Finals Week 3 – Fremantle v Hawthorn: Ross Lyon – his coaching career and being my role model in the past

 

Ross Lyon has been the topic on talk back radio and social media for a few days.

 

I am interested in his records because I was shocked when I heard he left the Mighty Saints abruptly.

 

Before mentioning his coaching records, let me talk about how I thought about the once coach of the year.

 

While working with a year-long life coaching book, I learnt motivation and that focusing on strengths was important to improving myself. I thought Lyon focused on his players’ strengths to do the best coaching. Then I tried to learn from him, to focus on my strengths to improve myself, and to build a better life.

 

As a coach guiding St Kilda into two grand finals (at the time Fremantle had never played Grand Final), I had a lot of admiration for Ross.

 

But at the time I did not know:
– He did not blood young boys
– His coaching style was defensive.

 

As for the first issue, I guess he had been appointed to win the flag for St Kilda, so he needed best players to achieve his goal. But it works only for a short term. If it did not work in 2009, he should have trained young players to re-form a best team – like what Hawthorn has been doing.

 

The latter issue (defence) has been criticised by many footy experts – including our former coach Grant Thomas. In his The Age column, Thomas suggested that his club needed more attacking in the Grand Final. Sadly, Ross has not learned from the 2013 Grand Final against Hawthorn. His Dockers again lost to the Hawks on Friday night in a big final, only this time at Subiaco, and not the MCG.

 

Many footy fans urge that attacking is the key for the final campaign on the social media. I agree because it is the competition which is played by strong clubs.

 

Sadly Lyon cannot be my role model any more. But I think I have learned a lot from him in both positive and negative ways.

 

My adopted method of focusing on strengths is often disagreed, but focusing on overcoming weaknesses would ruin my strengths and cause a loss of self-esteem.

 

Seeing both your positive and negative sides is needed to help you improve, I think.

 

I admit I do not have much time to review about self life coaching work, but have to keep motivated. It would be hard to see, but my situations are improving slightly.

 

Because it is hard to see and recognise, it is easy to get annoyed or stressed. But if I see fast solutions, results would be what Ross has been facing in his senior coaching career.

 

His successor at St Kilda, Scott Watters, was not able to succeed as a senior coach, but I admire him encouraging young players.

 

Our current coach, Alan Richardson, is a good mentor of young boys. It is great and I admire his flexibility. His coaching style was a traditional defensive one last year but moved on to be a more offensive one this year.

 

I need to adopt his coaching method in my life!

 

Patience is needed for many situations. Sadly Lyon is not a man for long-term strategies in footy clubs.

 

Let’s seek positivity in our lives!

 

MATCH DETAILS:

 

FREMANTLE:  2.1  4.4  8.4  10.7.(67)

HAWTHORN:  5.2  7.2  11.3  15.4 (94)

 

GOALS:

Fremantle: Walters 3, Griffen 2, Hill, Pavlich, Ballantyne, Barlow, Mayne.

Hawthorn: Rioli 3, Schoenmakers 2, Suckling 2, Roughead 2, Smith, Hale, Bruest, Hill, McEvoy, Duryea.

 

Umpires: Dalgleish, Stevic, Rosebury

 

Crowd: 41,508 at Subiaco.