Hesson gooooooone!
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Far out, thought he'd give the CWC another crack before moving on. But, fair enough - I have a young family and being away from them for long periods would suck balls.
I'm comfortable labeling him as one of our, if not our best ever coach. The culture, pride and professionalism he installed in the team has been absolutely phenomenal - I'd rate it alongside what Henry did with the All Blacks. I'm hopeful that like the All Blacks, what Hesson has done will filter through and continue on with whoever the next coach ends up being.
And all that after the horror start - being thrown a hospital pass by NZ cricket on the captaincy issue, and the sheer incompetence of David White in his handling of the situation. And then the disastrous tour to SA getting rolled for 45 and certain player(s) showing absolutely no pride in the jersey... ahh should I say cap. To turn that around is nothing short of incredible - and thank fuck we had him at the helm lest we waste the world class talent we have in Rosco, Kane and Boult.
Go well Hesson. When the guys were signing autographs at Britomart I made a point of sneaking around the back to get you to sign my son's miniature bat, and I'm glad I did. A top class coach and NZ cricket fans are forever in your debt for building a team we can be genuinely proud of.
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@baron-silas-greenback said in Hesson gooooooone!:
Fuck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So gutted.
I was on board his bandwagon from day one. He was a special coaching talent.I've always liked you, BSG.
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@no-quarter said in Hesson gooooooone!:
And all that after the horror start - being thrown a hospital pass by NZ cricket on the captaincy issue, and the sheer incompetence of David White in his handling of the situation.
Hesson threw the NZC the hospital pass on that one. I absolutely disagree with the handling and nature of the Taylor sacking, but there is no doubt he presided over a period of relative consistency in performance and selection with the team.
Not leaving the side in total inner-turmoil automatically places him in the top half of Black Cap coaches. History will likely treat him kinder than other CWC semi-final making coaches because Grant Elliot hit that six at Eden Park, but for me he sits somewhere in the Lees-Rixon tier below the Aberhadrt tenure.
As for a replacement - Flem is my favourite NZ cricketer of all time but I would want to see him coach 4-day cricket first to believe he can coach/coexist outside the T20 format. I would love to revisit John Wright free from Buchannan or various overseas options. Grant Bradburn is a roughie coaching Scotland currently (Hesson came via Kenya).
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@mn5 said in Hesson gooooooone!:
Hesson obviously had a fantastic record but was that down to him or down to the fact his reign coincided with the most talented group of players in NZ cricket history ?
:::
He deserves a great deal of credit. We'll see how his successor does, he has big shoes to fill
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@mn5 the old " is it the coach or the player" circular argument. Fair question though
NZ only has so many world class players and I'd argue that Flem, Cairns, Astle, Nash, Parorehad as much ability if not more than Taylor, Anderson, Guptill, McCullum and Elliott.
Kane is an outlier cricket nerd
Hesson ( and McCullum by his recommendation) formed an environment where it looks like all the best players landed at his feet but early on those players weren't much different to the past.
That they became NZ greats is surely in no small way due to wee Mike's coaching and nurturing and the environment he engineered -
@siam said in Hesson gooooooone!:
@mn5 the old " is it the coach or the player" circular argument. Fair question though
NZ only has so many world class players and I'd argue that Flem, Cairns, Astle, Nash, Parorehad as much ability if not more than Taylor, Anderson, Guptill, McCullum and Elliott.
Kane is an outlier cricket nerd
Hesson ( and McCullum by his recommendation) formed an environment where it looks like all the best players landed at his feet but early on those players weren't much different to the past.
That they became NZ greats is surely in no small way due to wee Mike's coaching and nurturing and the environment he engineeredParore? No fucken way.
Also none of those batsmen are a patch on KW and Rossco.
Mind you Cairns would walk into the current team to be fair.
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@mn5 said in Hesson gooooooone!:
@siam said in Hesson gooooooone!:
@mn5 the old " is it the coach or the player" circular argument. Fair question though
NZ only has so many world class players and I'd argue that Flem, Cairns, Astle, Nash, Parorehad as much ability if not more than Taylor, Anderson, Guptill, McCullum and Elliott.
Kane is an outlier cricket nerd
Hesson ( and McCullum by his recommendation) formed an environment where it looks like all the best players landed at his feet but early on those players weren't much different to the past.
That they became NZ greats is surely in no small way due to wee Mike's coaching and nurturing and the environment he engineeredParore? No fucken way.
Also none of those batsmen are a patch on KW and Rossco.
Mind you Cairns would walk into the current team to be fair.
Ian Smith begrudgingly acknowledged that Parore was the best keeper in the world in the latter stages of his career, and a reasonable batsman as well.
If we're talking talent, 80s had Hadlee, Smith (Hadlee rated him very highly as a keeper), M. Crowe and Wright as top tier NZ players. Bracewell was actually a good player as well (one of our best spinners, albeit not a lot of competition outside Vettori).
On topic, Hesson apparently decided to leave now to give the new coach time to prepare for the CWC. Shows the unselfish nature and class of the man! Good coach and best wishes to him.
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@siam said in Hesson gooooooone!:
@mn5 the old " is it the coach or the player" circular argument. Fair question though
In some sports sure, but in cricket it is largely the cattle. The holes in the team have been the same for sometime but it's not a reflection of Hesson's talent that we can't produce a wicket taking spinner, a consistent test opener and we have a dearth of quality all-rounders.
Likewise Williamson and Southee were known quantities before Hesson, we were counting the days for Wagner's eligibility and Taylor would attribute any improvements to Crowe. McCullum we knew was good when his give-a-shit-meter was on, and funnily enough when captain is was.
Couldn't solve Ryder, couldn't keep McLenaghan and Bracewell was squandered and on the positive side he got more out of Ronchi, de Grandhomme, Watling and Elliot than anyone could have imagined.
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@rotated said in Hesson gooooooone!:
@siam said in Hesson gooooooone!:
@mn5 the old " is it the coach or the player" circular argument. Fair question though
In some sports sure, but in cricket it is largely the cattle. The holes in the team have been the same for sometime but it's not a reflection of Hesson's talent that we can't produce a wicket taking spinner, a consistent test opener and we have a dearth of quality all-rounders.
Likewise Williamson and Southee were known quantities before Hesson, we were counting the days for Wagner's eligibility and Taylor would attribute any improvements to Crowe. McCullum we knew was good when his give-a-shit-meter was on, and funnily enough when captain is was.
Couldn't solve Ryder, couldn't keep McLenaghan and Bracewell was squandered and on the positive side he got more out of Ronchi, de Grandhomme, Watling and Elliot than anyone could have imagined.
I think this post answers things pretty emphatically. He probably deserves a lot of credit for having a punt on Dr Grandhomme though
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@mn5 I don't think it does. It's a superficial analysis that states with certainty that Hesson had no input to Taylor's improvements and misses the fact that Hesson reversed previous coaches choices for captain ( at great expense to himself) and that got the best out of Baz and consequently the team.
But no matter, my point is that Hesson provided an environment and an attitude for talented players to become fine players and performers.
We've had fine players before but not an environment like since 2014.
Hesson deserves plaudits at this time and dismissing his input as " he had the best players" diminishes that he presided over arguably the best performances from a NZ cricket team and unlike most coaches, he left the team in a far better state than he found it.
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@chris-b said in Hesson gooooooone!:
@rotated Hesson solved Ryder - in the same way Henry and Hansen would have solved Ryder!
100%. No player is bigger than the team no matter how talented. He was toxic.
@Siam sums it up well with: "unlike most coaches, he left the team in a far better state than he found it."
He did that and some.
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@no-quarter said in Hesson gooooooone!:
@Siam sums it up well with: "unlike most coaches, he left the team in a far better state than he found it."
He did that and some.
He took on a team that had just beaten Australia away for what will be the only time in 30 years and was prepared to win away against a top tier Sri Lankan team on his first tour.
It wasn't an awful team by any means, the Wright tenure was very good and the appointment of Alan Donald as bowling coach under him (and subsequent departure due to NZC incompetence) was highly regarded.
But aside from that one series in RSA after McCullum took over he presided over a tenure of unprecedented stability in all forms - a massive achievement.
@chris-b said in Hesson gooooooone!:
@rotated Hesson solved Ryder - in the same way Henry and Hansen would have solved Ryder!
By picking him on the wing in the 2011 RWC suqad? Half the 22 in that tournament had off field incidents of some sort. I refuse to believe Ryder was more of a donkey than many of the legendary Aussies who managed to contribute significantly. Totally understandable that things have gone the way they have but if we are going to anoint someone as a great man-manager and culture setter the inability to solve that is worth a mention.
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@rotated said in Hesson gooooooone!:
By picking him on the wing in the 2011 RWC suqad? Half the 22 in that tournament had off field incidents of some sort. I refuse to believe Ryder was more of a donkey than many of the legendary Aussies who managed to contribute significantly. Totally understandable that things have gone the way they have but if we are going to anoint someone as a great man-manager and culture setter the inability to solve that is worth a mention.
to be fair to hesson, there are many coaches who have not been able to manage Ryder's issues well. Some people just do what they do, no matter the rational reasons not to shoot yourself in the foot, again.
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@rotated I think Hesson did solve it simply by saying we're going to have standards and if people can't abide by them then they won't be in the team. And Ryder and to a lesser extent Bracewell have paid prices for that attitude AND most importantly, the Black Caps have flourished without them.
Jesse probably could have played in Chappelli's era, because almost everyone was a pisshead and almost no-one was a true professional as we understand it today. Standards are now much higher.
David Gower's career got ended because he couldn't be bothered exercising when Gooch decided the team needed to get fit. I've got a biography of Gower by a guy called Rob Steen, which wails on for chapter after chapter about the injustice of David being dropped and what a c*nt Gooch was.
With the benefit of hindsight, pretty clearly Gooch was right and by today's standards Gower was lazy and unprofessional.
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@chris-b said in Hesson gooooooone!:
@rotated I think Hesson did solve it simply by saying we're going to have standards and if people can't abide by them then they won't be in the team. And Ryder and to a lesser extent Bracewell have paid prices for that attitude AND most importantly, the Black Caps have flourished without them.
Jesse probably could have played in Chappelli's era, because almost everyone was a pisshead and almost no-one was a true professional as we understand it today. Standards are now much higher.
David Gower's career got ended because he couldn't be bothered exercising when Gooch decided the team needed to get fit. I've got a biography of Gower by a guy called Rob Steen, which wails on for chapter after chapter about the injustice of David being dropped and what a c*nt Gooch was.
With the benefit of hindsight, pretty clearly Gooch was right and by today's standards Gower was lazy and unprofessional.
I always found it interesting that Gower had a test average higher than Gooch, Gatting and Lamb but those three all averaged heaps more in first class county cricket which Gower apparently couldn't be fucked with.
Fair to say Hesson did inherit quite a few brilliant players, I wonder how much of this was enhanced by his presence?
Too lazy to look it up but did Boult debut under him ? ( obviously the other main class players of the era didn't except maybe Wagner? )
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@nzzp said in Hesson gooooooone!:
@rotated said in Hesson gooooooone!:
By picking him on the wing in the 2011 RWC suqad? Half the 22 in that tournament had off field incidents of some sort. I refuse to believe Ryder was more of a donkey than many of the legendary Aussies who managed to contribute significantly. Totally understandable that things have gone the way they have but if we are going to anoint someone as a great man-manager and culture setter the inability to solve that is worth a mention.
to be fair to hesson, there are many coaches who have not been able to manage Ryder's issues well. Some people just do what they do, no matter the rational reasons not to shoot yourself in the foot, again.
Even the senior players couldn't keep Jesse on the straight and narrow. Peak Jesse would have been a valuable asset to the team. Unfortunately we didn't see enough of that
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Whoever replaces Hesson can hopefully sort out some of the utterly brainless play that we saw from the Blackcaps this past season. Eg. Multiple players getting out slogging when they are meant to be batting out an innings to save the game or not altering bowling plans when the ball is disappearing over the boundary regularly.
Is Vettori a chance?