coach again.
Seriously, it just goes to show what good recruiting can do --- it can even turn Hardwick and Buckley into "great" coaches.
They were both nearly out the door.

Behind every "great" coach is a great recruiting team.

[saint-stu]

Clarko should sit down and teach himself how to coach again.
Seriously, it just goes to show what good recruiting can do --- it can even turn Hardwick and Buckley into "great" coaches.
They were both nearly out the door.

Behind every "great" coach is a great recruiting team.

I'm crossing my fingers this works for us too.

[Cairnsman]

Clarko should sit down and teach himself how to coach again.
Seriously, it just goes to show what good recruiting can do --- it can even turn Hardwick and Buckley into "great" coaches.
They were both nearly out the door.

Behind every "great" coach is a great recruiting team.

I went to the game tonight with a large group of Tiger's supporters and they are furious about the win because they reckon it makes Hardwick look like a good coach and it will probably delay him being sacked.

[samoht]

We need to recruit a super team like Richmond - start recruiting like them, and like Collingwood and like Hawthorn did before them.
Coaches are a dime a dozen. They are just the beneficiaries of strong lists, and only the cherry on top.

[fugazi]

Honesty! Richo should be selling used cars or life insurance. Nigerian scammers have nothing on this bloke. He has nothing and we buy it in bucket loads. He is laughing.

Apparently he has $6Mill stranded in a foreign account and only needs a small brokerage fee to free it up into my Australian account....then I get to keep half!
Hmmm, that's actually more believable than him successfully turning this club around.
Sack him FFS

[bigcarl]

He needs to be open to the suggestions of Lethlean and the new coaches we bring in and not to see them as a threat. His only hope is to listen, because resorting to his same old tired formula will result in certain failure.

He’s set in his thinking on certain players and tends to play favourites.

His priorities must be 1) a forward line that kicks goals and 2) a midfield that can get the ball down there.

Surely we can fashion a forward line that kicks goals out of Bruce, Marshall, Membrey, Gresham and Lonie. There’s Battle as well, and Paddy. I haven’t necessarily given up on Paddy, but there’s no way he should be a walk-up start. I have Bruce, Marshall and Membrey ahead of him. It cannot be decided on draft position.

He needs to think outside the box on the midfield. What we don’t want is a preponderance of inside ball winners. I rate them all individually, but I cannot have Ross, Steele, Dunstan and Armo in the same set up. A couple of them should be redeployed elsewhere.

Get Acres in there. Give Gresham more time in there. Billings. Clark. Sinclair. Even Webster. See what works.

[Teflon]

Clarko should sit down and teach himself how to coach again.
Seriously, it just goes to show what good recruiting can do --- it can even turn Hardwick and Buckley into "great" coaches.
They were both nearly out the door.

Behind every "great" coach is a great recruiting team.

I went to the game tonight with a large group of Tiger's supporters and they are furious about the win because they reckon it makes Hardwick look like a good coach and it will probably delay him being sacked.

Yeah he’s a dud.....throw him our way ..

[Teflon]

We need to recruit a super team like Richmond - start recruiting like them, and like Collingwood and like Hawthorn did before them.
Coaches are a dime a dozen. They are just the beneficiaries of strong lists, and only the cherry on top.

Yawn - so wrong for many reasons...
That said, I understand Caracalla has had a big hand in Richmond’s game style turnaround...maybe the players taught themselves the system to be so organised and consistently coordinated?
Maybe they just recruited “consistently smart players...”
Lol

[SaintPav]

Clarko should sit down and teach himself how to coach again.
Seriously, it just goes to show what good recruiting can do --- it can even turn Hardwick and Buckley into "great" coaches.
They were both nearly out the door.

Behind every "great" coach is a great recruiting team.

I went to the game tonight with a large group of Tiger's supporters and they are furious about the win because they reckon it makes Hardwick look like a good coach and it will probably delay him being sacked.

True? They are really deluded then.

[ss1986]

Clarko should sit down and teach himself how to coach again.
Seriously, it just goes to show what good recruiting can do --- it can even turn Hardwick and Buckley into "great" coaches.
They were both nearly out the door.

Behind every "great" coach is a great recruiting team.

I went to the game tonight with a large group of Tiger's supporters and they are furious about the win because they reckon it makes Hardwick look like a good coach and it will probably delay him being sacked.

True? They are really deluded then.

He was taking the p1ss... actually trying to compare us not being happy about a 2 point win against the Gold Coast to Richmond making a prelim.

Deluded.

[Scollop]

Serious

Richo supporters, I’m looking at you. What are his strengths, what should he do that he’s capable of doing?

I hear crickets.......................................

There'll be lots of posts on what the possible answer is to turn things around, but I doubt you'll get much on the question of 'strengths' that relate directly to Richo being the driver of a winning culture and a winning formula for creating long term success

[Cairnsman]

Richo is calm, measured and clearly very cool under pressure and sustained attack which could come in handy during the really close games.

[WellardSaint]

Richo is calm, measured and clearly very cool under pressure and sustained attack which could come in handy during the really close games.

you're joking.
I think we've had 3 close games in 5 years. A win against Dees where Joey kicked the last goal,
the Suns game where we won despite Richo, not because of him, and...

[owenthe]

For the last 15 minutes of the hawthorn game we attacked from the same side of the ground hawks just defended.
We should have changed and gone down the middle or from the other side.

The game was ours for the taking but coach did not try anything different.

I want a coach that takes risks and changes tactics not
Keeps us playing the style that got us goals behind to start with.

[ss1986]

Richo is calm, measured and clearly very cool under pressure and sustained attack which could come in handy during the really close games.

This is nauseating.

You are surely Richo. I know you've been a member on here since 2005, so you actually aren't - but somehow he's morphed you into a lobotomised robot.

[takeaway]

I'm not necessarily a supporter of Richo, but am happy to give him 2019 with some different assistants, hopefully some gaps filled with players to see if we can move up the ladder.

You can't ask "his supporters on SS" to identify his strengths when you haven't actually identified his weaknesses as a coach. You can say win/loss record, selection, etc but how can you say that is all Richo? He is not the only one at the club, and cannot possibly cover all aspects of the caper - recruiting/trading, selection, all aspects on match day, etc. He is responsible for some of that but not all. This year's performance could be a combination of coaching, poor development, lack of senior players, injuries, the toughest draw in the comp, boot studs too short, whatever. We weren't going too badly 2016/17.

To identify his "coaching" weaknesses and strengths, you need first hand experience of him at training, team meetings, match day addresses, and so on. Only those at the club have that experience, and they have decided that he needs better support. I'll take the club's view over SS posters, who have no in house knowledge, only "opinions", some of which may be on the money, but plenty would not be. How would we know?

[Superboot]

Not sure that AR can turn this around, but I also doubt that anyone could.

Apologies for bringing up the EPL, but I’m a lifelong Evertonian and we have been similarly underperforming for the last couple of seasons (well, decades really). While we now have a decent manager, at last, we have also got rid of a whole bunch of deadwood and brought in 5 decent players. That’s half an outfield.

I think the Saints are in a similar position. We effectively need to bring in half a team of good to better-that-good players. The problem is that it’s just not possible under the current arrangements. It will take three of four drafts for us to get the required number of decent players.

The main effect of replacing Rich with a decent coach would be to encourage decent players to come to us.

Bottom line is that we currently don’t have the cattle.