Carlton’s handling of the David Teague situation is exactly how not to sack a coach

As poorly as Carlton handled the sacking of David Teague, there is a path out of this mess. But there is one familiar trap the Blues must avoid, writes Jon Ralph.

David Teague has been sacked by the Blues. Picture: Getty Images

Carlton fans have every right to be frustrated, disillusioned and angry at the process that has seen David Teague sacked, if not the actual decision itself.

Only those who have seen the club’s review — and dealt with Teague on a daily basis — truly know whether he deserved to lose his job after 7-10 and 8-14 seasons.

Teague himself almost made the case in his final press conference, admitting the club’s stoppage and defensive work were areas for significant improvement.

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And lining up his win-loss record with the likes of Alastair Clarkson and Damien Hardwick’s early years is no fair comparison because they were coming from rock bottom and the Blues were seen to be ready to blossom when Teague took over.

By Thursday night Carlton will likely have three 2021 All-Australians in Jacob Weitering, Sam Walsh and Harry McKay all aged 23 and under, yet again the Blues failed to get it done on field.

Now come the recriminations, the explanations, the bizarre middle ground where Carlton will attempt to justify Teague’s sacking without besmirching his reputation on the way out.

None of it will truly matter by next season if Carlton can take a leaf out of Essendon’s book and how it handled a crisis that has parallels to the current funk the Blues find themselves in.

David Teague’s early success as Carlton coach didn’t last.

Essendon had a coach who some players didn’t really want, a playing list angry and dismayed at recent events, a team caught between or confused by game plans, and a supporter group thoroughly sick of the mediocrity.

As Blues president Luke Sayers and CEO Cain Liddle sort through the wreck of the past few months, every decision they make needs to follow Essendon’s lead.

New Bombers president Paul Brasher did his own review, surveying every critical person in the joint then forged a new path.

So, what are the main priorities?

If Ross Lyon is to be Carlton’s new coach, the club must run the proper process that it did not with David Teague.

It doesn’t have to run eight weeks, but he needs to be lined up against the likes of Adam Kingsley and Robert Harvey and the band of leading assistants that would be contenders.

Carlton won’t immediately bounce into top-four contention next year, so through those rocky times Lyon cannot be seen as just another messiah parachuted in without proper process.

If someone emerges who becomes a more attractive candidate, so be it.

Ross Lyon is a frontrunner for the Carlton job.

The Blues cannot afford to dither and get half-smart in the recruitment of Fremantle’s Adam Cerra, who isn’t Michael Voss or Marcus Bontempelli or even Andrew Brayshaw, but will add crucial midfield depth and a hint of class the midfield badly lacks.

Carlton can talk all it wants about splitting its current No.6 pick and handing the Dockers a later selection.

But, as Cerra’s manager Robbie D’Orazio will know, if Carlton was picking in this year’s draft and Cerra was available at pick 8 on draft night (after father-son bids), the Blues would take him in a heartbeat.

This is a draft with star power early with Jason Horne, Sam Darcy and Nick Daicos, but by that pick 8 slot they might get a nice midfielder.

Or they might get a Paddy Dow, Lochie O’Brien or Sam Petrevski-Seton type, all top-10 picks who have failed to deliver so far.

While the Blues would love to develop their own — and will have to stump up around $750,000 a year for Cerra — they can guarantee he will play 8-10 years at their club-and-fairest.

He’s not Paddy Cripps as an inside beast, he’s not Sam Walsh as a rampaging and relentless mid, but he’s a very good midfielder who works well away from stoppages and at his best is an elite kick inside 50.

The Blues drafted midfielder Liam Stocker and turned him into a half-back, midfielder Brodie Kemp and turned him into a tall back, half-back Zac Williams and turned him into a midfielder, then half back again.

Cerra is exactly as advertised, so pay the price and move on.

Then the challenge for the Blues is to walk the walk, rather than talk the talk.

Ben Rutten has all Essendon players on the same page.

Essendon didn’t over-hype its list, was realistic with supporters, built a cohesive game-plan and worked its collective butt off to get better.

It didn’t fall back on its history — past glories will get you nowhere — but it reclaimed what was great about Essendon and reconnected to it.

For too long Carlton has had a board with significant influence, has had blurred lines about who influenced the football department and list management decisions.

If Lyon is their coach, not one player will be under any doubt about exactly how he should buy into the defensive methodology when most were confused about it this season.

He has the tools at his disposal to do what he did at St Kilda with elite defensive interceptors in Liam Jones and Jacob Weitering, star rebounders in Williams and hopefully Sam Docherty, and more to the point, a cohesive full-ground defensive method.

But the most enticing part?

How he creates meaningful roles for players whose talent has been wasted for too long.

I am looking at you Jack Martin, and Zac Fisher and David Cuningham and Will Setterfield and Caleb Marchbank and even Matthew Cottrell.

Lyon hasn’t always been popular with every player and he hasn’t always coached high-scoring teams.

But he could create what Rutten has at Essendon — a team well-drilled in attack and defence, one which gives exciting young talent a chance without overburdening them, one that allows the true stars like Jake Stringer and Jordan Ridley their best chance to shine.

If Lyon could do that at Carlton by mid-next year, the wreckage of this off-season will very quickly be forgotten, no matter how hard-done-by David Teague will feel.

HOW NOT TO SACK A COACH

— Scott Gullan

Self-help books are all the rage and Carlton might have stumbled across a new revenue stream with a potential bestseller: ‘How Not To Sack A Coach’.

Since mid-year, the idea of saying goodbye to David Teague has been in the mind of the Blues hierarchy.

And as the on-field performance continued to struggle you didn’t have to have a bug planted in the boardroom of Ikon Park to know which way the wind was blowing.

Naturally you announce a wide-ranging review of the football department which is a nice PR exercise and might uncover a couple of nuggets — but the reality is this report has been engineered to get rid of the current coach.

Then when you lose to the bottom side in Round 19, followed by the 14th placed Gold Coast on your home deck two weeks later and then get pumped by 95 points by Port Adelaide in Round 22, surely you don’t need anymore think music.

David Teague in his final match as Carlton coach. Picture: Getty Images

Especially when the greatest coach of the modern era is suddenly on the market. Alastair Clarkson’s warm and fuzzy handover to Sam Mitchell was announced on July 6.

Again you didn’t have to be Nostradamus to predict that would go pear-shaped in a hurry - it barely lasted three weeks - so what would a club thinking about sacking its current coach do?

You quietly get in front of Clarkson’s manager and say we will offer $2 million a season, and throw in a couple of Bruce Mathieson’s poker machines for good measure, for him to coach Carlton for the next decade.

Naturally you have a back-up plan in Ross Lyon. But the key here is you don’t engage yet because you already know through his mates associated with Carlton that he’s frothing to get the gig.

The smart play is then to publicly back Teague in, not over-the-top, but find a positive line and not make it so bleedingly obvious that you never want to see his face again.

Then you wait patiently until the Sunday morning after the final game and you go around to his house (although maybe in Covid-19 times you can’t) or tell him to be at the club at 7am where you say: “Sorry mate, it didn’t work out but here’s $200k to put some food on the table next year.”

It’s messy but all breakups are. The most important thing is that it’s done.

Instead — and we will refer to the Blues ‘How Not To Sack A Coach’ manual now — you don’t do anything.

You let Teague do the exit interviews with the players (what do you reckon they’re thinking) and then have a few more meetings among yourselves about the report which you’ve been sitting on for weeks.

Then you produce a token offering with the sacking of an assistant coach (Brent Stanton) and then decide to give the coach you want to sack a chance to respond to the findings of the report. (Could this not have already been done?)

In the meantime his manager starts taking pot shots in the media because he thinks like everyone else that you want to punt him.

And then four days after the season ends Clarko’s manager comes out and says he’s definitely — with no ifs or buts — not coaching next year and taking 12 months out of the game.

New Carlton president Luke Sayers is quickly finding out that the football industry doesn’t work the same way as the business world.

David Teague was officially sacked by the Blues on Thursday. Picture: Getty Images

It’s a different beast. You don’t cross your T’s and dot the I’s when it comes to sacking coaches. You do it, you are decisive and move on quickly.

So now it’s a whole different ball game.

Do you:

1/ Suddenly pretend to love Teague again, pretend the report - which you’ve said you’re not making public - says he’s still the right man for the job he just needs some help around him?

2/ Let him serve out the final year of his contract while he, and the rest of the football world, know that behind his back you’re doing everything possible to persuade a refreshed and revitalised Clarkson to take over in 2023?

3/ Or, do you bite the bullet with Lyon even though his “grubby” TV pitch for the job — as well as some issues from his Fremantle days — has put a few board members’ noses out of joint?

Turns out option three is the way to go, because the Blues finally decided on Wednesday morning to tell Teague he no longer had a job.

AFL great Leigh Matthews doesn’t get too much wrong with his commentary and this is what he offered up about the Blues this week: “Whoever’s running that football club has got no idea how to run a football club.”

It’s hard to argue that one right now.