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Imagine though, if the concerns were all genuine, and despite the FD/Coaches being disappointed, they accepted the concerns and moved on. Perhaps we should too...?

For me the issue isn't about the camp per se, it's about the lack of effective early communication. To be successful the whole organisation needs to be pulling in the same direction and the fact that the camp was cancelled so late indicates this was not the case. I know for a fact that it was planned since before the GF. The whole club needs to accept some responsibility for this. What I want to see is unity of purpose, I don't want to see a divide between FD and players, I want to see shared authority and responsibility. IMO the worst outcome in this would have been forcing the players to go on the camp - the club listening to player concerns is a better outcome, even if it happened late - better late than never. There's a glass half empty view but the glass half full view view is that this unites the club with everyone pulling in the same direction and everyone taking full responsibility for results. The players have put their hand up - let's see what happens next.

My kids are a bit younger and got the "Little Devils" pack and they were stoked. They got a backpack, stickers, colouring book, fake tattoos and the creased Viney poster. They were wearing their backpacks and lanyards with stickers all up and down their arms last night

That is because we are the only club to have players drunk in public, drink driving, smashing cars, taking drugs, fighting, attacking taxi drivers, publicly urinating, sexting, coupling with underage females, being photographed naked, skylarking and getting injured, attacking women in restaurants with chopsticks, etc, etc, etc.

The issue for me isn't wether the camp went ahead or not it's how the players went about it. I find amusing the number of posts suggesting the players went to the ALPA to seek guidance and how to go about it the right way. This is hardly a complex legal issue that requires specialist advise. The right way would of been for Jones and or Viney to speak to the coaching group first, then based on those discussions determine wether there was a need to take it further. How do these players manage all other relationships in their lives wether they be professional or personal. No I don't think it means the 2018 season is a right off but it does raise a few questions.... Would be interested to know what Jordan Lewis's involvement was if any. What were the reasons we supposedly got rid of Watts for again. Were the players minds already made up and is that why they didn't approach the coach first. Really poor form from people who should know better.

The club has come a long way in recent years, yet the lack of internal protocols that should have kept this fiasco in house, demonstrates how far we still have to go. It is unfortunate we remain distracted from our 2018 objectives and it is not even Christmas.

Like I said earlier if the camp were held correctly last year by the club then perhaps it wouldn’t have been an issue this yr. it will be nice when Melbourne actually start to work like a professional club and stop these embarrassing moments which have been all too often in the last 10 yrs.

The players did go back to the coach and two days later the coach said the camp was still on with some modifications from last year, such as a doctor being there who might be able to deal with Tysons dislocated knee cap. Some players weren't happy and spoke to the Aflpa. Their main issues were, one deconditioning, some players lost 5kgs over that 3 days, abuse and risk of injury. The majority of players saw no advantage in the camp at all which was proven late in the season. Maybe the players were right to protect themselves against a FD that might be wrong. Maybe we should congratulate them for standing up??

Training has been going on as per usual, tomorrow the last day before the Christmas break. We thought they would get hammered this week because of this whole situation but it's been pretty much normal, even throwing in some fun activities/games to keep everyone feeling good about everything, morale is still really high and Goodwin has come out and said he is extremely happy with how everyone has approached training this preseason. Tomorrow looks like it's gonna be a long, hard day however, but that's probably the same as every last day before the break.

Life is simple in the rainforest .... the coach says crawl and I crawl ... the coach says smoke this and I drag big time ... the coach says kill that sucker and I don’t even ask with what... you want to win a flag you have to believe the coach ... see bulldogs ... see tigers... seems to me this is now a big test for Goody our saviour...

Not going to indulge in tearing my remaining hair when as usual the details as unknown to us (eg. 14 players - where did that number come from, is it relaible?), so I'll comment on boot camps themselves. As I understand it there are 2 things they are meant to achieve - team bonding and stressing players so they will be familiar with it and so perform better when under stress and mental pressure in a game. Team bonding can be done by other means which are less likely to exhaust players and interrupt their football training and getting their bodies right, so I'd focus on the latter and ask: Is there any evidence that it works for football players? (I mean evidence beyond stating "x went on a boot camp and won the flag" since there are many other variables.) For example, soldiers do have to carry on when sleep deprived, footy players don't. Apparently last year's boot camp did not help in Round 23. Was the team under mental and physical stress then (or in other matches we should have won) or was there something else at play? I suspect the latter and whatever it was, whether mental or footy specific, it needs addressing by things other than boot camps.

This thread is full of double standards. I seem to recall there was a lot of criticism of another club's players a few years ago for not speaking to the AFLPA or their managers when there were concerns about a particular course of action taken by that club. Would we be concerned if our players willingly complied with an apparently dodgy supplements program by implicitly trusting everything told to them by a football department and a suspect "sports scientist"? Or would we say those players thought they were "bigger than the club"?

100% agree with you. I said to my son i will adopt you out of the family if you even try changing teams.

I believe a lot of fans were unnerved at Goodwin’s and most of the clubs hierarchy’s silence at end of season. The emptiness is still there.

....so the boot camp didn't work last year!

He was training last Friday. I didn't notice he was hampered in any way but I also didn't know he was supposed to be carrying anything so maybe I didn't look closely enough. For the casual observer, he was fine.

Nineteen pages on this? Seriously? A journalist wrote an article about something that a guy who is paid to generate discussion on the radio said. Neither of them has spoken to anyone at the club. Neither of them have any idea of what actually happened or who it was in the playing group who raised the issue. It's basically a journalist trying to quote a professional gossip as a source. He'd be better writing for Women's Weekly. This is an absolute non-issue.

i suspect no-one on this forum has any real objective evidence that the players are in any better nick at this time than at the same time last year. just typical subjective pre-season optimism of course though wiseblood, i do hope that you are correct

I look back at some of the things Bomber Thompson tried and then said when the Cats became a dominant team. I think it went along the lines " I stepped back once the Leadership Group started leading, they drove the standards they set the agenda". This is not the non leaders group from years ago. I have no problem with them stepping up and saying "No" to something they don't agree with. The proof will be in how much they "drive" the season. If Goodwin has a Messiah complex he will fail, if the "players" drive the season it will be a great thing IMHO. I cannot fathom how the current player group has not got the drive to go all the way and on that basis if they have said no to something, I think they need to be supported.

We got the same creased Viney poster. My daughter wanted to hang it up in the lounge room, her mum prevailed and it's now on the laundry door (facing inwards though!).

I have no intention of attacking you, but I do suggest watching a few games. It's a pretty good standard and improving.

Nice. My 4.5yo got the same pack, she insisted on bringing her backpack on a 4WDing trip I took her on into the wombat state forest, complete with club calendar, tatoos, stickers etc. when we got out to hike down to a stream, she brought the pack along for the journey. wih respect to my membership, I missed out on the scarf I asked for, but my Dad got two he didn’t ask for!

" Good afternoon Uncle Bitter ... I'll get you a shiraz. Oh ... please have your manservant wait outside"

Oh cute, first congrats on the new family member, second welcome to the Demon family little Oliver #13

183 if we lose Round 1.

I wear thongs when I go on camp. Just one if I go swimming.

This is Demonland... this thread has at least another 83 pages worth of repetition left in it.

At the Demonland cafe.....

Gotta be honest here... who actually uses twitter? People with way too much time on their hands, those in IT, those in media, and those who are interested in self-promotion. That's pretty much it.

Sort of related to the above discussion, while the club has truly become much more professional in the last few years with so much to admire, I think it is still a long way behind in its use of digital communications. (And this from a guy who doesn't use Facebook.) Its use of Twitter is spasmodic, its website is not kept properly up to date and the app has no real value. Digital marketing is an extremely valuable tool and it's an area the club needs to improve significantly.

I cringe when thinking of Hunt missing a game or any game in fact . Love the way he plays and breaks the lines. Potential All Australian very soon. Go Boy!

Here's the final field for the CB Cox Stakes to be run on Saturday at Ascot ... it's a G2 WFA event over 2100m and the race is often used as a lead-in to the Perth Cup (G2 2400m - Jan 1) Here's a bit of a write-up ... 2018 Perth Cup Horses Head Ted Van Heemst Stakes Field (Formerly the CB Cox Stakes) It's only a small field but I don't mind races with just the 8 starters # Horse Barrier Weight (kg) Rating Jockey Trainer 1 POUNAMU 4 59 107 PATRICK CARBERY ALAN MATHEWS 2 MATERIAL MAN 5 59 102 LUCY WARWICK JUSTIN WARWICK 3 ZARANTZ 8 59 98 CHRIS PARNHAM ADAM DURRANT 4 DARK MUSKET 2 59 74 CLINT JOHNSTON-PORTER GRAEME BALLANTYNE 5 SUNSET SUPERMAN 1 59 62 DANIEL STAECK BRETT POPE 6 TRAP FOR FOOLS 6 58 94 ALAN KENNEDY LINDSEY SMITH 7 COSMIC STORM 3 57 93 JARRAD NOSKE GRANT & ALANA WILLIAMS 8 SHINTA MANI 7 57 85 JASON WHITING SHARON MILLER

Meh. It's no different to what we've spent the last few days arguing on here about, and it won't be any different in the years to come. Such is life on a football forum.

You're right - the Vikes would have to lose their last 2 and that's unlikely ... they've got the Bears at home in week 17 preceded by a visit to Lambeau next week.

Fantastic to hear, Drunkn. I think many of the players will head into the Xmas break in the best nick they've been in for a long time!

Uncle, all the Waitresses are wearing thongs,! What sort of an establishment have you taken me to??

Yes.

We did improve last season but that last round would have taken a lot of gloss of the season. This maybe a contributing factor to the membership numbers. I know it taking me a long time to get over it and I’m still in the process of it.

If we win the next two I just might keep the avatar... Who do the vikes have? Woukd love the rams to get 2nd seed but iirc we cant unless they lose both?

If you really think about it the gruelling 4 games in 18 days mixed in with this boot camp at the start of pre season tipped us over the edge. We didnt give a yep after R15. Let all these clowns talk about it in the media i reckon the boys made the right call. Very sceptical of Misson with these camps and what not behind the players on this one.

of course it wouldn't work. blind freddy could tell you there are no crocodiles in LA.

Seriously? Honestly SWYL, I've never seen someone make such a mountain out of a mole hill. His strategy has been rebuked? It was a 2 day boot camp. Have they rebelled against the 99% of the other training they do? Have they cracked it over the gameplan? Did they kick up a fuss about what they needed to do before they returned to training, or what they will do over the Xmas break? No, they didn't. They just felt the boot camp wasn't worthwhile, so it was cancelled. I'll say it again, you LOVE this stuff. I bet you sit there and rub your hands together at how hard you can go with it. It's like Xmas has come early for you.

Bored Bored Bored Need to get through stupid cricket and crap tennis before anything gets serious I think I'll focus on me Xmas pud

Some would say Macca is his mentor. But Macca's people management skills aren't too flash either and he is part of the day to day coaching panel so not always able to be fully objective. I've said elsewhere, I think Goodwin needs a Neil Balme, Chris Fagan (@hawthorn) type who oversees the footy department and challenges him on major team/player related decisions. Right now I feel the checks and balances on our coaches aren't as strong as they could be. We have Mahoney, but his role seems more admin/liason than what Balme did for Thompson/Scott/Hardwick and Clarkson and Fagan did for Clarkson. No coincidence for me that those two guys have presided over about 8-10 of the premierships 12 years.

it ain't 1964, 64. that just doesn't cut it anymore.

AHG pulled out of all its sponsorship, not just at Melbourne

Stakeholders who have larger opportunities you might be able to tap into. Coterie is key as well, the big business guys in those, Presidents functions you get to chat to people etc etc. All plays into it.

Working for a small corporate who does sponsor an AFL team and having worked at a medium corp who sponsored the Hawks there are so many layers to these kinds of things. Is it a brand only play? If so how much is the spend/over how many years? How long is the season so the brand is in play for as long as possible? Can you use those $$ in other ways to drive more brand or sign ups? Can you get more eyeballs through a billboard on Citylink or more from digital spend than this sponsorship? How big is the member base/how much access to them do you get to pitch your product (whats the reach)? Is the club on the up and potential for new members in yrs 2 and 3 etc. Does the product you have align/can it be sold to the members/fans? What kind of acquisitions do you think you can get out of the members and other fans who may see your product? The old company did well out of Hawks, they signed up just before hawks won the first of the 4 flags. Lower cost, lower CPA for first couple of years, decent take up by members with an ok CPA. How well do you work with the club? We have an awesome relationship with our club who work hard to provide value to the partner. In our case what kinds of values does the club have and do they align with or exceed our values? We are constantly pitched to by NRL clubs... no fkn wwwaaayyyy mate! What kind of access can you get to other sponsors/partners/anyone else associated with the club or code? etc etc It is pretty subjective especially if it is a brand play only (but clubs provide "value metrics" you need to pick apart), acquisitions and CPAs are easy to measure.

I'll recover given time........ I'm OK now.