5 hours ago, Adam The God said:

"Thanks for staying with us", is an odd sign off. I'm not sure what I think of that.

Maybe it meant, “if you’ve read the letter to here, thanks!”

1 hour ago, Go Lordie said:

So, you're a fair weather supporter? Not sure we need more of those.

Exactly right mate. Any supporter who doesn't pay money to spend Easter Sunday watching this club kick two whole goals in a half is WEAK AS [censored] and doesn't deserve this great club!!!!

Edited April 14, 2025Apr 14 by Cosmic Baby

2 minutes ago, Go Ds said:

Maybe he should have said nothing. But I get the feeling no matter what he does he'll get criticised. Apparently the club remains silent too much but now....

If you were tasked to write this what would you say? Not write a formulaic (AI) letter? Not mention anything positive? Just regurgitate the most Chicken-Little stuff Melbourne fans are posting on social media? What exactly?

I think as supporters, most of us would love to have heard Brad say something along the lines of:

“As a Board we cannot accept the type of performances we are seeing out on the field this season. As such we have asked the football department to respond to 3 simple questions asap:

1. What is the problem(s)causing the way we are currently performing? And what are the causes of these problems?

2. How are you planning on fixing these issues?

3. When will these issues be fixed?”

While I wouldn’t expect this is a public letter, I do expect that the Board would be asking these very same questions in private to Richardson and Goodwin. And if they haven’t then we have another issue. If the response seems reasonable I’d give the football department 4 weeks to see significant improvement, or else. If the response appears to just be waffle, then the “or else” happens now.

Personally I feel there is something very wrong behind the scenes at the Club. Our players are, mostly,,too good to be performing the way they are. Whether it is coach related, or Oliver / Petracca related, or something else entirely, whatever it is, it needs to be identified and weeded out asap.

Edited April 14, 2025Apr 14 by Neil Crompton

14 minutes ago, Cosmic Baby said:

Exactly right mate. Any supporter who doesn't pay money to spend Easter Sunday watching this club kick two whole goals in a half is WEAK AS [censored] and doesn't deserve this great club!!!!

Pretty sure it’s Easter Saturday. Meaning you can watch us kick 2 goals and still get enough sleep to wake up Sunday morning and gorge yourself on chocolate!

I won’t be there on Saturday though. I’ve watched this train wreck 4 times live this season. I need a break. Life is too short.

5 hours ago, Billy said:

Codswallop

Haha under used word!

11 minutes ago, JJJ said:

Pretty sure it’s Easter Saturday. Meaning you can watch us kick 2 goals and still get enough sleep to wake up Sunday morning and gorge yourself on chocolate!

I won’t be there on Saturday though. I’ve watched this train wreck 4 times live this season. I need a break. Life is too short.

I'm with you mate

2 hours ago, Go Lordie said:

So, you're a fair weather supporter? Not sure we need more of those.

39 year member that lives 5 hours away actually & spends hundreds of dollars worth of petrol & accommodation 6-8 games a season.

Can’t go to Thursdays, Fridays or late Sunday games due to work commitments.

So don’t give me that fair weather supporter garbage.

What’s your situation????

The 3rd quarter retrospectively amounts to junktime goals, if you don't go on with it and the opposition simply restore the 40 point deficit that existed prior to.

It's fools gold, I can't believe the club is clinging to it .

Edit. Furthermore: Winning it out of the centre Is not a sustainable game plan for winning a 4 quarter game footy. It's not the 90s

Edited April 14, 2025Apr 14 by John Demonic

2 minutes ago, John Demonic said:

The 3rd quarter retrospectively amounts to junktime goals, if you don't go on with it and the opposition simply restore the 40 point deficit that existed prior to.

It's fools gold, I can't believe the club is clinging to it

What else has it got to cling too?

3 minutes ago, Neil Crompton said:

What else has it got to cling too?

John Longmires WhatsApp account?

3 minutes ago, Neil Crompton said:

What else has it got to cling too?

So better false hope than none, I guess some people myself included prefer to live in reality, we already have to much spin going on everywhere else to have the club we support joining in

5 hours ago, Rab D Nesbitt said:

To be fair to Greenie half of one quarter isn't much material to work with.

And that is the reason that we are so Shizzen..... Lauding half a quarter of passable footy?? Nar sorry Greeny, you are just as delusional as the coach!! FFS Has anyone in the club Got the Gonads to call it out?? We need a ruthlessness that we have seldom had! Time for ACTIONS NOT WORDS!!

11 minutes ago, Billy said:

39 year member that lives 5 hours away actually & spends hundreds of dollars worth of petrol & accommodation 6-8 games a season.

Can’t go to Thursdays, Fridays or late Sunday games due to work commitments.

So don’t give me that fair weather supporter garbage.

What’s your situation????

Hi Billy, I didn't mean to insult you or your passion. Apologies if I did. I'm 76, retired, live four train stops from the 'G and have been a supporter since I was 7 in 1956. I am as shocked as you are about our team at the moment, but I don't think knee-jerk reactions in the form of sackings will achieve what we want. Last time we were in a tizz, the AFL had to step in and organise a CEO, a president and a coach (Roos). Surely we can organise our way out of this without looking like headless chooks. Go Dees!

1 minute ago, Go Lordie said:

Hi Billy, I didn't mean to insult you or your passion. Apologies if I did. I'm 76, retired, live four train stops from the 'G and have been a supporter since I was 7 in 1956. I am as shocked as you are about our team at the moment, but I don't think knee-jerk reactions in the form of sackings will achieve what we want. Last time we were in a tizz, the AFL had to step in and organise a CEO, a president and a coach (Roos). Surely we can organise our way out of this without looking like headless chooks. Go Dees!

Thanks GoLordy but...... at present we ARE Headless chooks, directionless, rudderless and Impotent!

Hardly a surprise to see the club struggling as it is right now. For the last 3 years the writing has been on the wall with so many obvious weaknesses tolerated and unsolved.

Such as ...

1. A repeated lack of efficiency inside 50, coupled with a weak forward line. A well-documented and ongoing issue which after 3 or so years still unsolved.

2. Max Gawn. Undeniably, a great servant of the club on field but now an aged competitor. So, what is Plan B? What exactly is the progression plan relating to this key position?

3. The heavy reliance on the once feared and respected Lever/May backline (not so fearsome anymore)

4. The midfield engine including the likes of Viney, Oliver etc. Viney contracted until the end of 2028 and Oliver contracted until the end of 2030. Inspiring decisions or a bit of a worry?

5. Second rate recruitment plan with maybe Lindsay, Langford, and arguably Jefferson showing glimpses of future promise. The rest are simply the fish that John West rejects. This season's recruitment can hardly be described as a masterstroke.

6. On field fitness levels have gone backwards at a great rate of knots since Darren Burgess left the club.

7. And who writes that marketing nonsense which then gets emailed to members and supporters after each round, like the one that just came through after the loss to Essendon and reads "Defeated But Determined". Give me a break.

I for one shudder at the thought of a return to the days of mediocrity once again. This respectfully, is where the club has been by and large over the past 50 years, give or take.

So now, Simon Goodwin thinks he's the right guy to turn things around. You may as well make that point No. 8 and add it to the list above.

Just as well the Dees aren't a rock band because if they were, they would either be called Harrison Petty & The Heartbreakers or Stevie May & The Easybeats

15 minutes ago, picket fence said:

And that is the reason that we are so Shizzen..... Lauding half a quarter of passable footy?? Nar sorry Greeny, you are just as delusional as the coach!! FFS Has anyone in the club Got the Gonads to call it out?? We need a ruthlessness that we have seldom had! Time for ACTIONS NOT WORDS!!

You're not my boss are you PF? He supports Melbourne and every second word in his emails is in hi-caps with lots of exclamation marks too. Any effect they ever had was lost a long time ago.

Goodwin is not the man to turn this around. He got us into this hole and doesn’t have a ladder.

19 minutes ago, Go Lordie said:

Hi Billy, I didn't mean to insult you or your passion. Apologies if I did. I'm 76, retired, live four train stops from the 'G and have been a supporter since I was 7 in 1956. I am as shocked as you are about our team at the moment, but I don't think knee-jerk reactions in the form of sackings will achieve what we want. Last time we were in a tizz, the AFL had to step in and organise a CEO, a president and a coach (Roos). Surely we can organise our way out of this without looking like headless chooks. Go Dees!

We are where we are because of complacency. Hard decisions by the people entrusted to run the club should have been made but weren't.

Last year was alarm bells but i thought Goody deserved another season to try to turn it around. Turns out i was wrong. The people who should have known went with the easy option and retained the coach. made easy decisions like bring in a plainly unqualified Nat Jones to coach our midfield. Ran an external review for optics purposes. Poor decisions in hindsight.

We need a CEO asap and we need to start the search for a new coach yesterday.

And we need to try to manage Goody's exit in a dignified and respectful manner. He's been a great coach for us but the game has passed him by.

4 minutes ago, Kiwi demon said:

Goodwin is not the man to turn this around. He got us into this hole and doesn’t have a ladder.

its not just Goodwin. the board have been negligent as well.

16 minutes ago, BDA said:

its not just Goodwin. the board have been negligent as well.

Bunch of underperformed with zero credibility in my view

1 hour ago, JJJ said:

Maybe it meant, “if you’ve read the letter to here, thanks!”

I took it to mean "thanks for renewing your membership"

3 hours ago, Garbo said:

Or he could you know be a leader and actually do something, put the players / coaches on notice publicly that this won’t stand and there will be repercussions if things don’t change and quickly

Have you ever seen a president do this before? Ever?

If he did, the criticism would be that we’re infighting, lacking unity, drawing more attention to ourselves etc.

1 hour ago, Neil Crompton said:

If the response seems reasonable I’d give the football department 4 weeks to see significant improvement, or else.

We are not going to see significant improvement in 4 weeks. If it was possible to turn clubs around in that kind of time frame we wouldn't have the Norths and WCE's and Richmonds bumping along the bottom year after year. Hawthorn is now flavour of the month (kind of ...), but they floated around the lower reaches of the ladder for most of 7 years, even with plenty of great/good players on their list and supposedly very good coaches.

Over 4 weeks we might see marginal improvement and insights into where we could get to, but more than that ... I'd be surprised.

The only way we'll see significant improvement is by making changes to the list that have a significant impact. Trouble for us though is that to do that we'll need to let players go to generate draft/pick capital and free up cap space, so it's 2 steps forwards 2 steps back.

The letter is full of words

1 hour ago, titan_uranus said:

Have you ever seen a president do this before? Ever?

If he did, the criticism would be that we’re infighting, lacking unity, drawing more attention to ourselves etc.

We have seen plenty of of presidents in the afl do this David Koch called out Hinkley, we saw Kennett call out Clarkson back in the day, it’s quite common those are 2 I can think of quickly but there is plenty more if I cared to go over it

Edited April 14, 2025Apr 14 by Garbo