Yes. We were completely gutted and soulless at 186 and the club took action to rectify the damage. That action involved taking risk and in the end, if failed but only a fool would fail to recognise that it was a genuine attempt to redress the problem. You want the truth?

Go to Nutbean's post # 21.

And for those wearing the rose coloured glasses about our situation now, you should recognise the fact that the club is also taking risks now with a high profile, highly paid coach and a policy of buying recycled players to shore up our pathetic midfield which was long ago considered third world and couldn't be fixed by either Bailey or Neeld.

Like most, I have faith in PJ and Roos but most of us had faith last year and it all went belly up so don't presume anything just yet.

Just love it as the apologists keep puting the blame back on Bailey. It was not Baileys fault and Neeld was an inept stooge for the incompetants for their disastorous youth and tanking strategy and power struggle against common sense. Headless chooks in control everywhere. Bailey paid the price for going against the powers. He had us on the up but the meddlers could not help themselves. Vlad was so right when he said a few years ago we were a souless club. Thank god he finally stepped in and cleaned the club out of these losers.

The football community knows the value of good ex coaches with football brains. Bailey now has a prize assistants job and Neeld is back to school where he belongs.

Edited February 1, 201411 yr by Whispering_Jack
Bold type unnecessary

Just like the last days of the Third Reich when only the Hitler Youth and a smattering of foreign fighters were left to defend the bunker. How bad a club were we then? Completey gutted and souless. The mind boggles to why there are some that still find good words for the incompetants that almost led us to our ruination.

What a bazaar analogy. You need to lighten up a bit. Its only a game of footy. Comparing our club to a regime that was so sinister…..well "the mind boggles".

Trengove's biggest issue wasn't his age, it is he was playing mediocre football.

If he was playing well he would still be a captain.

Trengove's biggest issue wasn't his age, it is he was playing mediocre football.

If he was playing well he would still be a captain.

but the argument might be (not saying i'm one) that because of his age (and possibly the mess we were) he couldn't do both

sieg heil

Just love it as the apologists keep puting the blame back on Bailey. It was not Baileys fault and Neeld was an inept stooge for the incompetants for their disastorous youth and tanking strategy and power struggle against common sense. Headless chooks in control everywhere. Bailey paid the price for going against the powers. He had us on the up but the meddlers could not help themselves. Vlad was so right when he said a few years ago we were a souless club. Thank god he finally stepped in and cleaned the club out of these losers.

The football community knows the value of good ex coaches with football brains. Bailey now has a prize assistants job and Neeld is back to school where he belongs.

Yes. Keep that up America and you'll have some of the mug punters believing it was Neeld and not Bailey who taught the club to be "bruise free" and coached at Skilled Stadium on the 186 day. I'm no apologist for Neeld and I'm not blaming Bailey but setting out what was proscribed for him as a coach and made it very clear he failed. I don't give a flying as to who gave Bailey an assistants job. Neither of them were much chop and you're delusional if you think otherwise.

This disaster we are in, and hopefully coming out of soon, has been a skipping stone since the late nineties.

The lines of blame are so wide as to render them useless for judgement.

Anyone saying that Neeld was when the rot started is revising history.

And, ADC, anyone making nazi comparisons is belittling history.

Trengove's biggest issue wasn't his age, it is he was playing mediocre football.

If he was playing well he would still be a captain.

His biggest issue was his body; pure and simple. If it was OK, he's still be captain…with Grimes.

Anyone out of the Essendon scene, that contemplated borderline medicines must have been in a bad way.

This disaster we are in, and hopefully coming out of soon, has been a skipping stone since the late nineties.

The lines of blame are so wide as to render them useless for judgement.

Anyone saying that Neeld was when the rot started is revising history.

And, ADC, anyone making nazi comparisons is belittling history.

I enjoyed the late 90s final footy strong culture then the GF in 2000, at least you could go to the footy in those days and enjoy yourself , our downfall as a club was hiring those two meddling men from Fremantle, everybody knows it those two ripped the heart out of a 150 yr old club, and to think it only took them 5 years.

Edited February 1, 201411 yr by mjt

This disaster we are in, and hopefully coming out of soon, has been a skipping stone since the late nineties.

The lines of blame are so wide as to render them useless for judgement.

Anyone saying that Neeld was when the rot started is revising history.

And, ADC, anyone making nazi comparisons is belittling history.

Agree….some of us were calling for a cultural overhaul and quasi-revolution more than a decade ago.

But, Neeld was one of the few that sent us backwards years in some areas. Go look at the rejects the guy recruited for one.

On the other hand, Roos credits him with getting some basic standards up from poor to just OK.

On the whole Neeld left this place is a worse position. Furthermore, several players look like they would have ran out the door had he stayed.

His biggest issue was his body; pure and simple. If it was OK, he's still be captain…with Grimes.

Anyone out of the Essendon scene, that contemplated borderline medicines must have been in a bad way.

I was for it at the time, but I was wrong.

It put an unnecessary burden on a young player who hadn't earned his dues out on the playing field. He should have been allowed to purely focus on developing his game.

I was for it at the time, but I was wrong.

It put an unnecessary burden on a young player who hadn't earned his dues out on the playing field. He should have been allowed to purely focus on developing his game.

Same here.

...and you're right it did put too much of a burden on him. Hopefully he can develop from here, he had a lot of promise a few years back.

I enjoyed the late 90s final footy strong culture then the GF in 2000, at least you could go to the footy in those days and enjoy yourself , our downfall as a club was hiring those two meddling men from Fremantle, everybody knows it those two ripped the heart out of a 150 yr old club, and to think it only took them 5 years.

Agree….some of us were calling for a cultural overhaul and quasi-revolution more than a decade ago.

What I mean is that the repercussions in the 90s to salary cap irregularities, terrible draft choices from 2001, trades (Holland, Pickett), and 'retiring' of seasoned pros in the urge to get younger after 2007 make up the reasons for why we are where we are.

The reasons behind those failures are for the purposes of blame arrangement and that is a waste when it such a shared arrangement.

Good decisions need to be made on most things from here on in.

That's what matters.

Neither of them were much chop and you're delusional if you think otherwise.

It frustrates me that Bailey and Neeld are coupled together as failures. Bailey had by far the harder task. He had no facilities and no money in the FD when he came. I sat in a meeting where he was told we didn't have enough money for new training footballs. We were training with ones that were out of shape. (Ironically the person who gave him this advice didn't understand the budget and denied him new footys when we did have the money!!).

He started with an exhausted list with ageing "stars", many journeymen and few young players. The club was led by a CEO (Harris) who knew he was done and had mentally switched off. He was directed to go down the youth path by the new CEO and Board and sacrificed games for youth. He didn't trade in one mature player bar John Meesen and that agreement was "done" before he was appointed. He sacrificed games for picks to his own obvious detriment. He had an extraordinarily young list but managed to get 8.5 wins in each of his last two years. Yes we had some awful results and yes we were inconsistent but our list was not unlike the Suns and Giants who in their first years didn't get anywhere near 8.5 wins.

Neeld came in with many good young players on the list with a year or two under their belts. He had exceptional facilities, he had an expanded and fully funded FD, he traded early picks for established players and yet didn't manage as many wins in his tenure that Bailey got in his final 15 odd games.

Bailey had his weaknesses and I don't think he was the right person to lead us into finals but he never got the opportunity. MN was a very unfortunate appointment who was nowhere near Dean Bailey's level of competence and the two should not be "coupled".

Great post BB. Could not agree more

Edited February 1, 201411 yr by binman

It frustrates me that Bailey and Neeld are coupled together as failures. Bailey had by far the harder task. He had no facilities and no money in the FD when he came. I sat in a meeting where he was told we didn't have enough money for new training footballs. We were training with ones that were out of shape. (Ironically the person who gave him this advice didn't understand the budget and denied him new footys when we did have the money!!).He started with an exhausted list with ageing "stars", many journeymen and few young players. The club was led by a CEO (Harris) who knew he was done and had mentally switched off. He was directed to go down the youth path by the new CEO and Board and sacrificed games for youth. He didn't trade in one mature player bar John Meesen and that agreement was "done" before he was appointed. He sacrificed games for picks to his own obvious detriment. He had an extraordinarily young list but managed to get 8.5 wins in each of his last two years. Yes we had some awful results and yes we were inconsistent but our list was not unlike the Suns and Giants who in their first years didn't get anywhere near 8.5 wins.Neeld came in with many good young players on the list with a year or two under their belts. He had exceptional facilities, he had an expanded and fully funded FD, he traded early picks for established players and yet didn't manage as many wins in his tenure that Bailey got in his final 15 odd games.Bailey had his weaknesses and I don't think he was the right person to lead us into finals but he never got the opportunity. MN was a very unfortunate appointment who was nowhere near Dean Bailey's level of competence and the two should not be "coupled".

So in other words Roos should dominate?

It frustrates me that Bailey and Neeld are coupled together as failures. Bailey had by far the harder task. He had no facilities and no money in the FD when he came. I sat in a meeting where he was told we didn't have enough money for new training footballs. We were training with ones that were out of shape. (Ironically the person who gave him this advice didn't understand the budget and denied him new footys when we did have the money!!).

He started with an exhausted list with ageing "stars", many journeymen and few young players. The club was led by a CEO (Harris) who knew he was done and had mentally switched off. He was directed to go down the youth path by the new CEO and Board and sacrificed games for youth. He didn't trade in one mature player bar John Meesen and that agreement was "done" before he was appointed. He sacrificed games for picks to his own obvious detriment. He had an extraordinarily young list but managed to get 8.5 wins in each of his last two years. Yes we had some awful results and yes we were inconsistent but our list was not unlike the Suns and Giants who in their first years didn't get anywhere near 8.5 wins.

Neeld came in with many good young players on the list with a year or two under their belts. He had exceptional facilities, he had an expanded and fully funded FD, he traded early picks for established players and yet didn't manage as many wins in his tenure that Bailey got in his final 15 odd games.

Bailey had his weaknesses and I don't think he was the right person to lead us into finals but he never got the opportunity. MN was a very unfortunate appointment who was nowhere near Dean Bailey's level of competence and the two should not be "coupled".

But that's oversimplifying how far back we were with Neeld.

Bailey had failed in 4 years to fix the culture left of the Daniher years of coasting senior players. Moloney, Davey, Green all played on their own terms. Promising talent from the Bailey years had left due to unpredictable circumstances in Wona and Jurrah. Scully had fled and to save his own face to not look like he was leaving for money he allowed the notion of an unprofessional culture to be put out there. Our recruiting in the Bailey years was abysmal. I've got no qualms with Trengove, Watts and Scully but we were unlucky none of those top 2 picks were ready to go self made men. But we compounded that with what surely is recognised as overdrafting with Blease, Strauss, Gysberts, Tapscott and Cook. It will be interesting to see if Roos can rescue any of those guys. On top of that Neeld brought in Clark and Dawes and they had some back luck with injury. You can make the case for going for midfielders as a more important need first but the lift Clark provided in 2012 was tremendous to the whole club and could Neeld predict that Jones was the only mature decent midfielder on our list?

The tragic thing about Bailey's tenure was that when it finished Neeld came in and talked about rebuilding the rebuild and none of us battered an eyelid. We were all too aware that Bailey's team was build on a house of cards and needed to be retooled. Bailey had horrible facilities and conflicting advise from above. Neeld had horrible recruiting and no supervision from a decent footy manager. Both are recipes for disaster. I favour Bailey because he was able to develop young players and produce some form of results but I'm not impressed by either of them.

It's fair to say that the footy needs to start soon.

It frustrates me that Bailey and Neeld are coupled together as failures. Bailey had by far the harder task. He had no facilities and no money in the FD when he came. I sat in a meeting where he was told we didn't have enough money for new training footballs. We were training with ones that were out of shape. (Ironically the person who gave him this advice didn't understand the budget and denied him new footys when we did have the money!!).

He started with an exhausted list with ageing "stars", many journeymen and few young players. The club was led by a CEO (Harris) who knew he was done and had mentally switched off. He was directed to go down the youth path by the new CEO and Board and sacrificed games for youth. He didn't trade in one mature player bar John Meesen and that agreement was "done" before he was appointed. He sacrificed games for picks to his own obvious detriment. He had an extraordinarily young list but managed to get 8.5 wins in each of his last two years. Yes we had some awful results and yes we were inconsistent but our list was not unlike the Suns and Giants who in their first years didn't get anywhere near 8.5 wins.

Neeld came in with many good young players on the list with a year or two under their belts. He had exceptional facilities, he had an expanded and fully funded FD, he traded early picks for established players and yet didn't manage as many wins in his tenure that Bailey got in his final 15 odd games.

Bailey had his weaknesses and I don't think he was the right person to lead us into finals but he never got the opportunity. MN was a very unfortunate appointment who was nowhere near Dean Bailey's level of competence and the two should not be "coupled".

Brilliant post.

But that's oversimplifying how far back we were with Neeld.

Bailey had failed in 4 years to fix the culture left of the Daniher years of coasting senior players. Moloney, Davey, Green all played on their own terms.

Culture is really determined by your leadership group. The coach is the rudder, but the leadership group is the main influence. The senior players at Bailey's disposal were set in their ways and proven to be a class below in both talent and leadership. Not something fixed over night.

I'm critical of Bailey in a number of ways, but the group played for him until the toxic political machinations really started to bite near the end.

Brilliant post.

if someone sits in a meeting with Bailey he's going to have a pretty lopsided opinion when it comes to Bailey V Neeld , they are both putrid dark chapters on our glorious near 160 year history, Bailey was a puppet to Schwab that lead to a major investigation that nearly crippled our club, Neeld was just absolutely in deep water and probably the worst coach in AFL History, its easy for bob to rate Bailey higher when he obviously was in the inner sanctum.

..................

I'm critical of Bailey in a number of ways, but the group played for him ........

Erhh.....186?

Bailey had his weaknesses and I don't think he was the right person to lead us into finals but he never got the opportunity. MN was a very unfortunate appointment who was nowhere near Dean Bailey's level of competence and the two should not be "coupled".

They can be coupled together with Daniher's last few years to explain the decisions that left us with the list that we are left with.

Would it be better to say the 'Eras' of these coaches? As opposed the men themselves?

The Bailey Era is lumped with the other failed eras because that is what they are.

The latter half of the Daniher Era saw the MFC trade away picks and brought in discarded help because he thought he was close to a flag.

The start of the Bailey Era was stunted by the 'retirings' of seasoned pros that had a few years left with the pros that had no years left, The Bailey Era then saw no mature bodies brought into the club to restock save for Meesen and MacDonald, with the 'siren call' of the draft beckoning we were at the mercy of a skill we have never been quite adept - choosing the right teenagers, especially at the pointy end of the draft. The claims of poor development are not without cause, but are left somewhat moot by the fact that Morton, Gysberts and Cook have been abandoned by the AFL at large.

The Neeld Era shook this tree and while saving us another year of Morton and Gysberts left the confidence of a young, talent-bereft team in tatters. Losing Moloney for nothing was a headache, nearly losing a number of players if he had stayed would have been an embarrassing disaster similar to what the Lions had to endure this past off-season.

All throughout these eras has been an abject inability to pick talent in the draft. The cupboard was bare and hopefully the last two drafts are filled with successes, because we need them.

Erhh.....186?

The team missed their bus!

Erhh.....186?

"until the toxic political machinations really started to bite near the end"

Interesting you left this bit out. Not that you're an [censored] or anything.

EDIT: you mean id*iot is now censored ?

Andy and Whispering have completely lost the plot. Mordi Bromberg would be pleased.

Edited February 1, 201411 yr by Hannibal