Roar Football Revolution! ...but before you Rugga Buggas dismiss it, read on a bit...

[kiap]

Brisbane's win yesterday in A-League grand final was the most amazing games of soccer I have ever seen!

The Roar were the better side most of the match but couldn't score against a good Central Coast Mariners team. Extra time at 0-0 and then the Mariners promptly make it 0-2 with a couple of clean strikes! On that score it seemed all over until Brazilian import Henrique scores for the Roar with just 3 mins to go... And then, just as the ref is about to blow full time, Erik `Port-a-loo` Paartalu heads home the equaliser! Amazing stuff. All the momentum with them, Brisbane go on to take the shoot-out and the title!

All well and good, you may say, but how can this apply to rugby?

We have to go back a year or so to find the answer (after Brisbane Roar had just finished second-last on the ladder) and take a look at the changes instigated by coach Ange Postecoglou that proved to be the key to their record-breaking season.

... Postecoglou finally found an open coaching door at the Brisbane Roar in late 2009 replacing the sacked Frank Farina ... The 45-year-old has moved the Australian game's goalposts, and the A-League is more watchable and better than ever as a result of a Roar side he has re-invented...

"Before I got the job I had an idea in my head - it was so clear in my mind what I wanted to do," Postecoglou said. "My whole emphasis from day one was to play a style of game that was successful, and wasn't being played here."

Postecoglou did not inherit a blank canvas at the Roar. More like a boxing one. He found a clique of senior players resistant to change and a culture too comfortable. One by one the recalcitrants were shipped out. Among them was former Socceroo captain Craig Moore - a proud Queenslander and the face of the club. Moore fronted the Roar's chief executive Peter McLennan and made an ultimatum - it's Postecoglou or me. In an era where player power kills coaches daily, the club chose to back in Postecoglou and reverse the truck over Moore.

It upped the pressure on Postecoglou to perform. Twelve months on, the Roar's brave move has brought rewards even the ever-positive coach admits have come far sooner than he expected.

"I was absolutely determined and headstrong to do it this way.... "I wasn't going to let anything stop me. The fallout - good, bad or otherwise - I was prepared for it. I didn't at any stage doubt what I was doing."...

They have now gone unbeaten for 28 matches straight... and there's a lesson here for professional sporting clubs of any code. Empowered players can work very well for a team when the side is on the way up and there's not too much dead wood. But unless the players and coaches, and most particularly the club administrators, remain answerable for their performances it can all too easily slip over into nepotism and failure becomes entrenched.

It happened at Brisbane Roar, and we can see how that was turned around. It takes some administrators with balls who are not afraid to kick arse to make the changes needed for the success of the club when they are up against vested interests.

Read the full article here.

 

[Aussie D]

So what your saying is do what Robbie Deans instigated with the Wallabies when he came on board.

 

[Tangawizi]

Yes but Robbie probably didn't get the full backing from all quarters within the ARU to suck real bad for a season (as the Roar did last year) before turning things around. That and his players did not have the requisite skills and mindset to "play what's in front of them". So it's taken longer while he's brought players through who can do that such as Cooper and Genia.

On a side note, I don't think I have ever been in a crowd that has gone off as much as that one did yesterday. First when the Roar equalised and then again when the winning penalty went in. That was bigger than the Bledisloe, bigger than Qld winning in golden point at the State of Origin and bigger than us beating All Blacks in the 2003 RWC Semi-Final. The place just went absolutely beserk!

 

[kiap]

So what your saying is do what Robbie Deans instigated with the Wallabies when he came on board.

Some parallels to be found with Robbie's situation, yes, although at national team representative level it's always different to club/franchise situation. Aimed more so at where the buck eventually stops, which is really with the administrators over the coaches and players - in that the right people need to be selected and supported for those roles. So to extend your analogy, O'Neill backs Deans to implement his program of changes, - but I don't think this example is so stark.