Rodney Eade

[cruiser]

Eade will always have my respect for what he did for Sydney.

[liz]

Originally posted by taurus
Eade is really a master tactician! He apparently negated Lions defence by using smaller and agile forwards (which resulted in Johnson and Leppitich (?) moved to play out of their usual positions).

Wish our current coaching staff have a fraction of Eade's innovation and risk-taking approach....

They did - in Roos first year, just as they did in Eade's first year with us. Taking risks when there are few expectations is easy - you're not scared of losing so you can dare to win. Once things are expected of you it becomes harder, and of course teams have had several years to work out what you do and come up with counter-tactics.

One of the reasons slated for Eade "losing" the Swans players was that he was so tactical that the players became pawns rather than footballers. I've no idea of how much truth there is behind it, but it is a plausible explanation for what we saw.

I too have huge respect for what Eade did with the Swans and I still like him. I hope he does well with the Dogs. But you need to compare Eade's current situation with Eade and the Swans in 1996 and with Roos in 2003, not with Roos in 2005.

[NMWBloods]

The important comparison will be Eade and the 'Dogs in 2006 and 2007, against Roos in 2004 and 2005.

However, I do find it interesting that all those pushing for Roos talked about Eade (and Wallace) as being too defensive, yet the goals/game of the teams they coached is much higher than we are under Roos.

The other thing is that Eade continues to demonstrate his excellent tactical ability on the football field. I'm not sure if what the Swans produced in Roos' first year was the result of great tactics - seemed more a result of a relaxed attitude. Since then we've seen virtually no tactical innovation that I can recall. Eade is still able to counter opposition moves (as he did against the Lions and against the Roos) and produce some good ones of his own.

[ugg]

Eade will have plenty of tricks up his sleeve for us next week. When he was commentating for newsradio, he would dissect our game plan with a fine tooth comb. He'll definitely be looking to shut down Kennelly after his performance today.

[cruiser]

I'm seriously excited about the game against the Dogs. Eade will be desperate to coach his new team to victory against his old. During his time as cioach of Sydney, quite a rivalry developed between these two teams. It might be back. I hope so.

[giant]

Originally posted by cruiser
I'm seriously excited about the game against the Dogs. Eade will be desperate to coach his new team to victory against his old. During his time as cioach of Sydney, quite a rivalry developed between these two teams. It might be back. I hope so.

I agree, this is shaping up as one of the best games in Sydney this year, with more at stake than the 4 points. Got the makings of a Star Wars episode with the young buck up against the jilted mentor (at least I think that's what Star Wars is all about...).

Rocket is one of the few AFL coaches who I saw win games almost exclusively due to his tactics - a very rare & valuable commodity when the competition is so tight. OTOH, must make it strange as a player if you end up feeling like you're just one of his chess pieces.