The Roar
The Roar

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Is Paul Roos still the best coach on the market?

16th June, 2013
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16th June, 2013
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For three years, Paul Roos has not been able to escape media speculation when new coaching appointments are forced at the end of each AFL season.

But with three years out of the game, perhaps he is no longer the best on the market.

To be out of AFL coaching for three years, Roos has been missing from the inner sanctum of a football club while the game has evolved faster than ever.

Australian football is no longer the same game it was in 2010 when Roos gave the game away to spend more time with his family.

Due to the success he achieved in Sydney, he is subversively hailed the messiah of football. It’s a position others have found themselves in and failed to live up to expectation.

Terry Wallace was a revered coach back in the late 90’s when he was at the helm of the Western Bulldogs. He did an excellent job in rebuilding the team and made them competitive in his second season at the club.

He resigned from the Bulldogs towards the end of the 2002 season but was still respected. He was believed to be in line for the vacant Sydney senior coach role but an alleged gentleman’s agreement was broken when Paul Roos was appointed.

Wallace had no shortage of work and jumped straight into a prominent media role as an analyst across various platforms. During his two years out of the game, people listened to him when he spoke.

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So influential was he within the football community, he was offered the Richmond coaching job from the 2005 season onwards.

They signed him to a five year deal thinking he was Richmond’s savior. He stuck to his guns which proved successful a decade ago but he pretty much took the club backwards. They played slow football and he was a big part of their recruitment failures.

It would take a considerable amount of money to convince Roos to give up his media and family life and return to the coaches box.

He would have to be one of the top paid coaches to do so and gambling on a guy who has not coached in three years is fraught with danger.

So long as Roos has been in the media and quizzed about his involvement in vacant senior coaching roles around the league, he had denied interest. Voicing his content as a family man, his family-first priorities would be reassessed when his oldest son finishes high school.

Tyler Roos will sit his final exams this year, in around four months time.

While this is no guarantee Roos will return to the senior coaching ranks, he will be the most chased man amongst football general managers.

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Under Roos’ the Swans played football which got them results. It even took them to consecutive Grand Finals for one win. In eight seasons as senior coach, his team missed the finals on just once occasion.

The key to Sydney’s game plan under Roos was just about the complete opposite of the successful Geelong game plan of the past five year.

Where Geelong have focused on quick movement through the corridor, the Swans played unattractive football which at one point led to criticism from AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou.

Under Roos guidance, it was all about maintaining possession and tackling pressure around contests. There was no such thing as too much congestion around the ball for Roos who coached his players to tire opponents through fierce tackling rather than running them off their legs.

It was painstaking to watch at times – but it worked.

In the Swans 2005 premiership year, the Swans were the lowest scoring team amongst those that made the finals.

During the three years that Roos has been out of the game, the AFL has made so many rule changes making the game unrecognisable amongst older generations. Players have even come out over the past few weeks voicing the lack of understanding of changes to the rules.

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Just about every rule introduced is designed so that the Paul Roos style of football never comes back into the game.

Three years on from when Roos left the game, only four players are allowed inside the centre square at bounces. The figure was unlimited prior but the change was made to avoid congestion around the centre square.

Ruckman are no longer allowed to engage in wrestling contests until the ball leaves the umpires hand.

Roos loved his ruckman and under the Sydney game plan, they forced more stoppages than any other team. It allowed his two-pronged ruck attack to tire the opposition who were forced to ruck beyond their normal capacity.

These days, they key to ruckman is aerobic capacity and those who can cover the ground to get to contests are valued much more than those with a body presence. In conjunction with the substitute rule, teams now rarely play two ruckman.

John Worsfold, and to a lesser extent Kevin Sheedy, are both senior AFL coaches out of contract at the end of the year. Like Roos, both are premiership winning coaches but both are more familiar with the current game than Roos.

The game is not what it was in 2010 when Paul Roos stepped away from the game. Therefore, questions must linger over whether he can be the messiah for any struggling team.

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