http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sport/afl...7-19769,00.html

Dean Bailey admits to experimenting with players

AAP | August 02, 2009 06:50pm

DEAN Bailey has admitted he "experimented" with trying players in different positions in a game likely to be stamped a must-see by tanking advocates. The Demons' four-point loss to Richmond on Sunday at the MCG could increase speculation some teams put long-term interests ahead of immediate results given Melbourne pulled some strange positional switches."

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sport/afl...8-19769,00.html

Melbourne coach Dean Bailey defends tactics against Richmond

Bruce Matthews | August 03, 2009 12:00am

MELBOURNE coach Dean Bailey last night defended several unusual positional moves during the Demons' numbing last-second loss to Richmond. Bailey described them as "experimentation" after he shuffled players away from their normal posts during the tight game at the MCG. "

Edited August 2, 200916 yr by Rogue
Don't copy and paste entire articles

If Dean Bailey is serious about experimenting with players, they should start Warnock and Frawley in the forward line in the first half against North. If it doesn't work out, shift them back after half time.

Bailey is at a hiding to nothing on the tanking issue

Bailey IMO was within his rights to experiment and what better time to pull a few obscure moves off against a caretaker coach

No way he would have been able to do that against a seasoned campaigner like Malthouse

Rawlings admitted it took him by surprise so IMO Bailey is justified

Some of them worked and personally i like a coach that thinks outside the box

Bailey admitted having Miller Rucking was an error and wasnt intended

We have another caretaker coach next week so dont expect the experimetation questions to stop

Dont blame anyone but the AFL as it is their rule NOT the MFC,s

The scenerio no media outlet has even considered is what If McMahon kicked a point ?

The Media have good knack of making things bigger than they are

Thats what sells

Edited August 2, 200916 yr by Swampfox

If Dean Bailey is serious about experimenting with players, they should start Warnock and Frawley in the forward line in the first half against North. If it doesn't work out, shift them back after half time.

the element of surpise is what makes moves work

Bailey highlights the obvous here... no matter what he does or doesnt do he may be pillored or accused endlessly...so he might as well just do whatever he wants and be damned.

He will be judged not on this years end of season shananagans but onthe success in the coming years !! The media and the AFL be damned..this si about melbourne and whats good for us. We've played goodfella and second fiddle for too long...time to get hungry and clever

Onya Dean...keep it up mate

That's about as good a pressie as you could possibly expect given how we went today.

Quite the spin doctor eh? Putting Sheeds to shame. He may well have stopped a lot of the criticism before it started. The Miller thing was a particularly nice touch.

we arent tanking by the way... its all to do with those Seagulls and Martians !!!,,those buggers

Edited August 2, 200916 yr by belzebub59

If Dean Bailey is serious about experimenting with players, they should start Warnock and Frawley in the forward line in the first half against North. If it doesn't work out, shift them back after half time.

Why?

I love Dean Bailey and I love this club.

Finally we are not just bending over and taking whatever rubbish is dished out to us. Taking full advantage of the system and being ruthless is the only way we'll win a premiership. Good job Melbourne!

OF COURSE HE ADMITTED IT, WHY DENY IT??

OF COURSE HE ADMITTED IT, WHY DENY IT??

Yeah, it's a bit of a nonsense headline by the Herald Sun. Of course he'd admit it. He'd look pretty stupid if he sat there and said "I don't know what youre all on about." Although that would have been amusing if he did.

I think the implication of the headline is that Bailey is only admitting to 'experimentation' rather than flat out tanking. Either way. Who cares?

I've only seen a few pieces of Bailey's press conference, but for a man who just lost a game by a kick after the siren, he looks pretty pleased. This little knowing smirk kept curling his lip. The man knew exactly what he was doing.

Somehow he pulled it off, despite Richmond playing worse than Port Adelaide did a few weeks ago, (and that's saying something). I still can't believe we won the game. I mean lost the game. Whatever. You know what I mean. Crazy day.

Edited August 2, 200916 yr by Einstein

Bailey & the Footy Dept were merely doing there job. Experimenting for the Future. These games are like a dress rehearsals for us. I was impressed because the players kept going in hard.

Ricky Petterd could be a real Gem.

Next step is to throw Bail in as FF for a couple of weeks to see if he can play like Brad Johnson.

Warnock is "adaptable"... Yeah, he can play full-back, full-back and full-back!

If we remember back to the days before the PP, coaches of teams that had no chance of making the finals would often experiment with players in unusual positions. That's what DB is doing IMHO.

I have no doubt that if he had made no positional moves in the last quarter, we would have lost by more and he would have been accused of tanking along the lines of Wallet & Cotchin.

If we are tanking, then we're not very good at it. But we actually are getting pretty good at making much better-credentialed teams look very ordinary, and at not letting teams run away with the game once they get on top of us. All good for the future.

The tabloid media is so thick and blinkered that they are now seeing everything that happens as tanking, without being in the slightest bit aware that if what they see as tanking hadn't happened, they would interpret that as tanking too. We're tanked if we do and tanked if we don't, so DB may as well do what he wants, as he said.

If we remember back to the days before the PP, coaches of teams that had no chance of making the finals would often experiment with players in unusual positions. That's what DB is doing IMHO.

Yeah, at the start of the last quarter when your team is in front then you'd make the moves he made. Sure.

Warnock is "adaptable"... Yeah, he can play full-back, full-back and full-back!

and it could be argued then..( cough ) that you only know this by 'experimenting' !!