Goodvibes

RR, I reckon GWS or the Gold Coast would be prepared to give up a half decent draft pick for Moloney or Jones. We definitely don't need both of them with McKenzie, Gysberts, Trengove, Scully and Sylvia all having pretty good inside games and Viney on the way. Moloney in particular would be appealing to a young team not wanting to get smashed at the clearances.

Bailey has been ruthless as a list manager prepared to cull senior players and secure priority picks. If we don't believe that the same man who coached us to the priotiy pick of 2009 with such ruthless intent can take the group to a premiership then why are we not lauding Bailey for his selfless, club first mentality?

Don't be glib then. Instead tell me if you think the 22 that are taking the field each week have the hunger to win. It looks to me that they like the idea of winning but are they willing to run through brick walls for their coach? Would you if you'd bust a gut only to lose after the siren because your coach clearly made moves designed to lose? Can the same coach that helped orchestrate the deliberate losing of games then take the same group to success? I have massive amounts of respect for the way in which Bailey cast aside his win/loss percentage and his crediblility in the eyes of many to ensure we maximized our drafting position. He may have given us a premiership team but sacrificed himself in the process.

No. I'm just putting it out there. We're going to lose our coach. Can you coach in such a fashion that stops your team from winning when all they want tot do is win and not expect there to be an impact on the psyche of the playing group?

So apart from Green and Davey, everything is peachy?

I posted what follows on the 30th of September 2009. I'm not sure I still hold these concerns and I'm not sure if any of our 'poor culture' talk of the past month can be linked to the last eight rounds of the 2009 season but I'm interested in the thoughts of my fellow Demonlander. I'm not even sure if I buy this talk of 'winning culture' and 'losing culture' and I'm not sure there is any evidence of the mental scars our playing group may or may not possess but it seems more and more likely that our coach is going to lose his head. Our team has many reasons for it's poor form over the past couple of weeks but the first month of the season saw only a couple of our best players missing and it was clear that the 21 plus 1 we put on the park each week lacked the necessary mongrel and desire for the contest. Has the coach lost the players or did he lose them sixteen months ago? I supported our push to secure picks 1 and 2 but have grown increasingly uncomfortable with what transpired over the last 8 weeks of the season. I'm equally adept at justifying McLean's exit and I had already reconciled a possible Davey departure but I'm genuinely concerned about the ramifications of the way the club conducted itself during the second half of 2009. I've told myself that a couple of early victories in 2010 will have the players looking forward and certainly not dwellng on the events of the previous season but I'm not convinced. I've got a lot of repect for Dean Bailey but I'm not sure the playing list can ride the tanking rollercoaster without having some reservations or questions about their boss. Some will suggest that the smart players will see that losing has been in their best interests. I worry about the not so smart players. We took tanking to embarrassing new depths. Comparisons with Carlton are way off the money. I'm not suggesting we're in trouble and I'm not suggesting a player revolt is on the cards, I'm purely suggesting that it's way too early to assume that the club has successfully negotiated any tanking-related fallout that could come its way. I'm no different to any Dees supporter who salivates over the prospect of Scully, Trengove as well as pick 11 and 18 and whatever comes out of PSD 1 but I do know that the flippant, throwaway forum demands for the club to lose games of AFL football are much easier to deal with in the virtual world. In the real world, however, we're talking about a club who's greatest assets are their players and those players happen to be human. And unfortunately humans usually possess human emotions. How many of us have put ourselves in the boots of a 2009 MFC footballer? How would you feel running out on the ground, giving your absolute best, running yourself into the ground and have your coach make clear decisions that are making it more difficult than it should be to win. You've lost all year and finally it looks like victory is within sight and you see the very backbone of your defence thrown forward, your key forward chucked into the ruck and your best onballers taken away from the centre square. Your Liam Jurrah, you've never even heard of the word 'tanking' and you're wondering why your coach is resting you on the pine when you've just kicked 4 incredible goals. It's too easy to simply say that every single player would realise that these losses are a necessary evil. We can't wait for Trengove and Scully to get to our club because we know they're born winners. They're apparently very smart lads. How would they view the events of 2009? What does Jack Watts make of his new club? Does he still respect his first senior coach? I'll probably be seen as naive or precious after this post but the future of this club is in the hands of a collection of very talented young players. Talented young players who are easily influenced - influenced by their parents, friends, mates at other clubs and maybe guys like Robbo and McLean who they looked up to. I wonder what these influences think about the MFC after the events of 2009. I'm happy we've got picks 1 and 2 and am confident we have the makings of a premiership team but it's becoming tiresome seeing anyone who raises a few doubts in regards to the methods we've used to obtain this bright future, get shot down in flames.

Classic Robbie Flower - always managed to emerge when we needed someone to put a smile on our faces. The timing of this interview couldn't be better. Thanks HT.

You can't believe it but you stated the following just over a year ago: "Between Green and Davey for mine. I'd like to see Davey get it as I love the romance of an Aboriginal player captaining the Australia's oldest footy club to it's next premiership." How's that romance going? Classic example of the fluctuation opinions of Demonland posters.

Thanks Bob, it's been a while. Having just got home from a huge and stressful day, that put a smile on my face. Cheers.

To quote the D Gen, "Stop putting facts in the story".

And then our 'supporters' criticize the team for not showing enough backbone. Seriously, we need to harden up. Yep the chips are down, the short term doesn't look real pretty. We want our team to overcome all obstacles and play with passion and zest yet we can't even get down to Etihad to support our team. Pathetic. It's chicken and the egg stuff. People are talking about culture. Where does the culture originiate - the team or the supporters? Which of those two were around for more than one generation?

I'd be pushing the precedent angle. If he gets weeks for this then every single tackle where an arm is pinned as player is tackled to the ground should be reported. The outcome, injury-wise is irrelevent. Are they prepared to suspend multiple players every week who will inevitably use the same technique? I doubt it.

If we're making decisions of this nature to placate supporters then we're in more trouble than most of us first thought.

It was a joke - it's Shaun Grigg!

Shaun Grigg?

How about Round 5, 1987?

I reckon with one big pre-season he might just become a player.

Can we survey opposition fans after each game to determine how much we are loathed? Surely the higher the rating, the more we've progressed. I crave Collingwood-like levels of hatred!

I take it back. 3 posters squeezed him into their last couple of positions.

1. Sylvia 2. Scully 3. Frawley 4. Jamar 5. Davey 6. Green 7. Jurrah 8. Grimes 9. Trengove 10. Garland If we're to progress over the next 12 months Watts and Morton need to push into the top 10 and Scully needs to justify my high rating. FWIW I've got McKenzie and Petterd just missing out on my top 10. Interesting to note that the 2004 Rising Star winner can't crack the top 10 listed by any poster in this thread.

Still room for 4 more teams!

10 spots remain!

I just started another Demonland League. It's called, quite originally, 'Demonland 3'. Invite code is 378210. All welcome. Good luck!

And clever teams will always leave the weakest kick in the backline free and then close down the options around him. If Bartram plays week in week out, he'll get a lot of real game experience as well. It is interesting that the pre-season seems to go forever yet we now seem to be rushing to fine tune this massively important part of our gameplan with the season just around the corner.

I live and breathe football and assume that those people spending all day on this and every other Tom Scully are the same - it was a joke. The "it's only a game" mindset is one that belongs to the sane and rational. The sane and rational supporters follow teams that have won premierships in their lifetimes!