I am presuming that Lyon and Rosich are now so inexplicably tied as to have become a pair. That is, when Lyon goes so will Rosich. Probably a few others in senior management as well.
On reflection, the time to have done all this was at the end of 2015 when a number of quality off field people like Kirk left. There seemed to me at the time that they could see where the team and club was at. Freo had come close, but it probably wasn’t going to happen. This was the time when Fremantle needed a strong board and executive to make tough decisions. That was the time for a new ceo, president and coach. Re-signing Lyon at the time was understandable but giving him 5 years was very poor decision making.The club has blundered forward in such an incoherent manner the last few years that they have lost valuable time in turning things around. There are other issues as well obviously. The culture is very poor, with blowout losses a regular Fremantle thing over it’s history. The recruiting has been, at times, inexplicably bad. There is a whole generation of middle tier aged players missing from the club because of the 2012-2016 drafting disasters. The injury list is never ending.
I don’t think Ross Lyon can be blamed for all of the clubs current problems. Really, it has been across the board failures at all levels. Even the clubs marketing is tone deaf. The week after the grand final they posted on Instagram as if nothing had just happened and Fremantle were steaming ahead to a bright new future.
There are no easy answers. Personally, I would like to see a heap of people lose their jobs but how much faith do any of us have in the club picking the right people to replace them? The ceo position should be a highly prestigious position in this state. We end up with spivs and used car salesmen. The poor coach who replaces Lyon will have almost nothing to work with from a playing list perspective and will thus have very little goodwill from the fans. I don’t buy into the belief that this is a good list being badly coached. It is a poor list being poorly coached.
I have no idea where they go from here. I suppose e few early wins might hide the problems for a bit but there is no doubt to me the Fremantle football club is as far away from success as at any time in its existence. But the problems and mistakes are all it’s own doing. It really should not be this hard.