Graham Wright - ex-General Manager of Football

[derkd]

^ correct WB, I would argue, the club missed a chance after the premership last year to ease out one or two vetrans, I personally think Howe has played one season too many. With hindsight Cox could have retired at the end of 2023. Some might call this crazy, as it stands we are sitting outside the eight anyway. Hindsight, is a lovely thing.


We have had a couple of forced retirements, sadly of younger players we could ill afford to lose.

As you say, it is about considered careful stageing of exits.

I get the feeling that Wright and Mcrae, perhaps, don't see eye to ey on the list. Wright likely feels (i am assuming) the list is far more bare and need of rework than Fly.

What i would say in support of Wright, in this game if you don't evolve, you go backwards very quickly. Sadly, sentimentality died long ago in this game. This best clubs, the most successful have a strong ruthless streak.

I get the feeling at the end of this season, if it continues to track as it seems, we will see major overhual.

[derkd]

My experience in business is if someone resigns, you don't talk them out of it because you're just delaying the inevitable. Graham Wright should have been let go and the club move on. Now all that happens is the club is left in the lurch and decisions that need to be made about the list are delayed and at some point in time Graham Wright leaves anyway and you've just thrown away the last 12 months.

Your right MB, however, playing devils advocate for a moment. Much like the gun key forward we lack.. great list managers/GM's dont grow on trees...we have seen how badly things can go when you have a poor one ( i for one don't blame Ned Guy for our list disaster, but Gubby Allen, overspent and made ridiculous list calls: Daniel Wells )....I think the club is aware of just how good Wright is at his job, and just how important he is at building the side that won the flag last year.

Do you everything you can to keep him, till he says no more. if he walks at the end of this year or next, to Tasmania or retirement - i will wish him all the best and be forever greatful in his work in lift this club out of the post 2020 black hole it was in.

let us see what happens.

[LaurieHolden]

Wind back 9 months, Collingwood Football Club are on a honeymoon post winning their 16th Premiership. This follows one of the great Grand Final matches and after finishing 17th, missing finals in 2021 then a change of coach, one of the greatest Club turnarounds in recent memory.
The euphoria of the win sweeps through the Club, creating a layer of hubris that envelopes the Club and supporters alike.

At the end of the 2023 season, the man that has more experience than anyone, Graham Wright, tells the board / coaching panel they need to make a definitive call on Howe, Pendles, Sidebottom along with several key list changes required to re-fresh and evolve the squad for the future.
Caught up in the euphoria of the Grand Final, the coaching panel / board push back. Wright digs in, pressing his case, using Hawthorn as an example of not becoming emotionally attached to ageing stars.
The Board veto the changes, following which Wright tenders his resignation, after which Jeff Browne offers Wright a 6-month sabbatical rather than lose him outright. Wright agrees in part and leaves the Club at the cusp of the 2024 season. The Club seek to quash any spillover and present the press with a version that suggested Wright simply needed a break.
Meanwhile in Wrights absence, a football department leadership vacuum develops, and friction within the coaching group requires a reshuffle of roles.

As the season commences, President Jeff Browne confirms his recent absence stems from a diagnosis of myeloma, a form of blood cancer.
2022 & 2023 saw the team play with a freedom that was absent from the Club for many seasons. A sycophantic media pack are caught up in the 'Ted Lasso' coaching approach of Craig MacRae that appeared to galvanise the players post the Buckley era. Better quality journalists might have delved a little deeper to uncover wat exactly was occurring behind the scenes while most were still in a post premiership coitus glow.

Following 3 season opening losses, Wrights' concerns are proved prophetic, as the hold MacRae had on the players and coaching group for 2 seasons was openly scrutinised by supporters and the press. Of those losses, two were against genuine finals contenders and the other to an evolving St.Kilda side, also under a new coach.
Supporters were somewhat perplexed, but we'd just won the flag, so surely this was just an impact of our late start to the pre-season.

As we now know, the shaky start was perhaps what Wright sensed, and what followed has been hard to stomach. We've moved through what would now appear to be excuses of late pre-season, injury or form to full blown list crisis.
Yesterday, Hawthorn played like the 2022 Pies, buoyed by youth and belief in their coach and system. Unfortunately, this came at our expense, and they ravaged us, red tooth and claw.
Our veterans have seemingly been caught by time and lack of high-end Draft talent was laid bare against yesterday's opponent, replete with emerging high-end Draft talent. That along with a former champion player and emerging coach in Sam Mitchell, like Macrae also a Wright appointment, has galvanised his playing group.

The 2024 Pies looked like a side that at its core has been caught by time, exposed by injury and lacking real desire and commitment, critical in any sport.
Wright can't return quick enough, I suspect he won't find as much resistance to change this time around.

[SLORT]

If all of that is true then I personally wouldn't begrudge him leaving for Tassie. He's had 10x the success of anyone else in the club's football admin; to be ignored and overruled... disgraceful. No wonder he needed a holiday.

[Pies4shaw]

So, anyway, what use do we actually have for a bloke who lets Ginnivan go and replaces him with Schultz? Talk about diluting the talent pool.

[Piesnchess]

I recall when Wrighty left the piss an poo I was delighted, when he came "home" to us, his track record with them was awesome. His first two yrs with us, the same, terrific, culminating with a Premiership. Like many, I thought as he was with the Dawks, he would be with us for at least 5 yrs or more, and when I heard the report that he wanted to quit so early, into his tenure, I was gobsmacked speechless. I dont get him, he spends yrs at the Hawks helping them to a ruddy 3 peat, but bails out from us, after one flag ?? I just dont get his reason, or is he off to Tassie team, like others are like Brendon Gale ?? Very strange, and has affected us onfield this season for sure.

[duggieboy]

Well, according to Jeff Browne on the AFL site, nothing much is wrong despite the pies slide now reaching 13th spot on the ladder. In fact, there's no rebuild needed at all - basically, he's going to make sure we succeed because that's the way he rolls.
Add to this that he says he's talking with Graham Wright about finding a spot for him in the "newly structured" footy department, (how generous!) but in the next breath he reckons Wrighty would be great at AFL headquarters in a role there! What the heck??
It just doesn't add up. Something has surely gone down.

LaurieHolden's version seems closer to it to me (me, the uninformed). I mean, what else are the fans supposed to conclude here?

Mr Browne says "This year is not a write off, I don't concede that". He says we are set for an era of success. Anyone who thinks to the contrary has "a lazy, default argument".

Well, that's not what my eyes are witnessing these last few weeks. Time will tell, starting with Richmond next up.

[BazBoy]

You can mark his papers -Gone!!

Mr J .Brown said as much

[swoop42]

We effectively went into this season minus one very important and highly credentialed employee in Wright.

I don't think we hired anyone new and chose instead to fill the vacancy from within by having people like Bolton and Leppitsch effectively doing new 1.5 roles each. To achieve this we took them away from the roles they played in a Premiership season.

Fresh off the high of a Premiership win and in the hope Wright would return to fill the general manager of football position most of us were prepared to wear it. That landscape has now changed.

After his comments yesterday in the media it seems that Browne has all but ruled out Wright returning to fill the position he left. He left open the possibility a different role could be created, though if he's not prepared to be the GM and with Kelly a freshly minted CEO, I find it hard to see how any position could be viewed as career progression by Wright.

The last thing we need is some role created with a fancy title attached that doesn't make the best use of Wrights talents.

As it is you could argue we are already doing that this season with Leppitsch and Bolton.

If Wright isn't with us next season then we need to go out and find a GM of football with a resume of success like Wright.

If we wish to fulfill the position from within (Bolton?) then we need to go out and poach another quality assistant coach.

If we don't then we're still minus 1 from the collective talent pool that helped land us the 2023 flag, we're standing still and to me that smacks of complacency, it's the type of she'll be right attitude that eventually invaded the club before we got a long overdue reset at the end of 2017.

Over to you Jeff.

Time for actions not just words.

[Swanny2011]

I will call ‘BS’ on this. Our biggest problem this year has been player related (either absent or poor form) not Football operations related. Wright's year off was announced soon after the Grand Final. It was planned well in advance (like in 2022 or 2021) and we were told that he wanted to resign but we negotiated a year off for the 2024 season instead with the option to come back. I find it very hard to believe that Wright picked up his bat and ball and went home just because McCrae wanted to keep a couple of our older players on the list for the 2024 season. If he doesn’t come back, well so be it.

[swoop42]

We got 3 seasons out of Wright.

How many years of service did he give Hawthorn?

Kind of pissed off with him to be honest and by extension the club if we've basically known all along it was highly unlikely he would return to his GM of football position.

If our next GM of football is going to be appointed without a proper search being conducted and simply come from those already within the 4 walls, then a smell of nepotism is in the air.

As it stands now both Leppitsch and Bolton were hired due to their assistant coaching records and identified strengths contained within those roles. The jury is still out about their ability to take on and succeed in a more off field role.

In order to cover for the abscence of Wright and subsquently the new roles of the two named above, we elevated others to line coaches.

One of those in Roughead was a development coach last season, Skipworth and Selwood combined to coach the midfield together, while Bolton had the defence and Leppitsch the forward line.

In a season where we were looking to capitalise on last seasons Premiership success we effectively removed our two most decorated assistants, gave the two assistants who had combined previously the responsibility of seperate roles and elevated the development coach to oversee our defence.

I'm not going to blame all our troubles on them obviously but when you see it all written down is it any surprise we've looked a mess at times this season?

That's a hell of a lot of change in the one off season and all to a coaching panel that just combined for Premiership success.

I feel we might well have just kicked an own goal.

[gurugeoff]

i know, he can become director of coaching. Isn't that the role that Presidents create out of nowhere, when they want to pension someone off

[qldmagpie67]

The club tried to appease Wright with the holiday to recharge his batteries. The fact is Wright was hired to do a job and the coaching staff and board went on a emotional crusade to save a couple aging players.
Wright was correct the list needs refreshing each year and it doesn’t always mean going to the draft.
He was adamant 2 or 3 of the 30+ brigade be shown the door.
We lost Adam’s which left it down to 1 or 2 veterans left to go
The coaches and board didn’t even want to let a single veteran go.
I get they wanted to show loyalty or that we just won a GF but losing 1 veteran wouldn’t have hampered our chances for this season
Bringing in Schulz was a decision made after Ginnivan made it clear he wanted out
Did we pay a high price ? Time will tell. They actually play completely different roles so comparisons don’t really work.
Now we face losing one of the most respected administrators in the game. We don’t have a plan B in place. This make shift mix of Kelly Bolton Leppa sharing the workload isn’t working
Leppa and Bolton were hired as assistances coaches. Why are they devoting time to other stuff when it’s clear our onfield performance has dropped off so badly ?

If we lose Wright as head of football it will hurt but ok find another one and move forward.
But leave assistant coaches to do what there paid for and coach.

[Big T]

Can I ask - if we did let two more veterans go this year - given our shocking drafting of the past few years - who would have replaced them in the team? Okay it would have meant more games for Sullivan McRae McInnes I guess but let’s face it, there is absolutely no depth and we wouldn’t have traded 35 year olds, hence I can only guess our total incompetence in the draft would have continued and we would have gained very little.

Our problem is our kids are miles off. And there’s not much to be excited about, hopefully that changes quickly.

I think we were the best process driven team thanks to Fly, however totally lack development coaches and have a very poor draft and young talent identification department and that’s the real story. Fantastic at money balling which helped win a flag.

[qldmagpie67]

Big T
I don’t think the issue was which veteran would have gone (given it was one more at minimum) I think it’s more about the regeneration of the list over a longer period.
As it stands right now come seasons end 1/3rd of our supposed best 22 will be 30+ and another 1/3rd will be 27-30.
Playing veterans is fine if those veterans are playing at a standard high enough each week to add to our chance to win.
Right now that isn’t the case. Our veterans are struggling along with the rest of the team.
People bang on that the kids aren’t good enough now at AFL level and in most that’s right. Some have shown signs but haven’t been consistent enough.
But how will we know if there going to be any good if there not given more games/game time
I said it before in another thread Sidey was in and out if the side his first 12 or so. He was given 4 or 5 games back to the VFL for a couple weeks back to AFL. That’s how they progressed his development when players like Ball Didak etc where heading towards the end of there careers.
Wrights thing was keep a balance list where enough veterans still around to show young players the ropes and professionalism required but not taking AFL spots on past performances or a false sense of loyalty
We topped up for a shot to win 2023 and it worked. We are all grateful of that but now that loyalty to veterans is going to hurt going forward if we allow all of them to make the decision of their own future.
Except why someone like Wright is valuable he takes emotion out of it and bases it on what the best move is for the clubs longer term future