O’Shea’s stonewalling a slap in the face to fans

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/09/2015 (3984 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It is difficult to understand the decision to put up walls and be reluctant to answer questions at a time when things are seemingly falling apart and need to be explained and examined.

One would think that being transparent and open about your systems and processes could benefit the fan base of a football team that has reached a point far beyond that of frustration.

The latest example of this behaviour occurred on the post game show Sunday evening after the 11th consecutive loss at the no longer classic Labour Day game. Though it was acknowledged that the 17 penalties for a 140 yards were a major contributor to the loss, when queried as to what the in-house mechanisms were to correct this lack of discipline, Bombers head coach Mike O’Shea decided that this was not information that he wanted to share with the public, and responded with a series of, “I’m not going to answer that,” rebuttals.

While I can appreciate that the locker room is a refuge and safe haven for athletes, and that some coaches feel that all of their interactions with players — good, bad, and ugly — be kept behind closed doors, there comes a point where being clandestine does more harm than good.

When a team is experiencing success on the football field, fans are interested in learning about the systems and processes that have resulted in this production so they can applaud them.

When a team is struggling and has just lost its fourth game in a row, it is even more imperative to open up, so fans can learn about what is being done to correct the problems.

It is one thing to not divulge specific details about how undisciplined play and players are addressed and handled, it is something else to refuse to answer simply whether there is any mechanism at all in place.

You would think the last thing you would want to do, in the middle of a 5-17 stretch, is not be transparent about what is being done to right the wrongs.

A refusal to let the fan base take a peek behind a curtain of secrecy, is to leave things open to interpretation. And when a fan base is frustrated by losing and a lack of progress and improvement in multiple areas, refusing to share with them a strategy for improvement leads them to believe that there simply isn’t one.

In this specific example, it wasn’t hard to discover that there is a process in place, and it wasn’t worth being evasive about. Before many of us had even left Twitter for the evening, after venting about another stumbling block for this storied franchise, former player Steve Morley commented that the consequences for discipline breaches with this regime are addressed during the first team meeting after a game.

“Last year, he would show your penalty on the big screen in team meetings. That’s it.”

Another player confirmed that this is indeed the mechanism for dealing with selfish penalties, and that after the team watches the clips together, O’Shea comments on it and how it affected the outcome of the game.

Why he was not willing to disclose this is unclear, as it’s not the worst of deterrents and probably the reason why this team isn’t the worst in the league when it comes to penalties.

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I’ve been on several teams where the team did not break off into our individual groups to watch film until we all witnessed the transgressions that cost us collectively. Players do not enjoy being singled out in team meetings, and by watching it as a group, they learn how they are accountable to one another, and how detrimental selfish and impulsive penalties are to the outcome of the game. While fans in present day may clamor for the benching of multiple offenders after the Labour Day loss, the reveal of such a system would at least have quelled some of their anger.

Stonewalling your supporters from information that helps them cope and accept the situation they find themselves in, only makes selling this football team a more difficult proposition.

Doug Brown, once a hard-hitting defensive lineman and frequently a hard-hitting columnist, appears Tuesdays in the Free Press.

Twitter: @DougBrown97