Is part of the appeal with Buckley that he still has the aura of a champion/huge name around him and so will help us attract players?

I get that he'd be on our list. I'm not sure I quite get the idea (I know it's just rumour at the moment) that we've put the blinkers on and he's the one.

5 minutes ago, The Jackson FIX said:

Just because Caroline Wilson hasn’t reported that a panel has been formed

Some of her insights on clubs and the AFL are interesting, but that column was a pathetic attack on our club and a blatant attempt to stop us getting a decent prospective coach. Examples like this go way beyond editorial comment into the realm of bias and vitriol.

If tigers were a homeless club she'd be banging on about the injustice of it every week in all her media outlets and forcing the AFL to balance them up. She has a bitter hatred for the Dees and it twists her content into shrill bile like that article.

It will be nice to see Dimma do well with GCS as that will stick in her craw. I hope we also get our off field management and training facilities sorted as well as a good coach despite her undermining us at every turn.

27 minutes ago, The Jackson FIX said:

The ‘show me the process’ crew don’t seem to understand that it is near impossible to get an quality experienced coach to get involved in any public process, look at Ross Lyon with Carlton.

Being a declared starter in a public process (where they are not guaranteed the gig) is too risky to their reputation, they look out of touch if they fail.

I reckon Horse and Simmo have interest in coaching next year but going with the ‘I’m happy doing what I’m doing’ line to preserve their reputations whilst they wait for a phone call in the future.

I'd feel exactly the same with appointing Buckley as Ross Lyon. If your ego is too big for at least a first round of interviews then you probably aren't the man for the job. I doubt Carlton or anyone else are all that worried about missing out on Ross le Boss. Do the interviews, claim family reasons to drop out if it's not going that way.

Everyone thought Terry Wallace was a lock to Hawthorn in 2004. They went through the process and Al Clarkson blew them away. 4 flags.

5 minutes ago, DeeSpencer said:

If your ego is too big for at least a first round of interviews

Who is to say they haven’t had a first round of discussions but we just don’t know about them?

I understand some don’t trust the club and want full transparency BUT it is naive to think that things like discussions/interviews aren’t happening (or have happened a long time ago) behind closed doors

6 minutes ago, Jaded No More said:

He missed half of 2023 with the hamstring, came back for finals and injured his knee but kept playing.

Missed the entire 2024 pre season, for both publicly known reasons and also reasons a lot of the public doesn't and will never know.

Came back to play round 1 2024, and broke his hand. His hand was so badly broken he couldn't lift weights for nearly the entire year. It was insane to not put him straight into surgery, but there were reasons why we wanted to keep him playing and focused on footy. It was not good for him physically, but actually it really helped him mentally which was rightly the priority.

He also injured his PCL again at the back end of 2024.

So essentially he's had no continuity with his body for 18+ months.

He completed a full pre season this year, but as we know from guys like Tmac, Viney, Lever etc when you miss so much footy with persistent injuries especially entire pre-seasons, it takes a really long time to get back to peak fitness.

The problem for Oliver is that to play his role effectively he has to be 100% fit aerobically. Not 99% fit, but 100% fit. Until 2023 we never saw him battle injuries that impacted his fitness. Yes he had ongoing shoulder issues, but they didn't prevent him from running, doing weights and so on, and he didn't miss entire pre seasons as a result.

I think it is a credit to both him and Trac for doing so much work this pre-season to get through a whole year without any soft tissue injuries given how much footy they missed. Although in the grand scheme of things Trac missed 6 months, but was very fit prior to injury. Clarry has battled for almost 3 times that long with a variety of issues that impacted his fitness.

As the year has gone on you can see that Clarry has naturally improved his fitness due to playing more and more games, and that has really improved his game.

I agree that footy is moving away from needing multiple contested beasts, but you always need players who can win the ball and use their hands to release others out wide. That will never change, and it will be even more noticeable come finals.

Viney is at the back end of his career and his skills will never get better. Trac has his own mental demons to deal with, and we have no idea if he will ever over come them. Clarry also has mental demons, but from a physical point of view he is only going to get fitter (unless injuries stop him of course). I am not sure who wins us clearances if he leaves, when we all agree that Viney and Trac need to play predominantly different roles in the future.

Do I think Langford, Lindsay, Kosi and Windsor will be good mids? Absolutely. Will they ever get to the contested winning abilities of Clarry? That is a big unknown.

His 2024 season was a by product of his off field behaviour. Obviously wont go to detail on personal matters as im fully aware what he was getting up to having spoken to his family members.

There is an element that he needs to take majority of responsibility for his 2024. Yes there was the broken hand but he came back in completely poor shape and was struggling to cover the ground in most games.

Everyone goes through a season carrying injuries at the back end of the year. This is what i mean by we're making excuses for the sake of making excuses.

Again, to reference Bontempelli, he was carrying back and ankle issues last year to the point there were reports he was in doubt for some games but carried that through and performed at an incredible high level. Misses the first 7 weeks of the season and comes in playing like an absolute pro.

Lachie Neale was carrying an ankle injury leading into the 2024 finals campaignand then snapped his plantar fasciitis early on the grand final and still finished runner up in the norm smith medal with 36 disposals.

That's the standard Oliver needs to be at whether supporters like it or not. When you're paying someone ridiculous amount of money then that needs to be justified from an on field performance perspective.

The fact that supporters are satisfied with good honest performances from Oliver off the back of a full pre season this year just shows the incredible fall from grace for him.

Edited August 11Aug 11 by dazzledavey36

Guys, as fascinating as the discussion is perhaps move it to the What the New Coach needs to fix? Thread

Please keep this thread to news and discussion on the new coach.

13 minutes ago, The Jackson FIX said:

Who is to say they haven’t had a first round of discussions but we just don’t know about them?

I understand some don’t trust the club and want full transparency BUT it is naive to think that things like discussions/interviews aren’t happening (or have happened a long time ago) behind closed doors

You can have discussions all you like but the point is to assemble the best panel and listen to what a range of best candidates have to say. There's no way that's happened behind closed doors, not with how much the AFL (and MFC) leaks.

I'm not saying we have to subject a Buckley/Simpson/Horse to a full scale interview process, we know what those guys are.

But if you're not sitting down with a bunch of the brightest assistant coaches you're missing out on a whole heap of information that can be useful not just for finding the best coach.

4 minutes ago, dazzledavey36 said:

Hird a No 😂 What a load of [censored]. Nobody asked him, nobody would.

What’s your next tweet Ralphy? Jock McHale and Tommy Hafey have withdrawn interest due to being dead?

Edited August 11Aug 11 by The heart beats true

15 hours ago, SPC said:

Salem is a joke..

This is a pathetic post.

Surely, we can discuss trading players without being disrespectful like this...

21 minutes ago, dazzledavey36 said:

His 2024 season was a by product of his off field behaviour. Obviously wont go to detail on personal matters as im fully aware what he was getting up to having spoken to his family members.

There is an element that he needs to take majority of responsibility for his 2024. Yes there was the broken hand but he came back in completely poor shape and was struggling to cover the ground in most games.

The fact that supporter'sare satisfied with good honest performances from Oliver off the back of a full reason this year just shows the incredible fall from grace for him.

I don't want to drag this out because we are on the wrong thread, but just so we are clear at no point did I mention that Clarry shouldn't take responsibility for his behaviour, nor that I am happy with his output. He is not happy with it either.

But that is a totally separate issue to the one we are discussing. Regardless of who is at fault, fitness has been a major issue and has impacted his output and it will get better and so will his output with it.

And I don't know that comparing players to Bont and Neale, is going to get us anywhere. I wish all our players were Bont and Neale level professional, but they are part of the 1% not the 99%. Clarry and Trac were with them once. I hope they can get back to that.

Edited August 11Aug 11 by Jaded No More

Demonland presents Schrodinger's coach : the veteran coach who is obviously still hungry for glory while at the same time will promptly decline any coaching position he has to go through a standard process for.

I don't mind the club sounding out potentials, but in recent times clubs courting coaches (Lyon, Clarkson) hasn't led to success. I don't believe Buckley is the man, but if he is then he should go through the same process as an assistant at another club who is hungry, if only to prove that he wants the job and has the new ideas needed - it's easy to point out the flaws from the outside, 2/3rd of this forum can see what's going wrong with the team, doesn't mean he can fix them.

If the club runs a proper process and Bucks is the choice, then I'll be much more confident in him than I am now. I've still yet to see the logic as to why we need a veteran coach though, in recent years the path to success has been through former assistants with new ideas.

Someone further up the chain here made the comment there's a few posters regretting wanting Goodwin gone with some of the alternatives being offered, even if we end up with Buckley I'm not going to be one of those. My impression of the team's direction was we'd continue to bob around between 9th and 14th for a few years before retirements had the wheels come off, bleeding supporters as we did so. I'd rather take the risk of blowing it up quickly and starting again than just watch us slowly decline.

so essentially we are waiting for the "danny daly rules out melbourne job" article to confirm it is bucks?

4 minutes ago, Jaded No More said:

I don't want to drag this out because we are on the wrong thread, but just so we are clear at no point did I mention that Clarry shouldn't take responsibility for his behaviour, nor that I am happy with his output. He is not happy with it either.

But that is a totally separate issue to the one we are discussing. Regardless of who is at fault, fitness has been a major issue and has impacted his output and it will get better and so will his output with it.

And I don't know that comparing players to Bont and Neale, is going to get us anywhere. I wish all our players were Bont and Neale level professional, but they are part of the 1% not the 99%. Clarry and Trac were with them once. I hope they can get back to that.

The comparisons is referenced because Oliver has proven to be an A grader at their level but also to prove that all elite players go through their own adversity with injuries in season.

Yet those players find a way to consistently perform at a high level managing injuries week in, week out.

Oliver hasnt played a decent game since early 2023 and because of that, supporters are letting him off the leash far too easily with excuses to justify okay performances.

12 hours ago, deegirl said:

Inside the echo chamber of the AFL media these things seem to get a momentum of their own. The talk about appointing Buckley is 90% media hype and 10% demonland speculation

I’m not a no for Buckley but I’d like the club to ignore the noise and focus on putting together the best recruitment process possible.

I think you'll find the club is the one leaking all this/most of this to the media. Caro laid the ground work post St Kilda loss. Where do you think she got her information from? Someone is clearly briefing Tom Morris too. Which given his history with us, surely, we choose a different conduit.

12 hours ago, Greg Schneider said:

David King implied on First Crack tonight that the board may not have been across the evolution of our side this year when they decided to sack Goodwin, interesting comments, gone from bottom 4 in ball movement and points from back half to top 4, the implication was the Simon may have been a little stiff

Shhhh. Don't tell us that. It doesn't align with the Demonland groupthink.

Could do worse then try for a Silvani double. Steven should be a good coach and Jack is a defender, ruck and forward. Very useful.

1 minute ago, dazzledavey36 said:

That’s fine. Simpson is a sharp football mind but his success was very goody-like in it’s reliance on a strong core group of 10 or so players. When given the chance to turn over the WCE list and change the strategy, he buried the club by hanging onto past heroes.

We need a fresh ideas, creative strategy and an innovator. Don’t be afraid of quality of assistants!

4 minutes ago, Demonic Dave said:

Could do worse then try for a Silvani double. Steven should be a good coach and Jack is a defender, ruck and forward. Very useful.

Well…it’s an original thought!

4 minutes ago, Demonic Dave said:

Could do worse then try for a Silvani double. Steven should be a good coach and Jack is a defender, ruck and forward. Very useful.

Satirical surely? 😅

4 hours ago, The Jackson FIX said:

The correlation between the use of the word ‘process’ and people who just dislike Nathan Buckley (mostly for clueless reasons) is overwhelming.

I had a chat yesterday with some guys we regularly sit near at the footy. We discussed Buckley and all four of us agreed that none of us liked Buckley, so we were having to shift that in our heads, but that if Buckley won a flag with Melbourne instead, we wouldn't be complaining.

The second chance saloon is definitely an issue though. It would be unprecedented (correct me if I'm wrong) if Buckley won a flag having failed in his first time as a senior coach.

That doesn't mean you don't employ him, but he has to, pardon the pun, buck history.

1 minute ago, Adam The God said:

The second chance saloon is definitely an issue though. It would be unprecedented (correct me if I'm wrong) if Buckley won a flag having failed in his first time as a senior coach.

19 out of the last 20 flags have been won by first time coaches

3 hours ago, dazzledavey36 said:

Yes and its a great mention regarding Cripps. I have watched him closely this year and he is step behind the contest now with how quick the game is going. Oliver is the same.

In terms of adding more strings, I agree once again. Issue is i dont know what exactly that would be and thats a concerns in itself.

Maybe a new coach may find other ways to utilise him but again, thats not guaranteed.

I'm on the fence with who we trade this year, but the thing that hasn't changed in footy is you still need extractors to get it to the likes of Windsor, Kozzy, Lindsay etc.

Personally, I'd be keeping Clarry, and making sure we have the likes of Windsor, Kozzy and Lindsay with him at centre bounces and around the ground. Their pace is obviously an offensive weapon with Clarry extracting, but their pace also covers Clarry's leg speed flaws.

BUCKLEY TO COACH THE DEES

My Vote is YES

Simpson is uninspiring imv

Longmire is burnt out and comfortable in his footy director role in Sydney

I think Buckley is driven to succeed. He wants an AFL premiership.

He has experience and knowledge about what works and doesn’t. He doesn’t tolerate mediocrity.

He will command respect from the playing group and from the media.

I think he has mellowed from his early days as a grumpy hard taskmaster who wanted players to reach his standard. He admitted he needed to build relationships with players and get to motivate some in different ways. His commentary reflects a new instructive method that is more purpose driven.

Melbourne cannot go back to being an irrelevant bottom 4 club. We have talented players who need support and structure to succeed. Buckley will command to bring in a high calibre team to support him and will generate high interest from assistants

Buckley imv might attract players more than perhaps a rookie coach. Maybe not in year 1 but once he knows what is needed

I think Buckley will push to get the best available high performance fitness program and head of player performance

Buckley is comfortable and capable in the media and handing the spotlight that a coach in today’s game.

Let’s get it done 👏👏

9 minutes ago, Greg Schneider said:

19 out of the last 20 flags have been won by first time coaches

Gosh, that's a number to make a club have a serious think. But before taking it too seriously I'd want to see a breakdown of the position of each club (talent, aging players etc) and the time it took the first timers to get a flag. Do their circumstances resemble ours?