What I’m saying is, when it came to those senior players, he had a defensible recruitment strategy over the Covid period - that was always going to end up with a major squad refresh in 2022-23.
The strategy failed perhaps largely due to unforeseeable circumstances. So I can’t blame Corica for that.
Where Corica failed is in his utilisation of the full squad, but if we’re comparing him to the other coaches in the league (for the most part) none of them would have done any differently. They all rely on their recruitment and play the same lineups the same way - all very reliant on circumstance.
So, in my mind, it’s difficult to evaluate his performance completely. I place a high value on utilisation of players, but overall the league does not. My dream scenario would have been for Corica to find a new challenge abroad and for us to go in an exciting new direction- with a new type of football that is effective against the style that is ubiquitous in the league at the moment (Arnold-ball).
But that didn’t happen. So, we have to see if either Corica can change (seems unlikely, but he’s surprised me before) or whether his historically proven skills in recruitment and management are enough to right the ship.
It’s too early to write him off, for me. You go ahead, if that’s your thing.
I think it has to be said that, we all love Steve Corica for the contribution to the club as a player and taking over coaching when Arnold left.
But it also is evident that he hasn’t been making good choices tactically and maybe he might be hamstrung due to the club’s controls on spending and recruitment, who knows, but something has to change.
I feel like we were treading water during COVID and the stadium construction, I hope the ambition returns this season and we can see what Corica can do with a semi-blank slate.
If we suffered from the age of the squads due to tje concentration of games why did Corica not bring in players able to help with that in the 3(?) Transfers period we’ve had since the start of the pandemic?
In that time we’ve brought in an aging an ineffective Bobo. An aging and infective Le Fondre. An ineffective Narsingh. An ineffective Amini. And an underutilized Burgess. Less said about Donarchie the better.
The goals return has been decent, bit it’s what he takes away from the team otherwise that was the problem. The lack of mobility was a huge problem in helping is progress up the pitch in particular when he started games. He would start and play 45 minutes.and have no effect on the game whatsoever. Of course that’s also on those around him.
And then it meant that any chance of pressing the opposition was futile. So we had some players who did it and well, such as Elvis and when actually on the pitch, Wood, and then Bobo who couldn’t do it at all, rendering the others’ efforts as useless.
Infective. Compared to his previous tenure. I was glad to see him back, but why did Corica persist when it became apparent the halycyon days were over?
Because prior to the first Covid lockdown and actual pandemic, March 2020 to June 2020, we were on target to beat our own PPG record. After the comp resumed we still won a double. It was at that point we recommitted to some of the ageing players incl. Ninko & Wilko until right now. No one complained at the time.
We continued recruitment on the basis of life returning to normal. State and international border issues were beyond anyones prediction, but the next lockdown of greater Sydney hit literally in the week leading up to the 2021 GF.
The season just gone resulted in absolute fixture chaos, but immediately post the ‘21 GF, at the time we were filling the remaining positions for 21/22 (remembering most of Dad’s army were already contracted) it’s pretty ridiculous to assume that the club could have predicted the upcoming fixture list or that A-L players who’d just agreed to reduced pay packets through the CBA / salary cap would also be content to sit around waiting for said fixture list before clubs decided to recruit them in relation to it. You may as well say we shouldn’t be signing anyone more now until we see the 22/23 fixture list, and all that does is give other clubs a free shot at anyone worth signing.
Should we have been refreshing the squad anyways? Sure we should have. But pretty much every signing we’ve made made perfect sense at the time. I include ALF and Bobo in that as O/S 9’s are never guaranteed to work out and given the difficulty in getting one mid-pandemic it made sense to get guys who knew the league, our club and our system already. The biggest mistakes there were letting ALF go for starters (I reckon if we kept him one more year and THEN let him go to India we’d have at least one more trophy, but the club clearly gambled on getting him back for the business end of ‘21) and failing to keep Gowser because if he was still here to replace Wilko the other CB’s shortcomings wouldn’t be so obvious.
Anyways, TL:DR. Corica has made plenty of other mistakes which are evidenced and indisputable. There’s no need to invent flimsy additional ones based on crystal balls RE: fixture lists and a completely unrealistic approach to player recruitment and retention.
He also wasn’t a $1m/yr marquee like last time, but a stop-gap costing whatever spare change we could scrape together within the $2m cap of the COVID year when Kosta-Trent was floundering.
Further lockdowns and condensing of game frequency was in the realms of possibility and a contingency should have been planned.
If I can come up with contingencies for my job in about 5 mins then it’s not outside the realms of realism that Corica and his staff can take a week to plan what to do in the face of further lockdowns and increased fixture congestion.
I’d say returning to past players is more to with not replacing our Serbian super scout then a desire for familiarity. Other clubs have brought in good players. Why is our scouting worse?
Why bring in Burgess and not use him? Why bring in Amini and use him incorrectly? Why bring in Narsingh and not use him correctly? Why bring in Bobo and not service him properly?
Could it be that Corica is a perfectly decent assistant but a visionless head?
Marcelo’s announced hes leaving Madrid. If we dont bring back Gersbach, marquee LB anyone? If we’re willing to take a big punt and change to a formation that uses wingers, what about Daniel Arzani? And remember we enquired about Mooy in January, should we reconsider that again?
Our jobs are not remotely comparable. What were they supposed to do, get mutual with some of the older guys under contract and then sign a bunch of average unattached A L journeyman just cos they’re a few years younger? Yeah, way to unfold the club.
Valid, but I’d argue other clubs foreign signings were only really good last season when we had already committed ours reasonably well. Western hit pay dirt with Lacroix and Prijovic, Newcastle nailed Penha, Beka and Boumal. But I think we can really only compare how we do based on the next lot in as we had limited wiggle room on foreigners a year ago.
These are the valid criticisms and you’ll get no argument on them from me.
There’ll always be duds, but across the board there were a few more hits from clubs that have previously struggled to recruit well from OS, they’re the ones to compare to.
Ninko, ALF, Bobo, Kosta and Luc weren’t terrible on paper (even if all past 30), but there’s definite room for improvement on 3 of those 5 spots next season.
Use a little more imagination than signing players to play our of position or underutilize?
Make a choice between Bobo and Le Fondre?
Not player Buhagier look after it became apparent he wasn’t up to it?
Corica has continually displayed a lack of adapility and reliance on players that aren’t cutting.
For his sake, I hope I’m wrong in my opinion cause if you think I’m bad, wait till you see the venom are general fans will bring if he continues in the same way for about the first 6 rounds.
L journeyman just cos they’re a few years younger? Yeah, way to unfold the club.