Ollie fan

Not another Lawrence sycophant post, please?

Let's have a look at a few things. The vaunted Hawthorn/Collingwood fast movement style? Collingwood missed the finals. Hawthorn got there on a wave, very reminiscent of us in 2018, but got found out by what?: pressure, contest and defence. Goody believes that is what counts, especially in finals. He is absolutely right. Last year we went out in straight sets but lost both by a whisker with an absolutely decimated forward line; against Carlton it was really lost by a couple of dumb decisions right at the end. The list was built to this style and plan and it will continue to be the right plan. A constant theme is the "waste" of our list. In terms of players who ANYONE would rate (not the ones that we all absolutely love eg Viney, but established crème de la creme) we have had Gawn, Oliver, Trac, May, perhaps include Kossie. I flag, multiple top four finishes but a very disappointing year this year, with multiple reasons. Compare: McRae: Pendlebury, Moore, Hill, Sidebottom, J Daicos, N Daicos, arguably de Goey and Elliott: I premiership, 1 fail. Kingsley: talent everywhere but Whitfield, Greene, Green, Hogan, Taylor, Cadman (no 1 pick).... no flags. Scott: (of recent times) - Hawkins, Cameron, Dangerfield, Stewart, lots of others that we all hate, not to mention a HUGE home ground advantage, the suspicion of some very dodgy ways of paying players, and taxpayer-funded facilities off the highest level: 1 flag, fail the next year, jury's out on this year. Fagan: Neale, Andrews, McCluggage, Starcevich, no 1 pick Rayner, Cameron, many others and another HUGE home ground advantage: No flags yet, doubt if he'll get one this year. Etc etc etc We all see our list and love it and many think it is wasted, but really, it isn't. We have generally - even for the vast bulk of this year - been in the top level, competing with a real chance. The criticism is very largely misplaced.

I just don't believe players do. Also, if he is concerned about his brand and about the size of the club: why would he want to get rid of Roffey and Pert who oversaw a HUGE rise in membership? This is all nonsense. He might have had issues about "culture" or game style or whatever, but not high-level administration. That is something that people like Peter Lawrence worry about. I don't believe the original statement at all, and wonder who the "current connection with MFC" is....

True. And they are all quite disconnected: one of the coaching staff, one of the paid admin, and a volunteer board member. It does not add up.

The more I think about this, the more I don't believe it. Players might want a change of a coach or an assistant coach, change in gym conditions, change in training times - whatever! But players are NOT concerned with administration matters. That is the last thing they are interested in. Sorry, but I think the originator of this story (and I don't necessarily mean Vineytime, it's possibly your source or the source of your source) is making it up to push an agenda. It just doesn't ring true.

I wonder if GWS would have done better if a few more fans had been there. Terrible attendance for such a game!

I see that this thread has turned into the Peter Lawrence sycophants' thread, by and large. Luckily, it becomes clearer and clearer that he will never be elected. I doubt if many members at all are fooled by the "democracy" rubbish and his absolute wasting of the club's time and resources in his determination to further his own interest.

By their written material, as happens now.

Exactly

What an interesting quarter! For months this site has been full of posters complaining about our game style, saying it should be like Hawthorn -fast and attacking. I don't know if PA can keep it up but so far they are absolutely stifling Hawthorn. How? Contest and defence. Good defence will NEVER be a bad game plan.

Paul Simon: "a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.." As I understand it, this was the point on which Lawrence ended up running the actual trial and on which he lost. And thank goodness for that! Otherwise we would have had him marching around town when elections were approaching, telling us exactly how bad he thinks the Melbourne football club is, creating back page news every day: great for the club, eh? For whatever reason, Lawrence is apparently determined to get on to what Speed called a highly credentialed and competent Board (or similar words), where no doubt he would throw his perceived weight around until he has achieved his own ends or brought the whole club administration down. If you want that, good on you. I don't.

If you didn't hear this, you didn't listen. It was apparently the remaining issue in the case and Lawrence lost, thank goodness

You mean, one of the 4 out of the last 5 premiers that didn't make the finals the following year? As opposed to the one club that did make the finals?

If you think the forward game plan is unchanged, you haven't been watching the games.

I completely disagree with the posts that say fans will leave if we play "boring" footy. I believe that if we win games, fans will attend.

That "poll" is ridiculous. Who votes? What do they know? Do they want to help Melbourne, or are they perhaps from other clubs who want to damage us? I have seen some terrible clickbait but that is a new low.

"There will be debate about that" - exactly. It is not clearcut.

No. I just listened to it properly.

PS The list in 98 was nowhere near as good. Apart from anything else, both Lyon and Schwarz had both suffered major longterm injuries.

With a list that was arguably better than the 21 list. It was a shocking waste, due to overinsistence on handball.

Neil Balme is apparently a great bloke and a great manager of people. However, his record as a coach was poor, and I am STILL bleeding over his waste of the 1994 talent. Gutnick fired him, we had an interim coach, and then Daniher was appointed and straight away got us to a prelim.

Finally had the chance to listen to the Speed interview. Very interesting to hear from a highly intelligent, respected and experienced administrator with no axe to grind. Key takeaways: as we all knew, Kate should have stepped up sooner, she didn't, she has paid the price. The board is highly competent. Lawrence wanted to have the opportunity to add to the media garbage by public bashing of the club and his perceptions of its failings, creating a media s...storm; he wasn't allowed to, thank goodness. The reviews should be kept private: cue Hawk the Demon et al screaming in a few months about the club trying to hide its failings, despite Speed giving excellent reasons why the findings should NOT be publicly released. And finally, maybe Pert should be part of the review team, maybe he shouldn't, there is no clear answer. Will the whinging stop? No way!!!!!!

This is true. Everyone can laugh at him now but he did save the club. He also got Neil Balme sacked as coach and replaced by Neale Daniher, with immediate excellent results.

I think Hore has a role.

I was talking about last year - we didn't even have Billings. The whole point of my post was about hindsight.