Young Football Minds

[RemoteTiger]

Imagine if you will................

You're a young 18yo kid with a heap of talent and you get drafted by an AFL Team. This is your chance to play in the big time. You hit the pre-season training track and you have never felt so rooted after each training session. You bust your guts just to keep up let alone try to impress.

Practice matches come along and you get a couple of good touches and feel the speed of the game is not beyond you.

Then the AFL real season starts and you are selected - your coach gives you instructions on how he wants you to play.

Bounce of the ball - strewth the speed of the game has gone up another notch compared to those practice matches and you get belted around in your first attack on the ball. You have another go and win the pill deliver it lace out to a team mate who passes it poorly and it is turned over.

This happens repeatedly - you also do some poor things like miss a tackle - cause a turnover - but all in all your own game is OK for your 1st try at the big time. The team is flogged by 55 points

This same style of game happens for the next 4 games. You and your mates are showing glimpses of form but are generally outclassed and out-muscled to be beaten by an average of 50+ points a game.

What would your mental state be like? After

The high of having your name called out in the draft?
The impact of pre-season training where you have run so hard you are almost physically sick?
The good touches in the practice matches?
The team flogging you cop every game?

Wouldn’t you ask the question – how did those others draftees get to Melbourne or Fremantle or Collingwood or whoever. Why did I get stuck with the worst team in the last 30 years.

Would you try to help that team lift themselves off the bottom?

Or

Would you do your best and hope that in two years time another team notices you and you get traded – like Rodan, Petersen, *smile*?

I SINCERELY HOPE – that the RFC Football Department are addressing the mental state of our young players in an effort to hold them together.

Because right now it appears to me that the young ones are losing their “cool” – Jack gave away a silly free kick and did not have his head in the game at all last night. Vickery has been throwing his weight around which is good but in truth he looks like a kid “picking” a fight with seasoned fighters.

Mentally I think these consistent big losses are taking their toll on all our players.........

 

[TigerFurious]

St Kilda, Geelong and Carlton to name a few all went through prolonged periods of failure with young lists and seemed to have pulled through ok.

Don't worry about the kids, they'll be fine. All things considered, I think the club is going alright.

 

[thejinx]

Pretty sure Hardwick and the club have and will be continually letting the guys know that they'll have to endure a lot of losses at the moment, but things will turn in time if they keep up their hard work.

 

[Mappa]

I think when you listen to Hardwick speak he is absolutely aware of the generational and mindset issues that may come from playing a team as young as ours. He often mentions focussing on the positives of the game and the process, talking positively and not down to generation Y, and no focusing on the score board.

There is no doubt the boys will tire but for once (except for a certain blond forward last night) they actually look like they want to play for each other and enjoy doing so.

In fact despite the losses, it is the best team spirit i've seen for a long, long time

 

[TigerMasochist]

Haven't seen the team come close to dropping their heads during a game, they may be getting crunched by fair margins but they haven't been splattered ( maybe next week ) and continue to try and fight out games. Unlike recent previous seasons.
A very harsh and steep learning curve for the boys but it will only make them stronger for next year.

 

[SPARTACUS]

Very insightfull post RT and what you say is a definate problem at the club general development and player mental confidence is not one of our strong points in the past 3 years we have lost 5 players ( Petterson, Hughes, Putt, Collard and Gilligan) all had the abillity to make it at AFL level but not the mental strength. The losing cullture at Richmond, the low quallity board, the poor coaching appointments and bad football department decisions can't be having a positive effect on any of our player s let lone our youth
One of the biggest concerns for the young players, is the player group is not close such an important thing for young players when things are not going well
Harwick is 5 games into a 3 year plan, dont know if he can turn it around, certainly hope so, we are running out bof chances

 

[WesternTiger]

Imagine if you will................

You're a young 18yo kid with a heap of talent and you get drafted by an AFL Team. This is your chance to play in the big time. You hit the pre-season training track and you have never felt so rooted after each training session. You bust your guts just to keep up let alone try to impress.

Practice matches come along and you get a couple of good touches and feel the speed of the game is not beyond you.

Then the AFL real season starts and you are selected - your coach gives you instructions on how he wants you to play.

Bounce of the ball - strewth the speed of the game has gone up another notch compared to those practice matches and you get belted around in your first attack on the ball. You have another go and win the pill deliver it lace out to a team mate who passes it poorly and it is turned over.

This happens repeatedly - you also do some poor things like miss a tackle - cause a turnover - but all in all your own game is OK for your 1st try at the big time. The team is flogged by 55 points

This same style of game happens for the next 4 games. You and your mates are showing glimpses of form but are generally outclassed and out-muscled to be beaten by an average of 50+ points a game.

What would your mental state be like? After

The high of having your name called out in the draft?
The impact of pre-season training where you have run so hard you are almost physically sick?
The good touches in the practice matches?
The team flogging you cop every game?

Wouldn’t you ask the question – how did those others draftees get to Melbourne or Fremantle or Collingwood or whoever. Why did I get stuck with the worst team in the last 30 years.

Would you try to help that team lift themselves off the bottom?

Or

Would you do your best and hope that in two years time another team notices you and you get traded – like Rodan, Petersen, schulz?

I SINCERELY HOPE – that the RFC Football Department are addressing the mental state of our young players in an effort to hold them together.

Because right now it appears to me that the young ones are losing their “cool” – Jack gave away a silly free kick and did not have his head in the game at all last night. Vickery has been throwing his weight around which is good but in truth he looks like a kid “picking” a fight with seasoned fighters.

Mentally I think these consistent big losses are taking their toll on all our players.........

Rubbish post RT. You think three years of finishing last impacted on the kids at Carlton or the Dees?

Only one who jumped ship at the Dee's was McLean (not a kid) and I am sure he is regetting it now!

 

[RemoteTiger]

Rubbish post RT. You think three years of finishing last impacted on the kids at Carlton or the Dees?

Only one who jumped ship at the Dee's was McLean (not a kid) and I am sure he is regetting it now!

Thank you for your critique.

To answer your question - the impact on Carlton or the Dees of finishing last has not a lot to do with RFC. For all you know the Blues and the Dees had excellent Football Department structure in place to handle the issues of a young mind coming into a currently poor performing team.

My question as posed in my post was - does the RFC Football Department have such a football department structure to handle the young mentallity?

Further, Carlton nor Melbourne have been the worst performing team over the last 3 decades - WE HAVE!

 

[zgod]

Yes it must be demoralising for some of them but then I think Dimma has created a bit of an us against them scenario with the kids. Almost like they are all doing an apprenticeship together and they know that when they master their trade they will be a force to be reckoned with. To me it seems that heads are up, just look at them when we kick a goal, still 40 points down they are springing about like the young gazelles they are.
It must be refreshing to be down at the club at the moment and see your senior players only be in their mid 20's and some with not even 100 games to their name let alone 50. When the journey starts to come good this team will be so galvanised they will be ruthless, bleed for each other, have mateship and have a sense of history together.
It may be bleak at the moment but the good times are coming.

 

[Brodders17]

Further, Carlton nor Melbourne have been the worst performing team over the last 3 decades - WE HAVE!

actually we are one of 12 teams to have won a flag in the last 3 decades.

Would you do your best and hope that in two years time another team notices you and you get traded – like Rodan, Petersen, schulz?

rodan was delisted- lucky to be picked up. ditto peterson.
schulz lasted 7 years before being 'lucky' enough to be traded.

not disagreeing or anything just correcting some facts.

 

[RedanTiger]

Remote, I'm less worried about the new kids than I am about the rest.

Martin, Nason, Astbury, Dea and Taylor have shown really great attitude for the first year, better than we could hope for IMO.

Vickery, Post, Hislop and Nahas are trying to re-imagine their role for the first time and are struggling to adapt. Thomson and Rance are probably in the same boat and don't have the confidence to know what they're doing.

As you go further back thru the drafts it starts to become clear that most of our players either don't have any confidence or have taken short cuts to protect themselves from a very slippery footing and become safe, selfish players.

The longer they have been at Richmond the more damaged they are.

This is probably the first time in at least ten years that we have had decent coaching at Richmond. I don't even mean AFL coaching, I mean the basics of developing the confidence of an athlete. I seriously think that a decent netball or swimming coach could have done better than the fools we have had, who on the whole have been negative in their effect.

I only hope we can recover but the damage runs deep and makes our players very very fragile.

 

[TigerMad]

Interesting post Remote.

In the cycle of a footballer, most newdraftees are at 'survival stage'.
I would think that the tiger cubs are very happy to have been drafted by a club that has their careers fastracked.
Many of their fellow draftees to other clubs will be waiting for oppotunities for some time, and some will never get an opportunity.

The challlenge is to make sure that our players do not go into 'comfortable' mode and just try to hold their position in the team rather than become a major contributor.

This is where we have missed the example of Foley most, and also why the lack of gut running from Cousins has become an issue....

IMO it is Good to see 'senior' players, Morton, Polo, McGuane, Nahas etc dropped to stop complacency setting in.