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I found it telling that while Lumumba toed the line at Collingwood with their "side by side" mantra (which they seem to practice when it suits only those in charge), he was considered a thoughtful, level headed role model, consistently being voted by his peers to be in the leadership group. As soon as he grew tired of the constant racism and homophobia displayed at the club by team mates and staff and called it out (by this time he was older and no longer the young rookie worried about losing his place), he was portrayed as a dramatic trouble maker with an axe to grind. The media believed the gripes of the disgruntled Collingwood voices, including ex players such as Tony Shaw, and took up the narrative of the disturbed young black man with mental issues and ran with it like gleeful vultures who scented a new corpse to prey upon. Shameful. A naive starry eyed fan request to meet Barack Obama if the President was to attend an AFL match when he visited Australia turned into a public humiliation for the young 24 year old when the story was leaked by the unsympathetic media. How dare he? Who did he think he was? Another chance to pile derision on the young man. I am glad Lumumba has found his place in the world, and whatever happiness and peace is in it. He also has an acute awareness of where he and his family comes from, and his heritage. People on shows such as "Who Do You Think You Are?" search for their ancestors, consumed with curiosity about their relatives' experiences. Lumumba already knows what trials his ancestors endured and survived. I think he is a survivor as well, and tries hard to make his ancestors proud of him. I wish him and his family well.

Darren Burgess is such a huge asset to the club - I get Hogan/Scully level stress about him leaving. Welcome to the MFC Selwyn!

Absolute and utter disgrace to the game Collingwood, Mcguire and co. The bigot culture will always exist in the game of AFL when people like Mcguire and Buckley are still lurking in its corridors. This is usually the case inside institutions of power and authoritative figures within them. No filter and no accountability to authorities within the game, zero people to answer to. If these comments about Goodes and Lumumba were made in the NBA, NFL or English Football in today's climate, Maguire and Bucks would have been finished back in 2013.

We lost our elite strength and conditioning coach at the end of 2018, Rob Jackson I think it was... who went on to train the AFL umpires. By all reports he was highly respected within the industry and Alex Sakadijan was his apprentice but obviously lacked experience. It's good to see the MFC board has noticed this deficiency and addressed our needs accordingly.

As important as he is, give me a good psychologist any day. it’s all mental with this group.

This thread is a depressing read

I think Burgo is Performance manager, not strength and conditioning. For memory, this role was filled by someone who left earlier in the year (Alex Sakadjian?)

Just read this from the ABC site...well written, extremely challenging & eye opening. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-05/heritier-lumumba-strength-in-african-culture-collingwood-afl/12820942

As opposed to mindlessness which has been our default position in the past.

Magnificent Lord Flower ?

Well done MFC i gather Darren and Selwyn will be working in tandem

Doesn’t look like it.

Not exactly. Watch players like Libba and Hunter, they immediately look to give it off, but wide, sideways or backwards, to the free man. The free man becomes the runner and looks quick, because he has a few metres on his opponent, who has left him for the contest, instead of manning up. When we get the ball inside, we either try to break tackles (Viney) or handball it like a hot potato, to players manned up, a metre away (Oliver). That is the difference, that makes our mids less effective than they should be and makes us look slower than we are.

Even if not highly rated, he's playing WAFL Colts and has enrolled in the draft. Given who his dad is and that he's f/s eligible at 2 clubs I find it very strange the media haven't mentioned him at all. Any article would get a plenty of clicks

The Great man kicked left foot goals from as far out as he did with his right. Lucky to find a handful of players that can mange to do that. One that comes to mind is Melksham. However there is no comparing. For some reason he mostly bounced the ball with his left hand although he was a right hander. Robbie Flower's highlights are always great to watch you can never be bored watching the Champ.

Great post. Was the only reason to go to the footy. Legend

Just the best player we ever had. Incredible footballer par excellence.

me either since he really took over coaching in 2016, the amount of times where we've flung players around to try and wrest back momentum has been almost discombobulating it's not always been through his own choosing either - he had to manage significant injuries to key personnel such as gawn (2017), hogan (2016 and 2018), lever (2018), viney (2018), too many to mention (2019) etc etc to various degrees of success if anything, the thing that actually defines really successful sides is, more often than not, a settled line-up and a strong core and game plan where the execution of such is expected and result follow on accordingly

Except endurance. A knock on Rivers before the draft was his tank, it’s probably why he fell a bit in the draft and didn’t play as many games as he could’ve this year. I’d put Rivers in the same boat as Salem, far more valuable at half back or on ball than the wing. Especially if we’re planning to go direct to goal with big talls. Hard runners is the need for the wing, the class players do more damage at half back or on ball.

I'm a migrant as well; we arrived in 1956 when I was six. I copped it for being German, and anyone from Greece and Italy and Malta copped it for being 'wogs'. The names you mentioned were brought up in a similar climate, though the new scapegoats now came from Asia. Asians are still classified as Them, especially the Chinese these days, as are Muslims. My point is that if you complained in those days you got belted and ostracized even more. We are now supposed to live in more 'enlightened' times, yet the woodwork is full of Cranky Frankys, Half Forward Flankers and the like, some who claim Harry had it 'easy', that he's a Wuss for pointing out how thin the veneer of tolerance and fairness really is. Wow, is all I can say, WOW!

@Half forward flank never said that he should go back to where he came from. In the interests of fairness I think you should both clarify your comments because it appears to me that you have deliberately misrepresented what he said to paint a certain picture which is dishonest and downright bad faith commenting. But I could be wrong so feel free to set the record straight.

Watching some of the Melbourne sides in the late 70s and early 80s the only thing to look forward to was Robbie. Like a diamond in brokenglass.

AFL: "C'mon guys, get this deal over with. It's been days and days." Eddie: "YOU'RE THE ONES WHO TOLD US WE WERE OVER AND TO CUT PLAYERS PRONTO OR ELSE. THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!" AFL: *sigh* "Oh all right ... another week and that's it." Eddie: "YOU'VE CREATED THIS DISASTER. AND NOW YOU'RE MAKING THE GREAT COLLINGWOOD FOOTBALL CLUB LOOK STUPID. WHICH MEANS YOU'RE MAKING ME LOOK STUPID. HOW DARE YOU. OH, THAT'S IT ... I'M GETTING ON MMM TO TEAR STRIPS OFF YOU. AND EVERY QUESTION ON MILLIONAIRE WILL BE ABOUT YOU GIL." AFL: *deep sigh* "Have it your way. come back to us when it's signed off." The saying should be "You can't eat your cake and still have it." Future language historians will condemn us for our shameful lack of clarity on this.

Robbie was simply the best and fairest of his era. No Charlie makes a mockery of the system.

I read where the Tigers have emphasised the importance of using mindfulness techniques to reduce anxiety, improve focus on the present etc. They also promoted the importance of enjoying the experience with their light hearted joking in the pre-start huddles when opposition teams are doing the opposite, revving themselves up as if they are going into battle. Whatever the Tigers are doing psychologically, it is working a treat.

Burgess improved our fitness out of sight this year. We were running over the top of teams in the 4th quarter which is a huge tick and validation of his methods and impact. You're right though, the lapses in concentration and in-game drop-offs have killed us and its been a recurring theme. I don’t know if its structural, game plan, game-day coaching or what but with characters like Maxy, Viney, Clarry, May it shouldn’t be on-field leadership. Those blokes are mentally tough and should have the wherewithal to rally the troops and reverse momentum. In individual sports like golf I know psychology coaching is well established. You would think goal kicking would be an obvious area to apply in an AFL context. I haven’t heard of an example in the AFL where psychology has been mentioned as being successful or helped improve the overall team performance. Do you know of any?

Brilliant player. Ripping bloke. So sad that he left us way too early.

I would have been about 5 when he retired so didn't see him play in the flesh but gee, his balance turn of speed and IQ was phenomenal. Also, I'm so used to checksides/bananas/snaps, that seeing a bloke try and drop punt from the boundary almost seems like lairising. What a gem!

Gee, the commentators were so understated in those days. If he was playing today they would be frothing at the mouth and looking in the dictionary for new words to praise his skill. There will never be another Bobby. ❤️?

Here’s a very abridged clip of my band doing a song by the Melbourne singer songwriter Paul Madigan. I used to enjoy traveling to the Tiger Lounge in Richmond every Saturday afternoon to watch him and his band The Humans (Ross Hannaford, Wayne Duncan and Freddie Strauks), in the latter part of the 70’s. I’m hoping this link works as I’m not sure about the privacy level my friend has on his Instagram account. Please let me know if you have trouble viewing it... https://www.instagram.com/p/CIZ38lpglWS/?igshid=14rjh926u51b5

That you have have missed the point of the lengthy article and your first response was with a line about his “Angolan father” abandoning the family and how “obsessed with himself” that made Hertier as a footballer and person. Hertier (and f k you @Cranky Franky) for deliberately calling him Harry in your see through reply) has clearly struggled within the confines of Aust let alone the AFL spotlight You then try to justify it with a “if you don’t know how your father leaving feels” line while them being hypersensitive to a question about your first post. The fact you don’t see it is staggering.

Heritier Lumumba stood up to the bullies who think they did no wrong. Consistently called a chimp? Not if he was white. What makes one better than another because of the colour of their skin ? Are we still in the dark days? Eddie and his chumps have much to answer for.

hit the scoreboard in every game he played and in the one he didn't kick a goal he laid more tackles than in any other game he played, which is a good sign that he was at least still 'involved' man i hope if he has nominated for the draft he comes to us would like to think his dad is in his ear to move to the big smoke

No SONS. That mullet is awesome. I don’t ever want him to cut it.

didn't you know, rpfc, that there are more expert sociologists on demonland than any other fora

So many in this thread really betraying their ignorance. Speaking of an experience with such certainty that isn’t yours to do so. An uncomfortable read indeed.

He and BBB will be the cultist of cult hairstyle fwds in the league.

Yes, yes, more white fella chest beating

Surely you know it is a put-down for a well-off person who is a socialist. Whereas if a poorer person is a socialist he is just full of envy. They've got you either way.

Oliver actually struggled with the demands of AFL professionalism in his first 12 months. His diet and off field work was quite poor. That until Brendan McCartney and Billy Stretch took him aside to help him adjust.

I read this totally differently to you. I was embarrassed about some of the opinions I had of him based on some pretty biased reporting. It reminded me of how all encompassing & powerful the AFL brand/bubble is. All the rhetoric coming from the AFL & Collingwood is just that. They/we have a long, long way to go. ...and yet you remark about him being self obsessed. Is it any wonder... I would say he's very introspective & has been trying to find his place in the world. Unfortunately he's been let down along the way, firstly by his father & then by other authority figures who should know better...Bucks, Eddie & Gill to name a few.

Tom Scully has been unfairly maligned by the Dees faithful for long enough. I think it’s time to forgive and forget!

"Dwayne Russell is a moron" - Nascent, 2020

The kid has just turned 19 FCS. Coincidentally, 19 is Dwayne's IQ.

That wasn't what the bloody article was about???

To me, I agree absolutely with Lockhardt and Chandler ( also agree Re Jordon/Bedford whom you mentioned). I do think Mitch Brown is reasonable key position depth/insurance based on his quite serviceable performances throughout the year. I guess he is a fairly short term backup too given his age. Probably on pretty modest coin too, so ticks that box for us as well.

Pleased to see Jordon and Bedford get extended. I think both of these should/will be in our best 22 in the not too distant future. Lockhart very well deserved. Chandler I'm not confident about. M. Brown, I don't get it, but ok.