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I agree this year has been a mess. How do you establish and maintain mindset?

I should clarify. Amongst however many teams you think are truly contenders that year, it seems whoever amongst them has the best injury run, including the timing of injuries and their ability to get a run on and find form at the right time seem to do a lot better than those struggling to find consistency amongst personnel. Whether that means they don’t get to the pointy pointy end or they get there and fall over can be for the same reason. A lot of things have to go right for a plan to come off in the afl. Im not dismissing the need to review culture and everything that entails. This is built into a good culture. I agree that this season is presenting some serious concerns. I think we’re done for the year and based on how things have gone we never really had a chance due to our preparation for the year. Some of this I think the club needs to own and some of it is a confluence of events coming together to give us no hope. As I’ve said losing Brayshaw I think really [censored] us. We wouldn’t have traded out other mids and we also lost an A grader in three positions. One of our biggest issues is how shallow we’ve become with our list. A couple of decent big bodied experienced midfielders would keep us in the season right about now. Oops. I agree our approach to injury management may be flawed through clear evidence over the last three seasons. Whether we could have helped it or not we haven’t got it right. I expect every season we go through everything in the most detailed way possible as every team would. I would think the biggest concerns in the off season are our coaching staff and fitness staff structures and personnel. We need more depth in the midfield and ideally not stop gap options. We need to replace Brayshaw and one of Jordan and harmes. We need to decide what brand we play and how best we can play it and whether we have the personnel to pull it off.

Don’t be so balanced and fair. It doesn’t fit in around here.

He’s got more flags than either of their coaches. also, going to big footy to get a feel for things is generally wise. I think most club executives and performance teams do the same.

This year seems to be either the start of a new era for the game in relation to fitness and as a result soft tissue injury or just an anomalous year. Also the weird byes and inconsistencies have meant it’s hard to gauge who’s where. I still don’t trust that Essendon will play finals. As coaches and supporters and others have mentioned, there are strange results and unfair match ups in terms of preparation and breaks leading into games. I think we are also seeing teams who have had a long run go through physical and mental struggles, which is inevitable. Gravity always wins. Us, Brisbane, Collingwood, Geelong. I’m sure gws have one of the best list and game styles but they like us are struggling too. Sydney have had a good list for a while but have been very up and down year to year. We beat them comfortable twice last year. Not a heap has changed on their list. This could be a year where it’s last man standing in terms of fitness at the end of the year, more so than other years. Someone outside the top four seems more possible than usual for the flag.

I told you what I thought good culture was. As you asked. Is losing gus Brayshaw culture or luck? We wouldn’t have got rid of Jordan or harmes if the timing was different, so there’s luck there. Is losing Jackson to homesickness and immaturity luck or culture? Is petraccas injury luck or culture? Is the Grundy experiment to be applauded for trying or is it to be admonished for not working? Is falling apart in the 22 finals due to injury luck or culture? Is having no forward line in 23 finals after finally finding one luck or culture? what I’m saying is you can’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Like some have discussed regarding our game plan. Maybe we were ok and just needed a few things to go right for us. Maybe we didn’t need to overhaul it and as a result look a bit lost out there. We went from losing by about a goal on average all year to now getting blown out of the water due to trying to play differently and having bad luck (yes I said it) with our midfield this year. Sometimes in chasing results and going on witch hunts you can make things much worse. Only in hindsight can you tell. my main argument is when assessing culture you need to take into account the entirety of your season and seasons to properly understand where you are and how successfully you’ve implemented plans. we carry on about our list sometimes on here and bemoan our depth and whatnot but what could we do about it. We aren’t in a position in the cycle where we can draft top talent because we keep finishing top four. The way I see it with the amount of youth we are blooding is that we are trying a Geelong rebuild on the go style list turnover. That feels like what you are talking about. Except we don’t seem to be able to offer farms to players like they can. Sometimes life is unfair. I could argue you’ve got your head in the sand around the difficulties we’ve faced thus far with the Simon goodwin era. The team who wins the flag is often the one with the least injuries. That’s hasn’t been us. I see it as two phases. Up to 2018 and then post 2018. I see a group who have learnt on the go and developed a formidable game style. For three years we have been the best defensive team in the land by quite some way. That requires planning, buy in, consistent hard work, the right players. Our plan was so good that it’s still the plan that teams play in finals. Is that not good culture. I see us as getting there. Which is all any team is doing. Considering the [censored] I’ve been dealt in my life with this club I am pretty happy with what’s happened since 2018 and I see it as a result of the clubs improved culture amongst high performance and the well being of everyone at the club. when your clubs is struggling the media like to prey on the darkest fears of the supporters. Don’t listen to them. They’ll only ruin you.

It quite possibly is bad luck. Sometimes winning and losing a football game or a season is bad luck. Just ask st kilda. Some of the metrics you use for culture can be attributed to luck. Sports fans don’t seem to like the idea of luck but it’s everywhere all the time. The only Thing that seems to overcome luck in team sport globally is being bankrolled by the saudis. Billy bean spoke about how having a good system should balance out over a season but the finals aren’t big enough sample size to allow for the ups and downs of a season to balance out and you just have to hope for the best at that point. Based on that idea we’ve done very well for a while now. A good culture would look at everything and judge it all fairly, while constantly looking to improve standards year on year. I think that’s all you can do. Always look to bring better people in, keep updating and working on better ways to play the game and run the club. But again, there’s plenty of luck involved in that cause we can’t just buy who we want when we want and we can’t control how good a year the opposition is having on field etc. I don’t know what is looked at internally and how it is measured. Which is why I hesitate to discuss the idea of our culture being good or bad. None of us really know. it could be argued our attempt at changing our game plan this year is a sign of good culture. Keeping up with the game etc. It may mean short term pain for longer term relevance. We don’t know yet.

Just stop watching. It’s the only way the afl will change. Now that we aren’t going anywhere this year doing so has been made much easier.

I blame bad luck and perhaps our fitness management for the last two years. Not culture. This year I am more open to other issues being involved. But last year we were one forward on the park away from playing a prelim and then all of a sudden, tada! Success. Tick that year off, culture is great. Which is part of the problem with having such a shallow metric of success for a club in any given year. I think it’s easy to underestimate just how fine the margins are at the top level and how much luck is involved in converting your opportunities while you are in the window. St kilda never could, port often hover around the top 4 and don’t get much done. You must be doing a lot right just to make top 4 year after year in this brutal game. Just because some teams make it work doesn’t mean everyone can and will. Good to see you agree we have a very good culture. This was really my point. I’ve viewed us as implementing this very good culture since Paul Roos was around. But culture is built slowly from the ground up and we are clearly still building and establishing something very new for the club after years of having next to no culture. This year is a pain in the [censored] no doubt, but wait and see what we do in the off season and then I may or may not find more to agree with you about.

Yeah I know. I’ve chosen to ignore it all and watch games on mute. I can already feel my life expectancy going up. Plenty of good conversation on here that keeps me going.

None of what you have mentioned necessarily screams culture. We play in a socialist league. You can’t always succeed. There’s very few clubs globally that do and they are bankrolled in leagues that don’t have the same salary caps as we do. im not satisfied with how we are playing at the moment but afl is a hard and strange game. I thought gws were a shoo in earlier this year and they’re doing as well as we are. Yet they played a prelim last year. Things happen. The bulldogs are the second best team in it statistically at the moment. They supposedly have a poor culture according to some. I just don’t correlate performance over one year with culture, whatever that word means to you.

So despite them being terrible for a long time now they have better culture than us? Despite the allegations around their culture under Clarkson their culture is still better than ours? It’s easy to get caught up in short term trends and most football supporters and the media do.

The media are generally full of [censored]. I’m not offering any excuses. I’m just arguing the point about what defines culture and that ours is quite possibly fine despite things currently not going our way. Just cause Clarry has had a tough time doesn’t mean our culture is shot. Him getting back to his best best year would be a sign that it’s actually quite a good culture.

Listening to the media is not in anyone’s interest. They are reactive, short sighted and over the top. They also aren’t that bright and misuse words and phrases regularly.

It is a tough industry and comparing yourself to Geelong might be a waste of time. Not every basketballer is Michael Jordan. Not every footballer is Gary Ablett. Doesn’t mean they aren’t professional and working to high standards. But you are starting to differentiate between culture and high performance. You can have great culture while working on your high performance and your recruiting. Recruiting is largely luck too. Who’s available and when might not always suit your needs and stamping your feet saying we didn’t get what we need doesn’t help or change the fact that it’s a lot of luck.

That seems simplistic to me. You can maintain high standards across all areas and it may not lead to on field success. What if you just don’t have the players you need? Your list and the injuries you get along the way are in large part due to luck. It almost feels like you are setting yourself disappointed with unrealistic standards. So 2019 was a no good waste of time but the year we had to have to learn how to defend? It’s hard to assess from the outside. We don’t know how this season is being viewed internally. In elite sport it takes two tenths of not much to fall away badly. Doesn’t mean the sky is falling or that the future may not be bright.

Is culture more powerful than luck with injuries? Does a season outside the 8 mean culture is shot? The way the system is created means it’s very hard to defy gravity for too long. Do down years and rebuilds always point to poor culture? Hawthorn were very successful but it turns out may have not had the best culture. I think people are defining different things as culture. Our culture looked shot in 2019 but it was for the greater good in the end and our culture came through and won us a flag.

Our culture is being challenged perhaps. It’s streets ahead of where it was a decade ago though. Geelong supposedly have great culture. They have had a lot of seasons without a flag. It may be too soon to judge. Our culture to me is still in a good place. It’s how we react to issues that will define it. We have stayed top four after 21. Whether or not we win the flag from there is in large part luck.

Our culture was trash for a very long time. I think we are doing a lot better these days. It doesn’t mean problems don’t arise at club and individual level.

I don’t believe it is. Culture is seperate to wins and losses. Culture isn’t necessarily effected by wins and losses but it may make it easier to win when the stars align. Culture allows individuals to fulfill their potential but it doesn’t guarantee success. Success in sports is highly unlikely. Very hard to do. The media also use the word without reference to what they mean. It can very quickly become a nothing word. They also swap it out with performance because it sounds more dramatic. we’ve been given a very high standard on and off since 2018. The expectation of dynasty as a standard is over the top. The luck you need to have one goes far beyond culture.

Following a club is complicated. Watching some people want to blow the club up after the run we’ve had makes me wonder if they like pouring [censored] on the club more than enjoying their success.

Performance is measured by wins and losses. Culture is something entirely unrelated to wind and losses. You really don’t like your own club.

Given we now have no midfield with Viney and Oliver’s form and petraccas injury. Given we have no on field spirit or desire. Given we look like our system is broken. Do we now try and maximise our draft hand for the offseason.

I think they call this jumping the gun

It’s not reasonable to judge this period compared to prior to our gf win. We were [censored] for years so could draft well. Now we can’t because we don’t have access to the top ten. It’s the reality of being a good side. Trading is also hard to judge. It’s only about who’s available. Soon enough we will have three top ten draft picks again and around and around we shall go. I have much preferred this period than any other in my life.