Who was the better Coach of the Swans?

[Black Power]

Buckenera, Barassi, Hafey, Eade or Roos?

[Charlie]

Do you really need to ask?

ROOOOOOSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!

[the manager]

BUCKENARA COULDN'T COACH

BARASSI COACHED US OUT OF OBLIVION

EADE COACHED US TO THE GRAND FINAL AND NO BETTER

ROOS IS A GREAT COACH BUT THESE NEXT TWO WEEKS WILL BE A TEST FOR THE YOUNG SWANS.


SO IF YOU LOOK AT IT

IF WE DIDN'T GET BARASSI WE WOULD NOT BE WHERE WE ARE TODAY?

ROOS HAS A BIG CHANCE TO COACH THE SWANS INTO A FINALS SERIES (LIKE EADE) IN HIS FIRST SEASON

[Charlie]

Shhhh!!!

Don't shout!

[NMWBloods]

It's silly to put Roos above those coaches when he's had less than a season.

[Swansinger]

Re: Who was the better Coach of the Swans?

Originally posted by Black Power
Buckenera, Barassi, Hafey, Eade or Roos?

Blackie ,

Only use "better" - the comparative form - when talking about two people.

More than two , use the superlative form - "best".

Like wot I sez to me soccer mates - jus cos you like footy , it don't mean you have to be ignorant.

[j s]

Originally posted by NMWBloods
It's silly to put Roos above those coaches when he's had less than a season.

Quite true NMW!! During 96 we were thinking similar things about Eade.

But this time round I think it might actually be true. We are not winning now because of any great tactical nous of Roos but because the players (ALL the players) are now playing to the best of their ability. THAT is where Paul Roos brilliance lies!!

His tactic seems to be simple - believe in yourself, get the ball, run with it if you can, get it to a team-mate, kick goals!

Time will tell if we are all correct. How far will we go this year? Will it be sustained (or improved) next year? My personal opinion, expressed last year (along with many others - I do not claim to be billiant in this area) is that Paul Roos is the right choice for the Swans and is a great coach who will only improve with experience.

I think think that Roos will be our Sheedy (but with a LOT more success )

[liz]

Originally posted by j s
Quite true NMW!! During 96 we were thinking similar things about Eade.

But this time round I think it might actually be true. We are not winning now because of any great tactical nous of Roos but because the players (ALL the players) are now playing to the best of their ability. THAT is where Paul Roos brilliance lies!!

His tactic seems to be simple - believe in yourself, get the ball, run with it if you can, get it to a team-mate, kick goals!

Time will tell if we are all correct. How far will we go this year? Will it be sustained (or improved) next year? My personal opinion, expressed last year (along with many others - I do not claim to be billiant in this area) is that Paul Roos is the right choice for the Swans and is a great coach who will only improve with experience.

I think think that Roos will be our Sheedy (but with a LOT more success )

There are actually quite a few parallels between 1996 and 2003 - a rookie coach with few expectations from anyone, poor start to the season, encouraged the team to go out and just play footy and enjoy it. The Swans of 1996 played footy in a similar way to the current team - almost like kids who have no fear because they have not yet learnt to fear.

It is true that Eade was a smart tactician and that that side to his game emerged in later years, but I don't think it was tactics that got the Swans playing the type of footy they did in 1996.

After that first season the expectations on Eade and the Swans were obviously higher and coaching became far more difficult. It seemed as if Eade lost confidence in many of his players and thus they lost confidence in themselves and each other.

The true test of Roos' character and resolve as a coach will come in the next few years when things aren't going so well, only half the team is performing and the youngsters aren't contributing. From an outside perspective Roos and Eade seem to be very different personalities but it will be interesting to see how Roos performs when he is under pressure to live up to expectations.

I reckon we should enjoy what we're currently getting, and look forward to watching how the true story unfolds over the next few years.

PS The first year coach thing is a common phenomenan - lots of coaches have found it easy in their first year only to find it gets a lot lot tougher after that.

[sWAns63]

I think Eade surfed on a wave that Barassi created. Eade would never have been successful if he didn't follow Barassi.
But overall, I'm a big ROOOOOOS fan!!! He was my favourite when he played & now he's my favourite coach.

[Jon]

I dont' know which of them WAS the best, but I have a hunch about which of them WILL be the best!

Ok enough flag waving.

I agree with Lizz we shouldn't rush to judge Roos either way just yet. Ken Judge was looking like the next big coaching thing for a moment there, and then pfft...gone. But so far all the elements are there for sustained success.

The 3rd and 4th yrs are usually when a coach hits the skids. He can no longer hide from any deficiencies in the list, his better players that gave him a good 1st year (as is often the case in footy) are just that little bit older and slower, and the message is just that little bit more stale.

That's when the tricks have to start coming out of the bag.

My gut feeling is that Roos has a BIG bag of tricks.

A coach really needs to win a flag, or make a number of finals to get any leeway at all.

Win one early in your career and you can last a lifetime like Sheedy.

If you DON'T win a flag, and most never do, a coach's career looks a bit like this:

3 good years to make it.
2 hard fought years to whip the dead horse (if you're lucky)
then you're in the danger seasons when even a small number of consecutive losses gets the board interested in your performance.

Eade fit the model perfectly. A gun 1st year. 2 highly competitive seasons after that...then the team hit a slump with a number of players churning through the club as the team refused to settle. Minor appearances in finals for early exits, some poor recruitments, some players taking too long to develop, some key retirements, we missed the finals altogther and then he was gone.

[Bart]

Originally posted by sWAns63
I think Eade surfed on a wave that Barassi created. Eade would never have been successful if he didn't follow Barassi.

I think this is a myth.

Barassi coached the club from 93-95 during which they finished last, last, 12th for 1 win, 4 wins and 8 wins. (Thanks Lockett and Roos)

Will Grant Thomas' sucessor have surfed on the wave created by him ?

Sustained ineptness will eventually bring success

[Destructive]

Barrassi was great, he brought us out of oblivion. Eade was good also, but up to a point, I think he ran out of ideas in the end. And Roos? He's a legend!

[Bart]

Originally posted by Destructive
Barrassi was great, he brought us out of oblivion.

What was so great about Barassi ? Jeez with Roos and Lockett in your team at the height of their careers, only a mug wouldn't have tipped the Swans to improve in 1995.

As I said Grant Thomas has some serious cattle at his disposal

[Nico]

How can anyone mention Buckerina in the same breath as Ron Barassi.

Bucky was "THE Worst" coach I have seen in my life. I have followed the game fro 45 years and under him we were the most unfit side I have ever seen.

[swansrock4eva]

It's interesting to read the Lockett, Roos and Kelly books - they all say that Eade took the shackles off - the players were told to go and do their own thing within team rules etc and look at the results it got.

Fast forward to 2003 and everyone has been told to do their own things within team rules and that the shackles are once again off and look at the results.

I think each coach had different cattle to work with and different circumstances which makes it in some ways very difficult to compare. I've only seen three so I can't comment on Buckenara but imo Barassi certainly had a big hand in setting up the likes of o'loughlin, grant, barry, rocca etc who were all first year babies in 1995 who started to grow into real football quite nicely in 1996. He'd also helped settle the likes of Lockett and Roos into Sydney and had essentially completed the "caretaker" role he had originally come to fill.

Eade took over the reigns with things pretty much well set in motion. I don't think the players were going to stop dead once they had started to recognise a bit of success in 1995 but at the same time I think Eade had a lot to do with them getting to the top the way they did.

I also think that Roosey's comments in the article regarding the salary cap are important too - up here the coaching staff are the only ones who really give the players a bit of a razz which makes their message very old very quickly. Until the public makes the players accountable I feel that coaches will always have a relatively short life up here simply because of that, IF they don't know how to change the way in which they are presenting the message. I feel that Eade in some ways cracked a bit and the presentation of his message got stale and that was his downfall in terms of player interaction.

I guess for mine, it's very hard to compare and rank each of the coaches. in terms of percentages Roos wins hands down right now, but in that case, had we taken Roos and Eade both after their first match, Eade was 0% and Roos was 100% which in itself is a useless stat. If we take in terms of overall success over a sustained period of time, Eade has the distinct advantage of time over both Barassi and Roos, which again makes comparison a bit useless. Ask this question in say 2-3 years time and it may be a bit easier as Roos and his team will have settled, and then see how they really compare.