With confirmation as Foote as the new head coach of the Rebels I cant help but feel Wessels was a little hard done by. I don't see what Foote adds that Wessels would not have done. What are other people's thoughts?
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With confirmation as Foote as the new head coach of the Rebels I cant help but feel Wessels was a little hard done by. I don't see what Foote adds that Wessels would not have done. What are other people's thoughts?
I think he was a little hard done by, but he did take over a side which had quite a lot of potential.
There were a number of Force players who went to Melbourne with him, which indicates that he was probably quite liked as a coach, and this gave him a squad and a half from which to pick a winning side, and he did well at the start of each of his 3 seasons (IIRC) before they started to do worse towards the end of the season.
This could either be fitness issues (something to do with him), injuries (nothing to do with him), his tactics being worked out and not having a back-up plan (totally to do with him) or an issue with the playing squad.
We've seen teams like the Crusaders winning year on year and having a winning mentality which goes beyond the individual players and becomes part of the club culture. Successive Rebels coaches have failed to get some talented sides playing well consistently for a full season, and maybe there the opposite of the Crusaders in Melbourne with a losing mentality, or possibly a "that's good enough" mentality. You can say that part of Wessels' job is to change the club culture, but if the culture comes from the club ownership it can be hard for the coach to achieve that.
I'm pretty sure that getting crowds of ~3,000 in a >20,000 seater stadium don't help the player's motivation, either.
I'd agree, but it's highly likely that, similar with the Tahs job, they sacked the Head coach thinking they'd have a long list of suitably qualified applicants crawling over each other to apply and then discovered that nobody wants to commit to the disaster that is Rugby Australia.Quote:
Originally Posted by volvo
even more so now that the Rebels are the team being talked about when there are discussions of dropping a team.
I would argue that Kevin Foote is the one who is in real trouble now!
Yes but at least we can have article titles like ‘Rebels give Foote head job’.
And Nick Stiles coming in as GM? Is he replacing someone or is this a new position, in which case - where are they getting that money from?!
Maybe a bit like when Wessels replaced Foley - the club was on its knees financially at the time so appointing someone who was already the assistant coach would have come much cheaper than relocating someone with a better pedigree from another city or country. Probs the same here. Plus the fact that coaching the Rebels probably wouldn’t exactly attract the best field of candidates.Quote:
Originally Posted by volvo
How long was Wessels there? 4 years?
Unfortunately it's the way sport goes these days. As Sheikh said, he took over a pretty decent squad in 2018. He's not the only Melbourne coach to under perform though.
You, of anybody, should know the answer to that questionQuote:
Originally Posted by Alison
:lolup:Quote:
Originally Posted by GIGS20