Essendon great Tim Watson has commented on the club’s decision to undertake an internal review.
President Paul Brasher announced on Monday night that the Bombers will look deep in a bid to correct their poor 2022 season to date.
Watson and SEN Breakfast co-host Garry Lyon discussed why the club has opted to perform an about-face after saying only weeks ago that a review, amid subpar on-field results, would not be required.
“Less than a month after Paul Brasher said, ‘We don’t need a review, we’ve got our people in place’,” Lyon said on SEN Breakfast.
“I think we all sat there and went well that’s good. If you’ve got people in place, you don’t need to be doing a review. If you’ve got confidence in them, let them do their job.
“Now a month later, it’s not only a review, it’s absolutely wide, it is a full-scale review of the footy department, player development, coaching and list management. (Kevin) Sheedy and (Simon) Madden to be called upon, it’s their second review in less than two years.
“Recruiting and list management is going to be important because he (Brasher) has conceded that they’re going to finish down the bottom and get a very good pick. He also went on to apologise about the announcement of the re-signing of the CEO (Xavier Campbell).”
The situation of Campbell recently signing a new deal in the middle of such club-wide mediocrity led Lyon to ask Watson the following.
“So Xavier has been reappointed, he’s the right man for the job. Xavier is pivotal to all the appointments that have now led to this massive internal review,” he added.
“Can you make some sense of that?
“On the one hand, Xavier is our man and he’s there and this is great and he’s our CEO… but, we’re going to review everything that you’ve put in place in the past few years.
“That’s what I struggle with right now. If he’s done such a great job and he’s your man, why are you now going out and doing an internal review?
“And why is it internal?”
Former club captain Watson feels that Essendon has been “dragged” into this position due to the overriding disappointment being felt at The Hangar.
“I think the club has been dragged to this,” Watson said.
“I think there have been so many people upset and disappointed with the season so far, against what they said a couple of weeks ago about conducting this, now they’re saying, ‘We have to do something’.
“We’ve got so many people there who are disenfranchised, there are a lot of angry Essendon supporters who are disappointed in what they’re seeing.
“The things that you can fix and should be fixing are coaching-related type issues around consistency of effort, around structure, around ball movement both ways, how slow Essendon still are. They’ve started to try and pick that up, but they’re not there yet.”
He added: “Obviously you’ve got other areas, you’ve got recruiting and list management, all those things there, but when Paul Brasher Cameron into the job a couple of years ago he looked at all of this.
“He did an examination himself. I remember talking to him about it. Less than two years down the track they’re having another examination of all the things that the same people have examined.”
Lyon said: “So we’ve decided we’re going to review all of this, the footy department, the recruiting and the coaching, which has been put in place by the CEO amongst others, yet we’ve reappointed the CEO and we’re very happy with that job that has been done.”
Watson: “At face value, that looks like a contradiction.”
Lyon: “It’s a strange one from where I’m sitting.”
Watson: “Patience, when this happens and a club hasn’t performed over a period of time, is in short supply.
“That’s exactly what Essendon are confronting now.”
Despite the disappointment surrounding the club and Ben Rutten, the 307-game, three-time premiership Don says now is not the time to make any rash decisions regarding the head coach.
“I don’t want to go straight into sacking Ben Rutten because of what’s going on. I think he should be given time to fix that and show that he can fix that,” Watson said further.
“He’s only into the second year of a coaching appointment, his first job at the highest level. He’s a rookie coach, he is making errors that young, inexperienced coaches make along the way.
“But as we’ve seen even with Al Clarkson in the first couple of years at Hawthorn, he made errors as well. He was given time then to rectify those because they backed him as the coach that he actually became.
“I’m not at that point yet where you’d be saying let’s get rid of the coach and find another coach for the club, I’m not at that point.”
Listen to the full chat below: