Here's something we prepared earlier: Brad Haddin - The Schizoid Man

Originally published on the Sight Screen, on Sunday 22nd January.

Brad Haddin’s feeling tired, is he?

It’s not really surprising, given he’s been Australia’s first choice wicketkeeper in all formats of the game for nearly five years now.  “Victorian” Matthew Wade, (rather than Tasmanian Tim Paine) now looms largest in his rear view mirror, and Haddin has admitted to feelings of stress and overwork.  Media scrutiny can’t have helped these feelings of exhaustion as in Australian batting and fielding teams that have been uniformly inconsistent he is now considered a weak link.

If truth be told, on form alone Brad Haddin doesn’t deserve to stay in the Australian team.  He has been blessed with exquisite timing (a century against England in the first Ashes Test last year, coupled with potentially career-ending finger injuries to Paine) and more batting talent than any of his nearest rivals.

Creative commons

However, he and Shaun Marsh seem to be the only Australians not to benefit from Micky Arthur’s ascension to the role of national coach.  He started promisingly, with a very watchful 20-odd in the first innings at Melbourne, but followed this with scores of 6, 0 and most recently a second-ball duck in the Big Bash.  He seems torn between the new responsible batsmanship apparently favoured by his countrymen and the voices in his head that tell him to just get out there and smack the ball. 

Sometimes we talk of men out of their time; it appears Haddin was born five years too late.  A decade ago, he would have been the perfect late-order hitter for Australia.  Now, he has become the most obvious and awkward symptom of a worldwide cricketing malaise, where patience is something played on the computer.  His keeping has suffered and his batting stinks of a man in two minds.  Arguing with another person can be tiring, but constantly debating with oneself amidst a climate of fear can be utterly soul-destroying.  It’s little wonder he’s exhausted.

Sometimes talent isn’t enough.  Now more than ever, teams are conscious of how well a player fits into their side – talented players now often make way for lesser mortals in the name of “team balance”.   Comparing the batsmanship of Australia’s keeping options (Haddin with a First Class average of 39, Wade with 40), results pretty much in a wash – except Haddin is a match winner/loser, while Wade contributes reliably but in a less game-changing vein. 

When contrasting their work behind the stumps, no matter how good each usually is, one must plump for the Victorian simply because of his incumbent rival’s absolute lack of form (and footwork).  It is said of footballers that when their “legs go”, their career becomes instantly unrecoverable.  With the exception of leaden-footed dervish Chris Gayle, the same is true of batsmen and keepers: Haddin’s footwork is nearly a decade past it’s use-by date.

However, the middle of a tour is an inopportune time to replace such a significant figure.  Haddin’s status as vice-captain also presumes to his position’s safety.  But the next Australian series – in the West Indies – should be the time in which John Inverarity and his brethren throw name both in the touring party.  By then, Shane Watson may have returned to the lineup and Haddin’s leadership credentials won’t have quite the same pull; his form alone will testify in his defence.

Both Wade and Haddin are supremely talented individuals, and for the moment, selection simply comes down to a matter of taste.  Does one favour matchless eye or preferable technique?  Proven matchwinner or runs in the (First Class) bank?  Haddin could save his career with a century at one of his favoured roads pitches in Adelaide; but admissions of fatigue are usually signs of severe trouble. 

Original post on The Sight Screen.

Don't bet on the AFL coaching carousel

When it comes to AFL coaching appointments, can we all just agree that the heavyset soprano doesn't let loose until the coach is actually appointed? All the mail we had over the past month concerning potential job opportunities at the highest level has been, in effect, bunk.

With Adelaide, all the mail centred on two high-profile croweaters, Scott Burns and incumbent interim, Mark Bickley. The new coach is a lower-profile (but probably better-qualified) South Australian, Brenton Sanderson.

It was logical that Leon Cameron's name was closely associated with the Western Bulldogs' job - as Doctor Who once said, "Logic merely allows one to be wrong with authority". AFL yeoman Brendan McCartney now unanimously defies logic at Whitten Oval.

All the talk at Melbourne centred around experience, especially that of Rodney Eade, Ross Lyon and Alastair Clarkson. Now, the unheralded Mark Neeld - late of Ocean Grove, the Western Jets and Collingwood - has taken the reins. It seems, like Hafey, Sheedy and Jeans before him, Mark Thompson has beget a legacy of AFL coaches - a connection to the Cattery is now apparently essential in winning a senior job.

Over the past five years, pundits have shown an increasing tendency to get these sort of predictions wrong. The AFL now makes a mockery of any predictive process because the structures each club has instituted provide so much room for the bolter from the field. Both Dean Bailey and Matthew Knights - flawed appointments or not - impressed so much during the interview process against heavily-backed opposition that they were rewarded.

Of course this isn't always true, but the body of evidence supporting it is strengthening. The occasional fait d'accompli like Michael Voss or James Hird ascending to their seemingly-rightful places. Nor was Kevin Sheedy's appointment to his spruiker's role at GWS. But, both his Essendon replacement, Knights, and Gold Coast opposite Guy McKenna, surprised.

Going back to 2007 and including Collingwood's proposed handover of power, there have been nineteen coaching appointments in the AFL. Succession plans had effectively been implemented in three of these (Sydney, Brisbane & Collingwood). The Interim coach has won out in a further three: with Carlton, Port Adelaide and Fremantle in 2007. From the remaining thirteen coaching changes, only Sheedy, Hird and Damien Hardwick won the job they were tipped for.

The favourite rarely gets the biscuits.

Leon Cameron & Rodney Eade, courtesy: realfooty.com.au

But this seems to be a phenomenon which primarily involves younger assistants. It's seemingly much easier to predict the movement of veteran assistants the likes of Dean Laidley, McCartney or Mark Williams (who now effectively occupies the same role he did when he entered the coaching ranks at Port Adelaide).

Perhaps this is because the appointment of assistants tends to be dependent on the coach rather than being essentially a board decision. Because of this, the dots are easier to connect: by virtue of thier preparation for such an exhaustive interview processes, new coaches know their weaknesses and seek to redress such flaws with experience.