Who thinks the Sussex management team is working well?

You make some very valid points Mod but I think it’s too early to make an informed decision on Rob Andrew. He only joined the club 10 months ago and would have used that time to observe and hopefully consolidate a plan.

What is obvious is that Davis is not fit for purpose and hopefully has already gone. Many of the bizarre on-field decisions and team selections would have been down to him.

The Chris Nash news is a little more alarming but until we know the reason for his leaving we can’t make a judgment on that either.

The PR and marketing side of the club need a complete overhaul.

On this delicate subject I remain loyal to Rob Andrew. His first season as CEO was always going to be "a wait and watch" as he becomes
used to the way the club operate both on and off-the-field. The changes we are now seeing, perhaps, is the beginning of him flexing
his muscles. We cannot expect miracles and further surprising developments may occur before the tide turns. 

Sadly, the club could be viewed a bit like an oil tanker, where the decline has been going on for quite some years and now may take further
time to turn around. The changing of Head Coach is the starting point, although sadly, this comes too late for Chris Nash.

I do believe Andrew is the right man to take the club forward. Let us see who is appointed as our new Head Coach. This could be another
sign of our CEO's intentions.

I think it’s too early to say. If we put together a new young side with potential, greater things are possible. Let’s at least judge when we see what team takes the field in April.

The end of the Joyce and Magoffin era had to come. The departure of Nash is sooner than we might have expected but there’s some good talent coming through even if the batting is very much Div 2 status as it stands. But, it is October and it’s six months before we play cricket again.

In many ways, the cricket season starts in October, with six months of planning and preparation before heading into battle in April. On that basis, the cricket side of the business seems to be going backwards rather than forwards - with one of those six months of preparation already gone. Assuming Mark Davis is leaving, it'll be a couple of weeks to advertise for a successor, then a round or two of interviews, potential notice period to be served for the incumbent. There's a genuine chance a new head coach won't be in situ until mid-January, which gives him three months at most before pre-season.

As far as the First Team Coaching position is concerned we are now at the stage which we should have been at a whole two years ago, in other words preparing to advertise the position externally in order that all-comers could apply, rather than some behind closed doors inside arrangement for an internal appointment to be made albeit a woefully inadequate and inappropriate one as the past two seasons have shown. If Mark Davis wanted to throw his hat into the ring at that point he would have no doubt been allowed to do so and compared on a 'level cricket pitch' along with any other outside applicants!

I remain bemused how Mr Toumazi could have even dreamed that he was acting in the best interests of the club by presiding over this stunt. Perhaps his rather sudden and short-lived "retirement" (which lasted all of five months) was early evidence that he had made a rather tumultuous error in this regard. I for one lost all respect for Zac following what appears with hindsight to have been a rather cowardly departure!

In any case we are now where we are and in my opinion we have a better qualified CEO in situ and hopefully within a short period of time will have the caliber of first team coach which we should have had for the past two seasons.

I would like to add that the vision of building for the future using the current young emerging players is a sensible one but success will not arrive overnight.

We as supporters now need to get behind the new management team safe in the knowledge that there will be no more panic big money signings from other county's cast offs or big name International players who are brought in for 6 games here or 10 games there and who clearly have no interest in Sussex CCC whatsoever (other than receiving the ill-deserved pay cheques).

Essex ccc demonstrated this year what can be done by nurturing home-grown players and there is no reason whatsoever why we at Sussex cannot successfully follow this now tried and tested model, and moreover Sussex CCC has an advantage here because we have got better supporters (or at least we are when we get behind the club as one and stop whingeing!) I voted "YES" to the above by the way.

Thanks to all contributing to the poll and the discussion, one of the best we have had on this forum. The pattern of votes cast changed as the drama unfolded, and in the end we have not a consensus but a range of attitudes, reflected by the scores:  62% think the management team is not working well, 28% feel it is, and 10% can't decide. That underlines the complexity of the issues, that there is not a simple quick fix in the departure of A or the appointment of B to a post. Discussions here and in other threads have often polarised over the question of which is better, to build a team from scratch with locally-based players or to make successful signings of imported players who have an immediate effect. Perhaps a third way is to have a structure and a corporate culture that is not ideologically driven but does have a sound strategy to achieve the best results for the club and its supporters. If that is the kind of thing that Andrew is talking about when he says "“We are continuing to work on our four-year strategic plan for the wider organisation ....A major part of that strategy will be the on-going development of home-grown Sussex players by our Performance Department" then that could make sense. There is an opportunity here for Sussex to do something different that will set them apart from the "Test Match Grounds V the smaller counties" binary thinking which would make the club relevant in an age far removed from the certainties of the county treadmill grind so many of us grew up with.