Senior Coach Brendan McCartney has built a reputation for his consistent approach, but this week he had a slightly different request of his players — to watch the second quarter against Brisbane in its entirety.
Holding a more collaborative style review after the Bulldogs recent eight point loss, McCartney took a big picture approach.
“We did the review a little differently, more of a shared review coach-player, player-coach,” McCartney said.
“Sometimes when you are a player you get to see your highlights package, you get to see the edits that the coaching group put together for you but sometimes you are better placed to watch a half of footy or a quarter of footy.
“When you look at it that way you actually get to see first-hand what your involvement in the game creates in a positive or negative sense for your team,” he said.
“I think it opened a few eyes as to where they were standing and where they were running and what they were doing and what then happened to us as a team in the next two minutes.”
McCartney said this week, like most weeks, his players will be shown ways in which they can improve on their weaknesses, without losing sight of their stronger attributes.
“As a group here and a coaching group we never shy away from our inadequacies… we are always working on our player’s strengths,” he said.
“There’s a two edged sword – it’s confront what you have got to confront but at the same time we have people here who we know can play.
“They’ve done it over a long period of time or they’ve done it in the last few years or they’ve done it albeit inconsistently this year.”
McCartney said the solidarity of the group had not been affected, and that he had faith in his players to bounce back.
“We know there’s enough talent here, enough ability and we are going to keep working,” he said.
“We are in it together, relationships are strong coach to player, player to coaches and we are going to keep at it.”
