Dean's had four years to address this problem WYL. And hasn't. 15th to 17th in every key indicator of success at AFL level has sealed his fate. Barring a miracle turnaround, we will have a new coach entering season 2012 and like you I hope to God it's an outsider with a ruthless, uncompromising approach to achieving success.

I don't think it's hyperbole to suggest that the appointment of this new coach will be the most important decision in the history of the club.

They simply cannot afford to get it wrong this time.

Dean has had time to do a lot of things, and as far as i am concerned he has done a great job...what we will find out now and what also Dean will find out is if he can coach well when the heat is turned up, for the next 6-8 weeks as G Lyon inferred on FC on monday night.

Until they work under pressure like this nobody knows how they will truly perform.

(A practise game compared to a season game, and then compared to september- Same thing.

Dean is into his 4th year yes, but from now on it is new territory.

I agree the next 12 months are some of the most important months of the clubs long history.

Mike Sheehan in the H/Sun wrote another useless article re the "Kruezer Cup" and suggesting that people should take a stick to the MFC because they were underachieving compared to Carlton.What a ridiculous comparison! Vey lazy journalism.

Carlton is at least 2 or 3 season ahead in development of the Dees with the plethora of early draft picks that had in the seasons prior to when we picked up Watts,Scully and Trengove and in fact had Gibbs,Murphy,Betts and other early draft picks playing in the "Kruezer Cup".

The other useless pice of journalism they threw up was the fact Melbourne had no tackles in the forward 50 in the 1st quarter v's the WCE. Can someone please explain to me how you can tackle in your forward 50 if you have no players in there??? It's probably a little difficult.

Yeah we bottomed out that year... after they won 2 spoons, and we continued to win two spoon, but the same time yeah

Roos didn't so much develop players, as bring in physically mature players who already knew the game, and gave them a second chance.

His true talent was in finding them a role in his system, and getting them to fully buy into performing that role.

As many were on their last chance, of course he was loved.

I read the above and immediately thought of Craig Bellamy. This intangible is what has made the Storm such a success over the last 6 years, and why Bellamy is considered one of the elite handful of coaches in that League. He takes washed up or out of favour veterans, and gives them a specific role to perform in the Storms structure. They invariably blossom and shine, and some take the opportunity to move onto different clubs to get a big final payday. But anyone who played under Bellamy and left always recommends other players to move to the club to get the chance to play under him. Needless to say the coach is universally loved and respected.

Same goes for Roos.

I'm not sure how successful that method would be with our list.

And it did work at sydney, but I'm not sure if it's the best strategy in AFL, with soon-to-be restricted free agency and the draft system.

The Bailey witch hunt is tiresome with all these fake facts being thrown out by the torch bearers.

You're now using Rhino's lines ?

I'll be reading with interest all of the comments by those so staunchly defending this ordinary coach when he's replaced at year's end.

Am I?

I was unaware.

I think it's a fairly common concept that the members of an angry mob bear burning torches.

And pitchforks.

I think Bailey is an excellent development coach, and that is still what we need.

If he had a group with Gysberts, Tapscott, Trengove, Scully etc in their 4th having put on some size, and we still couldn't compete - THEN I'd be concerned.

I don't waste energy getting worried by things I expected to see happen.

I think it's conceivable that we came out flat due to the bye and lacklustre competition in the 2 preceding matches.

Also, that once the opposition got a run on, it had a snowball effect.

To me, inconsistency means that some days you are very good, some days you are very bad, and some days you are in between.

Kids are inconsistent and this was the very bad.

As far as the older players go, they've never really been up to it anyway.

There is a difference between effort and output.

If we were putting in the requisite effort, but being shoved aside due to being physically weaker, then fine. But that's not what's happening. What's happening is that we are not trying hard enough.

Of course, this is fixable, hopefully starting on Sunday. It's the job of Bailey and the players to fix this.

It is also worth noting we are playing badly but are in the 8. I know it seems strange but if we win the next two we will be close to top four! This also goes to show the next month will determine his coaching and also we will find out from a few players if they are fair dinkum or not!

Im with Hannabal.. hard to get fired up when your boss looks like hes waiting for a bus !!

we obviously seem to have the 'collective' version of CFS

its got to change

What disappointed me about thursday night, was dean doing an interview at half or quarter time, can anyone imagine a coach with a team playing that badly to be friendly enough to do an interview? He should have been fuming and given the a massive rev up.

If Bailey is replaced we'll not know what he could have done unless of course he gets a gig somewhere else and succeeds.

And as far as I'm concerned it's of no importance if you're (plural) right or wrong on this issue the interest is in the debate.

Hell H, we've all be so wrong on so many issues so often does it matter if I disagree with you?

The issues I've had with Bailey are in the main to do with the gameplan and I've made that quite clear to you. Did you watch AFL 360 tonight where they examined our gameplan and came to the same conclusion ?

It's great to get the calculator out and pore over ages and games played, but you really need to open your eyes on our out of date tactics and inability to compete with most clubs on a level playing field, because we're 4 goals down before we take to the field.

It is also worth noting we are playing badly but are in the 8. I know it seems strange but if we win the next two we will be close to top four! This also goes to show the next month will determine his coaching and also we will find out from a few players if they are fair dinkum or not!

It's also worth noting we beat the 2 teams that will finish 16th and 17th! Both very hollow victories. Don't be fooled by our ladder position, we are currently so far away from being a top 8 team it's disturbing!

It's also worth noting we beat the 2 teams that will finish 16th and 17th! Both very hollow victories. Don't be fooled by our ladder position, we are currently so far away from being a top 8 team it's disturbing!

Port might give them a run.... but your close enough

IF we lift our intensity things may improve significantly, big IF at the moment

Titan I'd be interested in how you compare our poor performance and totally disheartening effort in this game with the Dogs first game and the Suns first and second quarter last week.

See the questions I've left for Scoop. Who's responsible for the players intensity? The coach (which seems to be the popular choice), the fitness staff, the club psych, or, heaven forbid, the players?

What do you think of the proposition put above re the "gap" between teams and very small differences being reflected by large margins on the scoreboard? How do you reconcile the Saints first and second GF performances?

Nobody is denying the poor effort on Thursday but the difficult thing is to understand it because unless you can do that you can't fix it.

I'd suggest the issue so far this season is not so much Bailey's gameplan but the intensity of the players.

What do you think??

Players are always responsible for their actions. But if we left it at that we wouldn't need a coach, would we? So the coach has to take responsibility for things like this. If he can't get his players to give committed efforts week in, week out, he's not doing a good job.

I'm not necessarily saying Bailey is failing because we're not playing with 100% effort, but it is more than fair to apportion some of the blame to him.

I would agree that the intensity of the players is the biggest issue. To be so out of it in the first quarter of a match like we were agasint West Coast is worrying, much more so than our game plan, which, who knows, might stand up if the players try and execute it with some effort.

In the end, whether it's the players, the coach, or someone else, our performances this year have not been aggressive, the players have neither looked like or played like they are giving their all. I don't particularly care who's fault it is, and how it should be fixed. It's the job of Bailey and the players to work out what's going wrong and to fix it.