It's the Culture

[rpfc 28,753]

2 minutes ago, Mach5 said:

 

I’m absolutely neutral, in that I don’t have any personal dislike for either of these people. But the evidence just keeps piling up and I’m concerned with the future success of the club. I don’t believe they’re the right people to take us forward, they’ve just benefited from the work of those before them.

Difficult & awkward is only the beginning, but it should be enough. “Hard to like” was another quote.

Of Roffey, I’d say her greatest strength has been the fact she is not Glenn Bartlett. I’m not sure what else she’s got.

Sometimes you are so reductive with your arguments that I struggle to take it seriously.

2+2 = 10 if you keep going and don’t stop counting…

Roffey did the Julius Caesar on The Faux Demon and that was as consequential in our flag as any kick to the fat side, or goal followed by ‘BANG!’

I have criticised Roffey for the ridiculous amount of pious reference to our ‘unique’ organisational culture. But we don’t know how the club is going internally, but neither do you or the ‘other’ President that isn’t impressed.

And as for the opinion that our time at the top is over, and these long term contracts will be an albatross - only time will tell because with a recent flag, surges in memberships and attendances, and half a dozen stars of the game locked up for the foreseeable future - the facts on the ground don’t support this opinion.

[whatwhat say what 22,918]

4 minutes ago, Mach5 said:

Not at all. There’s 2 factors there. What I’ve been exposed to and opinions of others to boot, i.e. it’s not my perception alone.

fortunately, the experience you have perceived is markedly different to many others

[layzie 33,990]

1 hour ago, A F said:

Clearly Roffey has pushed Mach5 in a puddle or something as he used to be one of my fav  posters.

Now, our time at the top is likely over because another president doesn't like Roffey.

I mean FMD. 

Speaking of puddles, I had to help a woman who unfortunately got her pram bogged in the grass outside Ikon Park. The mud was THAT bad.

[Clintosaurus 7,860]

21 minutes ago, Monbon said:

Yep, the hidden injury list has not been taken into account by a lot of gloomers and doomers on this site.

Yes, it is pot the club week and truth cannot get in the way. People need to find something else to do.

Edited September 18, 2022 by Clintosaurus

[The heart beats true 18,144]

6 hours ago, Mach5 said:

I’m reliably told Roffey has met with another club president recently, who found her to be “difficult & awkward.”

Was it the bloke who looks like Monty Burns from Essendon? I’d probably be difficult and awkward too.

[Jaded No More 68,972]

1 hour ago, DeeZee said:

 

Also said Joel Smith was offered a contract on low money which he didn’t accept and almost went to Sydney who offered him a 3 year deal.( Longmire is his godfather).

MFC came back and upped the offer so he decided to stay.

Plot twist. 
 

[IRW 1,387]

15 hours ago, Clintosaurus said:

Yes, it is pot the club week and truth cannot get in the way. People need to find something else to do.

Hard to get a clear picture  the wonderkund coach says they weren't banged up at all

No one going to surgery  blah blah blah.

[Lucifers Hero 40,328]

18 minutes ago, IRW said:

Hard to get a clear picture  the wonderkund coach says they weren't banged up at all

No one going to surgery  blah blah blah.

So, you would prefer him to be a sore loser like Scott in last year's PF who used 'illness' as an excuse?

Edited September 18, 2022 by Lucifers Hero

[Kick_It_To_Pickett 3,293]

16 hours ago, ElDiablo14 said:

Gawn, Bowey, Salem, Fritsch, Harmes, Yze, Spargo... Was Simon Goodwin there?

 

 

 

Players there:

May, Lever, Viney, Nibbler, Hibbo, Bowey, Jordon, Gawn, Harmes, Hunt, Ben Brown, Spargo, Sparrow, Salem, TMAC 

Coaches:

Yze, Goody, Chocco, Richardson

Past Players: 

Robbo, Greeny, Woey, Jake Spencer (May have been others)

No culture issues. Move on

 

[DistrACTION Jackson 9,212]

7 minutes ago, Kick_It_To_Pickett said:

Players there:

May, Lever, Viney, Nibbler, Hibbo, Bowey, Jordon, Gawn, Harmes, Hunt, Ben Brown, Spargo, Sparrow, Salem, TMAC 

Coaches:

Yze, Goody, Chocco, Richardson

Past Players: 

Robbo, Greeny, Woey, Jake Spencer (May have been others)

No culture issues. Move on

 

I saw Rivers and Neita there as well.

[IRW 1,387]

3 hours ago, Lucifers Hero said:

So, you would prefer him to be a sore loser like Scott in last year's PF who used 'illness' as an excuse?

No he didn't, you spuds accused him of that just before you started going on about" banged up" Demons over the last two weeks

Oh and umpires and the AFL (laughing)

To his credit the coach said they weren't banged up  , but I reckon they were and he was just covering up for their season long selection mistakes 

The Cats WERE  obviously flat..almost as if they were recovering from a debilitating illness.

Pathetic...grow up

 

Edited September 19, 2022 by IRW

[layzie 33,990]

Not really a right or wrong way. There is a part of me that would like it to come out that we were severely debilitated in the last few weeks with players on their last legs just because everyone else does it but I appreciate that we don't want to make excuses, 

[fr_ap 2,529]

21 hours ago, old55 said:

The reason we didn't go further this year is because our best players were beaten up after a long campaign last year, straight into this year. Our incredibly tough fixture in the 2nd half of the year compounded this. 

We gambled heavily on making top 4 and winning the first final.  We achieved the former but missed the latter. We really needed another week off.

We moved Brayshaw into the midfield because Clarrie, Trac and Viney were so banged up and that was a good move I hope we persist with next year.

You can say we should have used Chandler, JVR and Dunstan to give players a rest, but I don't think they would have enabled us to win enough to make top 4.

We could have accepted that we'd have to win it from outside top 4.  Maybe that would have been more prudent.

Our game plan is super taxing and that makes it very hard to back up. Very few teams have gone back to back after their breakthrough year.  The way we play we can win more flags but don't expect consecutive ones.

We don't have a culture problem.  Look no further than the Dogs, Port and Essendon for last year's finalists with culture problems.

Look at Casey this isn't a club with culture problems.

Maybe the OP would be happier down at Linton St.

And maybe you'd be happier at Tullamarine. Keep buying what the club are selling. 

A) Not once did I say we have a culture problem. I said there are signs it slipped. 

B) Your response is exactly the slippage I'm talking about. You are literally proving my point. According to you, we lost the flag because:

• We were banged up
• Our reserves wouldn't have been any better than injured stars
• We 'gambled on winning a final'
• "We'll win more but not consecutively" 

So in summary - we assumed we could get most of the way on one leg, lost integrity at selection and banked on being entitled to an extra week off. Having lost, we then have the excuse that 'the way we play is taxing', and that we never should have expected to go back to back in the first place. 

If that isn't a description of an arrogant, entitled and disrespectful approach to an extremely competitive season, I don't know what is. 

"We could have accepted we'd have to win it outside the top 4"....Really? And you're arguing against my observations of complacency and disrespect for our opposition? 

Oh & by the way, Casey isn't Melbourne. They didn't win the flag last year. In fact, they've come close for years without succeeding, and the entire club has been enormously driven to deliver for quite a while. Almost all of the 'signs' I listed had roots in us winning the flag - none of these were present at the Casey level.        

[old55 23,687]

10 minutes ago, fr_ap said:

And maybe you'd be happier at Tullamarine. Keep buying what the club are selling. 

A) Not once did I say we have a culture problem. I said there are signs it slipped. 

B) Your response is exactly the slippage I'm talking about. You are literally proving my point. According to you, we lost the flag because:

• We were banged up
• Our reserves wouldn't have been any better than injured stars
• We 'gambled on winning a final'
• "We'll win more but not consecutively" 

So in summary - we assumed we could get most of the way on one leg, lost integrity at selection and banked on being entitled to an extra week off. Having lost, we then have the excuse that 'the way we play is taxing', and that we never should have expected to go back to back in the first place. 

If that isn't a description of an arrogant, entitled and disrespectful approach to an extremely competitive season, I don't know what is. 

"We could have accepted we'd have to win it outside the top 4"....Really? And you're arguing against my observations of complacency and disrespect for our opposition? 

Oh & by the way, Casey isn't Melbourne. They didn't win the flag last year. In fact, they've come close for years without succeeding, and the entire club has been enormously driven to deliver for quite a while. Almost all of the 'signs' I listed had roots in us winning the flag - none of these were present at the Casey level.        

All the things I posted that you list in B are decisions made under duress.  It didn't work out but I highly doubt any other approach would have either.

Sometimes you have to gamble to succeed. We gambled on Steven May's hamstring in last year's Grand Final.

An alternative approach could have been to try to win it from outside top 4.  That's not complacency that's just an option when you're faced with difficult circumstances. We would have had to win 4 in a row, it's not likely so I don't endorse that option.

It's not "arrogant, entitled and disrepectful". Premierships are hard to win and back to back is rare. 

[Sir Why You Little 37,121]

2 hours ago, IRW said:

No he didn't, you spuds accused him of that just before you started going on about" banged up" Demons over the last two weeks

Oh and umpires and the AFL (laughing)

To his credit the coach said they weren't banged up  , but I reckon they were and he was just covering up for their season long selection mistakes 

The Cats WERE  obviously flat..almost as if they were recovering from a debilitating illness.

Pathetic...grow up

 

Are you infact a Melbourne Supporter???

[Macca 17,032]

Hindsight is 20/20

We can now see where we went wrong but at 10 & 0 there weren't many (if any) detractors

Even when we lost a few (after that unbeaten run) the inbetween wins saw the hope & faith return.  One minute we're back on track and next minute ...

It was only at the very end when the penny dropped

As for our issues, they've all been pointed out but that is only happening after the revision.  i.e. Once all the details are exposed

So looking ahead, our issues aren't too hard to overcome (or are they?)

A less taxing game plan (working for stoppages around the boundary line is energy sapping)

Bombing the ball to the left forward pocket only as a last choice (not first choice)

We need better forwards and a few ruckman (Jackson leaving leaves us with Gawn only)

An injection of pace through the middle and half back is needed too

Our disposal skills needs a real do-over.  Is that Williams area? Midfielders kicking into the forward line need to kick with precision (that's all of the midfielders)

Need a new forward line coach but if Stafford stays, he needs to do a hell of a lot better

We need to get our fitness right but a more direct approach to goal actually saves the legs (not the opposite)

More science required from our kick ins (after a behind is scored)

All over the ground pressure?  Did we not go from 1st to 17th ... that might be our biggest issue right there

Forward line pressure ... back to the bad old days (virtually non existent as it was prior to 2021)

 

[fr_ap 2,529]

6 hours ago, old55 said:

All the things I posted that you list in B are decisions made under duress.  It didn't work out but I highly doubt any other approach would have either.

Sometimes you have to gamble to succeed. We gambled on Steven May's hamstring in last year's Grand Final.

An alternative approach could have been to try to win it from outside top 4.  That's not complacency that's just an option when you're faced with difficult circumstances. We would have had to win 4 in a row, it's not likely so I don't endorse that option.

It's not "arrogant, entitled and disrepectful". Premierships are hard to win and back to back is rare.

They're hard to win and B2B is rare because it's very easy to slip 5/10%. On field, culturally, both, you name it. That's it. I've only tried to articulate the slippage I see.  

You could argue we slipped on field instead, and that's fine.

But that's not what you're doing - you're making excuses, trivialising and diminishing our failures by suggesting they were due to temporary problems, not our fault, and somehow defensible. It is 100% arrogant and disrespectful to our opposition, and your response is too. 

You highly doubt doing anything other than what we did could have been successful? (Because we are the exemplars and couldn't possibly be at fault? Do you honestly claim to have foreseen how every other scenario could have played out?) 

We've gambled successfully before so therefore we had the right to gamble again?  (Never mind that May had extremely little influence on the GF - we won inspite of his injury/the gamble, not because of it. It does not afford us the right to play through injury again during a season proper with competitors breathing down our neck)

You don't "endorse" the option of winning outside the 4? Finishing outside the 4 is an "alternative approach"? (As if our finishing position was entirely within our control? We picked and chose when to go and where to finish? Presuming if we benched our injured stars, our reserves would have been unable to deliver?)

I literally cannot spell this out any more clearly for you. 

To be frank, if anyone from the club really believes that our season came down to a choice of either playing fit, 2nd choice players or missing top 4 (which is exactly the choice you're implying we made) then we're in deep deep trouble. 

You'll deflect, externalise and blame injuries, luck and exogenous factors. It's what arrogant people do. 

Humble people and humble clubs accept and acknowledge their shortcomings so they can address them and improve. It's one of the things that got us so far in 2021.

[Harrisonrules 273]

On 9/11/2022 at 11:52 AM, dl4e said:

I will repeat it again and again. They suffered from mental fatigue.

I like it

[old55 23,687]

15 minutes ago, fr_ap said:

They're hard to win and B2B is rare because it's very easy to slip 5/10%. On field, culturally, both, you name it. That's it. I've only tried to articulate the slippage I see.  

You could argue we slipped on field instead, and that's fine.

But that's not what you're doing - you're making excuses, trivialising and diminishing our failures by suggesting they were due to temporary problems, not our fault, and somehow defensible. It is 100% arrogant and disrespectful to our opposition, and your response is too. 

You highly doubt doing anything other than what we did could have been successful? (Because we are the exemplars and couldn't possibly be at fault? Do you honestly claim to have foreseen how every other scenario could have played out?) 

We've gambled successfully before so therefore we had the right to gamble again?  (Never mind that May had extremely little influence on the GF - we won inspite of his injury/the gamble, not because of it. It does not afford us the right to play through injury again during a season proper with competitors breathing down our neck)

You don't "endorse" the option of winning outside the 4? Finishing outside the 4 is an "alternative approach"? (As if our finishing position was entirely within our control? We picked and chose when to go and where to finish? Presuming if we benched our injured stars, our reserves would have been unable to deliver?)

I literally cannot spell this out any more clearly for you. 

To be frank, if anyone from the club really believes that our season came down to a choice of either playing fit, 2nd choice players or missing top 4 (which is exactly the choice you're implying we made) then we're in deep deep trouble. 

You'll deflect, externalise and blame injuries, luck and exogenous factors. It's what arrogant people do. 

Humble people and humble clubs accept and acknowledge their shortcomings so they can address them and improve. It's one of the things that got us so far in 2021.

Yes that's exactly what I'm saying, as the injuries to star players mounted our fixture got much tougher.

That's not an "excuse" it's a reason.

We chose a strategy to try to overcome this problem and it didn't ultimately work out.

Yes I am saying that our fit VFL players could not have replaced Gawn, Oliver, Viney and Petracca and got us to top 4 with our extremely challenging fixture.

I'm confident we'll thoroughly review the season and make improvements for next year. The fact that we didn't win ensures this.

Most of the time from year to year sh*t happens and that's why it's so hard.

[old55 23,687]

Please permit me to add some background and detail to my "reasons".

The bedrock is that I do not believe Richardson, Goodwin and Gawn are "arrogant" or "disrespectful". Quite the opposite in fact.

Goodwin was at pains in his press conferences to stress, even though our winning streak, how tough and ruthless the competition is and he always spoke respectfully of the opposition.

In fact my suggestion that our strategy of going with our best, but hampered, players reflects respect for the opposition compared with your view that "our reserves" "would have been able to deliver" against the best - that is disrespectful. Weid, Dunstan, JVR and Chandler winning in place of Gawn, Oliver, Brown and Viney against quality opposition?

MFC aren't "exemplars" without "fault". Goodwin repeatedly said we don't need to be perfect (because that's impossible) we need to be at our best. There is no doubt we made errors throughout the season, it's inevitable.

To win the flag you need to be very good and for almost everything to go right. We didn't have the latter this year, and the two points I've highlighted above - fixture and injuries are illustrated by the Grand Finalists.

Geelong had double up fixtures against WB, St.Kilda, Port, WC and North - the latter two the worst performing teams since MFC 2013.  We had double ups against Collingwood, Brisbane, Freo, WB and Port. This difference provided Geelong with selection flexibility.

Sydney have had an injury free year like we did last year - I play Fantasy football semi-seriously so monitor weekly injury reports closely.  Sydney's list didn't get beyond 3 for almost all the year. Franklin and Reid combined for a total of 39 games, compared with 28 and 20 in the two previous years.

These are material differences to our year and in a game of small margins against very good competition are not "exogenous excuses"

Finally a bit of luck is helpful. I'm confident we still would have beaten Geelong in last year's PF, but the virus they had made them a soft kill and an easy run in to GF compared with the Dogs tough campaign on the road and that was a factor in the GF blow-out.

If Sam Reid does his groin in the 2nd quarter of this year's QF instead of the PF, there's every chance we're playing this weekend.

There's only one winner and 17 losers each year - if that's how you want to judge it - I don't as a matter of fact.

There are factors at play that are not in our control and we have to make the best decisions possible in the circumstances. We faced significant hurdles that we were not able to overcome. "Arrogance" and "disrespect" were not at the root.

 

Edited September 20, 2022 by old55

[BDA 22,873]

19 hours ago, Sir Why You Little said:

Are you infact a Melbourne Supporter???

nowhere to be seen last year when we won the thing. Posting prolifically since we were knocked out potting the club, players and us supporters. Toxic. Best put on ignore

[Dee*ceiving 1,690]

We rode a wave of momentum, desire and emotion through September last year. In my view this was triggered by our come from behind, after the siren win against Geelong in R23. 

That moment is immeasurable. We may still have become premiers, from 4th, had we lost. But I am not so sure. 

We were good enough, and we still are now, but intangibles and inexplicables are also relevant. These landed our way in 2021, but unfortunately not in 2022. A tougher fixture, injuries, being the hunted and perhaps a touch less motivation all factors.

Despite that we finished second to Geelong (who enjoyed a far easier fixture and fewer injuries). A few tweaks, better player management, the introduction of some enthusiastic youths (e.g. JVR, Taj Wowoedin) and return to form of a few who struggled this year (Salem, Lever, ANB) and we'll be back at the pointy end next year.   

[layzie 33,990]

After the news from this morning I'll take what we know about our culture over others. Could be A LOT worse.