Farewell Jack Watts

[jackaub 1,402]

8 hours ago, Akum said:

Well, whether he is or not, I'd be absolutely gobsmacked if you thought he was, even for a fleeting moment.

Half the team won't kick to him or honour his leads

been going on for years

there are problems between the team and Jack. What they are I dont know.

[sue 8,412]

1 hour ago, beelzebub said:

Sydney and Geelong have won Premierships this century. Yes they think differently.

More fool them then 

precisely.  Every club makes mistakes and one could make a list of their dud decisions to 'prove' that their interest in Watts is another dud decision. But the Geelongs and Swans etc must know something we don't since they keep winning flags.  

[faultydet 7,593]

6 minutes ago, jackaub said:

Half the team won't kick to him or honour his leads

been going on for years

there are problems between the team and Jack. What they are I dont know.

possibly a lack of trust brought on by unpressured chest marks bouncing off him repeatedly.

If a guy can't mark, you end up looking for a safer option.

 

So many here have their "Good guy" blinkers on. We need to back our footy department, who are being criticised for having the temerity to put together a premiership side.

 

I will miss the great guy Jack.

I will never miss the one arm window dummy posing as a marking forward.

[Cheap Seats 3,300]

7 hours ago, Akum said:

And this is what confuses me and makes me feel uneasy - you write as if these two (winning flags & being a good place to work) are either mutually exclusive, so that being a good place to work gets in the way of winning flags, or they have no relationship to each other.

I'd stand with Hardwick, Bevo, Roos, Bellamy and others and say that the secret to winning flags is creating a good place to work - one that's challenging and encouraging and inspiring and a place where everybody wants to go. If you create a workplace where the players feel fearful and intimidated and get baked for all their mistakes, that's not going to win any flags or get great performance. It's going to make your players go right into their shells, a bit like our team seemed to do from the Swans game on.

And my great concern is that Goody and Macca share your view, not mine, and not Watts's. And we'll be worse off for it - yet again. So I've never hoped so much that I'm totally wrong.

I have not problems with your points mate, and to be honest we are both just speculating.

Outside the club for the past few years now (since Roos era) Mangers and others in the footy industry have praised the club in the media as being a good club to work at with good prospects. So we can safely assume the MFC is a good place to work. So that answers your Tigers reference.

I've read the other opinions and it is a really tough decision. Jack is a really well loved player of the MFC, and there is no guarantee that we will be better off without him.

But from my perspective you have to back the people you have in charge to do the best thing for the club. They have intimate inside knowledge, they have the plan, they are the ones who will be fired if the wrong decisions are made,

At the end of that day we all support this club for different reasons, and none of those reasons are wrong. Personally, I want to see success, real sustained success in my lifetime. So I am backing In the FD on this tough decision, because they believe it will better the club. In reality I have no idea really what the right decision is, like you I am just hoping that it is the right decision.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 6, 2017 by Unleash Hell

[daisycutter 28,460]

i wonder what saty thinks. has been very quiet on this issue

[Beetle 4,280]

16 minutes ago, jackaub said:

Half the team won't kick to him or honour his leads

been going on for years

there are problems between the team and Jack. What they are I dont know.

I get the feeling the players love Jack as a person and love having him around, because he is without a doubt a terrific guy.

But from an outsiders point of view, I also get the feeling they don't necessarily love Jack "the footballer".....not all the time anyway.

[beelzebub 22,225]

Just now, At the break of Gawn said:

Might not be the right decision for the club but it's the right decision for Jack (which I say with a heavy heart). You can't continue at an organisation when your boss doesn't have your back. 

There is a lot in this. Must be a very sour taste in mouth current for the lad. Id be feeling dead awkward turning up Monday night knowing all those eyes are on you, all the whispers. Be a real mixed bag of feelings.

Its easy to fotget hes only midway or so through his twenties. A lot of people are quick to hang it on him. Hes far from the perfect footballer but hes an ok guy , well liked, quick to be community involvemed. Just making his way in the world except unlike the majority of us he does this under a constant spotlight with many just salivating at the suggestion of a trip up.

I think he handles himself with great aplomb all things considered.

He wont be in Red and Blue next year. I think it might have been 3 or 4 so months ago i posted something along the lines that it wouldn't surprise me ( back then ) if he was elsewhere next season.

The wolves were circling, baying for blood, needing their sacrifice to the "culture gods" . The Spanish Inquisitors would be most impressed. There's so much of a " he's innocent if drowned, otherwise burn him" about Jack's journey.

Brought in as the Saviour and pilloried for be just a good player, not the dilverer of success. Hes human , not an Adonis after all. He was/is always just a player. He's been judged and sentenced upon the demands imposed by a club and its fans starved of glory. 

So when the truth outed ; he's not the Messiah, just a naughty boy (as judged by those looking for someone/something to personify a clubs frustration ,and failure )...it was inevitable....Stone him, Stone him !

After the bloodletting and the mopping up at the Alter of Expectation the Club, its administration, its football creationists are going to have to damn well succeed lest the gaze and scorn fall upon them.( Where probably it ought be all along )

Seems prevalent among human conditions to seek an entity other than yourself to justify action.

MELBOURNE will need to own everything about this,learn and move on. History's page will always be there to remind us, and them.

[Stretch Johnson 2,568]

It's disappointing that Jack has let his teammates and coach down on too many occasions.   Disappointed that action needed to be taken to maintain standards.  Disappointed that in the short term Watt's actions probably weaken our team. 

If I were a rival club I would be interested in Watts as the guy can play.  I would be hoping that this was the rocket up the arse that he needed to commit fully to his profession.

Watts having success at another club will not affect the merits of the club's decision.   

[Lil_red_fire_engine 10,134]

I like Jack Watts the person. On the field he does things that make me shake my head in disbelief, unfortunately these are at both extremes. I feel sorry that we did not set him up for success in his early years but he is now a man who has had great support and development around him and needs to take accountability for not maximising his potential in the last 3 at a minimum. He is a 150 game player with one top 5 B&F finish for a club that has been appalling for most of his time. This year he featured in our best players only 6 times but never in the top 2.

He is not quite a key forward and not quite a mid and he is too inconsistent to be a quality flanker. He may become a better rounded player but why that would occur in an environment he is comfortable in, surrounded by his mates, where he is adored by most supporters and sponsors is beyond me. It is most likely that we continue to see the cycle of promising games and then a loss of consistency as hard work does not come naturally to him. It is highlighted how much he is loved by team mates which to me highlights the risk that his ways tarnish the young guns we are trying to develop in our new culture. 

The old trade week adage of you've got to give something to get something is exactly what we are seeing with interest in Jack but truthfully this is so much more than the pick or player we get in return. This is us shedding the final parts of our old culture. This shows that close enough is no longer good enough, inconsistency is not excused and skirting by on potential is not acceptable. After seeing us do everything we could to not take a final spot in the final 2 rounds it is exactly the type of ruthless shake up that I was hoping for. 

All the best Jack.

 

[Sir Why You Little 34,426]

21 minutes ago, daisycutter said:

i wonder what saty thinks. has been very quiet on this issue

Valium sandwiches?

[KysaiahMessiah 725]

59 minutes ago, At the break of Gawn said:

Might not be the right decision for the club but it's the right decision for Jack (which I say with a heavy heart). You can't continue at an organisation when your boss doesn't want you there

This sums it up perfectly.  Most of us don't want him to go, but as of today pretty much accept he's indeed gone.  I  wish him every success.  It's going to be a sad day when it's official.

[buck_nekkid 5,460]

If he was as good/valuable as people suggest, there would be no way of this would be going on.

according to posters here, we ‘shoulda’ had Dusty, Nic Nakkers, etc etc.  you have to make your decision and stick to it.  What players show elsewhere is not our concern.  If Jack goes elsewhere and is a superstar (good for him), so be it.  If what we see is that in this environment we will not get what we need from him, then it is absolutely time to part company - irrespective of what he could/will achieve elsewhere.

[Ron Burgundy 8,584]

Not that this is remotely remarkable here, because we're all passionate Demons supporters, but this is how I feel right now.

A bit of background.

Amongst my friendship group, I'm one of only three MFC supporters (I live in Sydney). I'm known to be strangely addicted to the club.

In 2004 and 2005, when I worked in a large law firm in London, I had my parents record every Demons game and air-courier the VHS cassette to me each week at a cost of 80 bucks a game. I watched every game 'live' at 10pm each Thursday night.

My son, Henry, is the youngest ever member of the club. I signed him up as a 20 week foetus during the Neeld years. The club accepted his application. I agreed to act as his proxy. He is now 4 years old, but he's in the system as being a member for 5 years.

Anyway, what I'm saying here is that I passionately support this club. And I have done so for a very, very long time - Jack Viney style. Relevantly, I know its history. Better than most.

I spoke to Neale Daniher following our horrendous loss to the Swans at the SCG in round 5, 2003. I told him that I thought the club got it massively wrong in letting Woewodin and Powell go. He strongly disagreed. He nearly lost his job at the end of that year (we had both hands on a preliminary final the year before but for savagely bad luck against the Crows), and I'm sure a wiser and more reflective man (legend that he is) would now agree with that view.

Trading Watts, a supremely talented player who clearly loves the club, is a bloody disaster. It's unlikely that it will improve the list in any material way.

In short, this the lowest I have felt in all my years supporting this club. And I've not experienced that many highs during the journey.

To the sociopaths who don't see the value in this stuff, it's exactly why Paul Roos was brought in to change the culture of the joint and it's exactly why Watts will have several better clubs courting his services right now. The human stuff is important to the fabric of this club, to any club. And I fear that Goodwin is a little nerd with a blind spot on this who, like Neeld, might be destroying something very important here.

This sucks. I feel very sad.

 

[sue 8,412]

36 minutes ago, Stretch Johnson said:

...

Watts having success at another club will not affect the merits of the club's decision.   

Maybe not the decision per se, but it will reflect badly on our FD.  The question will be asked why our coaches couldn't get that better performance out of what everyone agrees is a highly talented player.

[rpfc 27,393]

6 minutes ago, sue said:

Maybe not the decision per se, but it will reflect badly on our FD.  The question will be asked why our coaches couldn't get that better performance out of what everyone agrees is a highly talented player.

Especially when Roos did get something out of him for an entire season.

Of course this trade will be judged on how he performs and how the asset we get performs.

To think otherwise is naive.

[demoniac 1,243]

2 hours ago, CityDee said:

38 goals in 2016 on track until injury this year and doesnt always play as deep foward and he has some of the most sublime footskills I have seen , so the replacement for this season is? 

How would you rate Jack's defensive pressure? Do you think he works hard enough on the track and is disciplined enough away from the club to do the 2 way hard running that the game now demands of every player?

[Sargent Shultz 259]

Just like Jack, I'm moving on, as everything that can be said about this sorry affair has been said. My overall worry about the current coaching team is their failure to get the best out of Jack Watts last year, and the whole team in the two crucial matches that we needed to win to make the finals. They had a player (Watts) who finished 5th in last years B+F, and a team who beat Adelaide by 40+ at Adelaide, yet they could not motivate both for 120 minutes when a finals spot was within reach? Perhaps, the coaches need to do a bit of soul searching to find why they failed at the crucial hour. Sacking Watts is such a soft option.................but then again "I know nuuthhiinggg"

[demoniac 1,243]

2 minutes ago, rpfc said:

Especially when Roos did get something out of him for an entire season.

Of course this trade will be judged on how he performs and how the asset we get performs.

To think otherwise is naive.

At some point its about Jack getting the best out of Jack?

[mo64 5,208]

5 minutes ago, rpfc said:

Especially when Roos did get something out of him for an entire season.

Of course this trade will be judged on how he performs and how the asset we get performs.

To think otherwise is naive.

If that's the case, then I'm waiting for you to castigate Roos for trading Howe for Kennedy. He couldn't get the best out of Howe, and Kennedy has been delisted.

[Gator 16,891]

3 minutes ago, Sargent Shultz said:

My overall worry about the current coaching team is their failure to get the best out of Jack Watts last year..

They got the best out of Oliver, and Hibberd, and Jetta.  Hunt improved, as did Oscar and Petracca.  How about Neal-Bullen ?

Jack didn't get the best out of Jack.

He didn't decide to be great.

[Atholwebb 110]

16 minutes ago, Ron Burgundy said:

Not that this is remotely remarkable here, because we're all passionate Demons supporters, but this is how I feel right now.

A bit of background.

Amongst my friendship group, I'm one of only three MFC supporters (I live in Sydney). I'm known to be strangely addicted to the club.

In 2004 and 2005, when I worked in a large law firm in London, I had my parents record every Demons game and air-courier the VHS cassette to me each week at a cost of 80 bucks a game. I watched every game 'live' at 10pm each Thursday night.

My son, Henry, is the youngest ever member of the club. I signed him up as a 20 week foetus during the Neeld years. The club accepted his application. I agreed to act as his proxy. He is now 4 years old, but he's in the system as being a member for 5 years.

Anyway, what I'm saying here is that I passionately support this club. And I have done so for a very, very long time - Jack Viney style. Relevantly, I know its history. Better than most.

I spoke to Neale Daniher following our horrendous loss to the Swans at the SCG in round 5, 2003. I told him that I thought the club got it massively wrong in letting Woewodin and Powell go. He strongly disagreed. He nearly lost his job at the end of that year (we had both hands on a preliminary final the year before but for savagely bad luck against the Crows), and I'm sure a wiser and more reflective man (legend that he is) would now agree with that view.

Trading Watts, a supremely talented player who clearly loves the club, is a bloody disaster. It's unlikely that it will improve the list in any material way.

In short, this the lowest I have felt in all my years supporting this club. And I've not experienced that many highs during the journey.

To the sociopaths who don't see the value in this stuff, it's exactly why Paul Roos was brought in to change the culture of the joint and it's exactly why Watts will have several better clubs courting his services right now. The human stuff is important to the fabric of this club, to any club. And I fear that Goodwin is a little nerd with a blind spot on this who, like Neeld, might be destroying something very important here.

This sucks. I feel very sad.

 

Totally agree. Most Dee supporters love Jack Watts while at the same time being frustrated with him on occasions. I feel very low and as low as I did when Barassi left for Carlton and when we sacked Norm Smith which took years to recover from or some will say have never recovered from evidenced by not having won a flag since 1964. 

[Akum 2,660]

1 hour ago, Unleash Hell said:

I have not problems with your points mate, and to be honest we are both just speculating.

Outside the club for the past few years now (since Roos era) Mangers and others in the footy industry have praised the club in the media as being a good club to work at with good prospects. So we can safely assume the MFC is a good place to work. So that answers your Tigers reference.

I've read the other opinions and it is a really tough decision. Jack is a really well loved player of the MFC, and there is no guarantee that we will be better off without him.

But from my perspective you have to back the people you have in charge to do the best thing for the club. They have intimate inside knowledge, they have the plan, they are the ones who will be fired if the wrong decisions are made,

At the end of that day we all support this club for different reasons, and none of those reasons are wrong. Personally, I want to see success, real sustained success in my lifetime. So I am backing In the FD on this tough decision, because they believe it will better the club. In reality I have no idea really what the right decision is, like you I am just hoping that it is the right decision.

Again, good post.

We both want the best for the club, we just differ on how that might come about.

Like every poster on this thread.

[Sir Why You Little 34,426]

1 minute ago, demoniac said:

At some point its about Jack getting the best out of Jack?

That’s the bottom line

If Jack had wanted to get the best out of himself in each game he played, then this whole scenario would not be happening. 

The MFC don’t want to get rid of a great player and a great bloke. 

But we can’t carry someone who has a “lazy” nature. 

Personally i wish the club would give him another pre-season with an absolute ultimatum of standards. 

But then maybe they did that last summer. We just don’t know. 

[Ron Burgundy 8,584]

4 minutes ago, demoniac said:

How would you rate Jack's defensive pressure? Do you think he works hard enough on the track and is disciplined enough away from the club to do the 2 way hard running that the game now demands of every player?

Read the Herald Sun article. Despite the fiction here, he's ranked 'elite' for forward pressure stuff. Just look at the stats.

 

[Stretch Johnson 2,568]

5 minutes ago, rpfc said:

Especially when Roos did get something out of him for an entire season.

Of course this trade will be judged on how he performs and how the asset we get performs.

To think otherwise is naive.

Jack Watts is a twenty six year old man that has been in the system 8 years.

At some stage that asset needs to just get his job done without needing to be cuddled, cajoled, rocketed and patted on the head. 

To be still having to do that at this point is an indictment on Jack Watts.