In relation to anonymous's reply, the truth is that it certainly is not Phil Jackson coaching!
This ineffective, reactive, poonce
must go for Westy's to improve.

Chad - are u implying that it's the coaches fault?

I know they lost talent, size and experience, but the five players I mentioned (Bell, Crothers, Younie, Phillips, and Evans) are still decent players, and are as good as North's starting 5 (talent wise) and North finished 2nd.

Where are all the talented juniors from a few years ago?

Well you have Jarrod Younie who is playing div 3 mens now. He got sacked part-way though the season for his attitude.

Nick Brewer & Jamie Granger (both '81s) played state as juniors, I believe and are playing div 3 mens now as well. Same with Brad Philp, who played U16 state, but never grew.

Deak, surely all the areas you have touched upon come within the coaches realm. Bell has had a very impressive year, but the others all need to have a good hard look in the mirror

Chad, wasn't questioning you - was just seeking clarification.

You are saying that the coach is to blame - yes?

unquestionably, hit the fat farm Bob

Okay:
Starting 5 for West at the start of the year -
Pearce, Bell, Cioffi, Crothers, Younie.
Starting 5 at the end of the season -
Pearce, Bell, Phillips, Crothers, Evans.

That's two changes, not four.

Nash played 6 out of 18 games (third of the season) - and they won 3 of those 6 games (including a loss to South when West was at full strength).

Cioffi played 9 out of 18 games (half the season) - and won 3 of those 6.

Younie was cut with three games remaining in the season.

So, I can give you the fact that they lost 2 of their starters, but the facts show that they weren't exactly lighting it up with those two players in the team. That's TWO starters - Sturt has played a considerable chunk of the season without Williams or Bauer, and Woodville has had games without Ng and Whitmore, so that argument doesn't wash. In addition, I think you'll find that Sturt, without Williams or Bauer, beat a full-strength Eastern team, who were coming off a victory over league-leaders Woodville. So that shows that teams can win when missing two of their best starters.

Bottomline: West won 4 games this season - 2 of them were against Centrals. Something's wrong - and blaming Cioffi and Nash's absence doesn't wash.

I sure they would (however, talent doesn't guarantee a succesful season - see: Eagles, Forestville). And I do appreciate that losing players 1-2 weeks prior to the season starting would be tough. I still think the remaining team is talented and should have won more that 4 games (or at least been losing by closer margins).

But I am also used to seeing West compete night in and night out, have genuine rapport with each other and play together like a team. Even with Nash and Cioffi, they didn't show that. They never seemed to have good chemistry and were being blown-out a lot.

So, I'm just curious, and asked the question: What's happened at West? And what can be done to turn it around next season?

Bob Runnerup is very lucky to still be in the league. How can a guy go from coaching Centrals ABL to the bottom of the table, moving onto Centrals U18 boys, then West assistant, and end up coaching a team that a couple of years back played against Sturt in the GF?? I still shack my head that West hired the guy to coach their ABL team. Good on him for coaching 400 games, but c'mon, what's his winning % like? Was he the only guy to apply? Surely Dion Greiger would have done a better job, or even Belly player / coach. Sorry West, the quicker you get rid of Runnerup, the quicker your program gets back on track.

Does anyone know if Bob played any level of ball in his days?

As I have already said, I understand the lack of scoring power and potency on offense in this year's West team.

You still haven't explained the lack of competitiveness that the West team consistently displayed. Usually, role players are the ones that bring the kind of upbeat, balls-out, competitive attitude that you need. That team looked like one that totally lacked chemistry and wasn't rating very high on the care-factor, either.

Will adding a few scorers change all that? Perhaps. They might've won a few more games and we probably wouldn't be having this discussion.

I believe that west missed the finals in 1998 with a 11-11 record and I think that this was the first time that they had missed a finals series in recent history. I certainly dont ever recollect a West senior mens team going under 500.

If you compare their Grand-Final team of 2001 to now:
Starters:
Grieger
Cioffi
Granger
Bell
Truslove

With a bench of
Evans
Pearce
Callier
Crothers
Younie

to this years team there are some significant contributers missing...

Anonymous:
Just to clarify your "lack of scoring argument":

West averaged 91.27ppg, which was 8th best in the league.
Southern averaged 92.83ppg, which was 7th best in the league.
Sturt averaged 92.94ppg, which was 6th best in the league.

Sturt finished 3rd on the ladder, and averaged 1.67ppg more than West, who finished second to bottom.
Southern finished 5th on the ladder and averaged 1.56ppg more than West.

That's less than one basket difference between the scoring power of Sturt, Southern and West, yet the teams finished 3rd, 5th and 9th respectively. One basket!! So, if it's lack of scoring, how do you explain Sturt and Southern making the finals?

Still think the problem was West's lack of offense?

(For the record, here's the ppg averages for each team:
Woodville: 108.05
North: 101.39
Forestville: 101.39
Eastern: 99.00
Norwood: 97.55
Sturt: 92.94
Southern: 92.83
West: 91.27
South: 91.27
Centrals: 83.61)

Anonymous - You obviously have no reply to my original question:

What's going on at West?

With all the players that went missing at the start & during the season I don't think blaming Bob is the right thing to do.
With all the player movement at West during the year I thought it would be a great opportunity for some of the young uns to step up & fill the void, show their coach that they could,by getting more minutes, play some serious ball.
Chad, it sounds to me like players didn't step up.

I don't know if Bob ever played the game but does that matter? Tom Maher never played, nor did the Nets coach Frank Lawrence or Mike Fratello or the Van Gundy brothers.
Bob has coached over many years, including a SEABL grand final so he has the runs on the board.

Collingwood go from 2 GF's to bottom of the ladder, that's sport, anything can happen.
From chocolates to boiled lollies, from the penthouse to the shithouse.

Over many years West have been one of(if not the best) at recruiting, so I wouldn't expect them to have a season like they've had, next year.

lets get some facts together Bob needs veterans to win, he is not the sort of coach to develop young kids over any amount of years, the team he took to the national final was full of veterans, not to mention 3 Americans, Fikes, Henderson, Nunnerly, Rigoni, Parsons, Rule,wilson these guys were proven vetrans that came together for one year and did well, all Bob did was call the subs and keep the beer on ice, the players did the rest.

There have been plenty of young kids at Westt his year that didnt see the court because Bob will play the vetrans to death, there was no blooding rookies for the coming years even when the season was all over. There were 5-6 games were this could have been done.

If Bob needs veterans to win, maybe that's why he's pursued Dix.