Ollie fan

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.

As always, hindsight is a wonderful thing. He was not in our best 22 last year and very few people thought he was -I still don't see who he would have replaced. So he didn't get a regular game and wanted to try elsewhere. All perfectly fair enough, good luck to him.

Hate to tell you this, but at that stage, we did have a home base. It was called the MCG.

That you won't affect you. You are the most non-fan imaginable. You have never posted a positive thing in this site. AS for the idea of a "full external review", usually they either do whatever it has been hinted to them that they should do, or alternatively come up with c..p such as changing the logo or the mission statement, in order to justify the inevitably exorbitant bill. Despite what everyone wants to say at this whinging time of the year, until about two months ago with three serious injuries to our three best multiple AA players, we were generally going ok and in fact were the most successful club in the league over the last five years. We DON'T need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Yes, look at the team and particularly the functioning of the forward line, check to see if there really is a"culture" problem (whatever that is) and if there is, work out strategies, but then can we get on with preparing to win the 25 flag, please??!!??

With the email about the reviews and the response already, it is completely clear what we can expect. Everyone who has been complaining will attack the outcome of the review unless it gives them exactly what they have been wanting. Otherwise it will be "sham "bias ", etc

Very good considered post.

Good point!!!!

You might be right about this but of course, those involved in the court cases include Peter Lawrence.

He might not but I sure do.

"As some say"? "As some say"? You are doubting it? The coaches Association doesn't doubt it!!

Can you request the affidavits in reply? There may be two sides to this.. There usually are

Not really relevant, but Geelong are thee worst dissenters by a country mile, and never never never get pinged for it.

I didn't say he was no good, but if you defend him like he is a small-medium and not a tall he is beatable.

Which would suggest Carlton's position isn't hopeless

Not in a million years. I know everyone (aka Damian Barrett) loves Jezza; I think he's overrated. My memory is no good, but I don't recall him ever doing much against us.

Is the bit about the response that concerns me. And I didn't get personal about anyone. I did reply to a comment starting," On a more serious note..." But my post was really about the whole trading players out ethos, and the expectation of one-way loyalty.

My post was very serious. And its concern related back to the idea that Melbourne was not immediately shutting down speculation ( although I don't really believe there is any thought of trading him; I think that was bignoting rumour-mongering).

I thought she was an absolute key to our win last week - really bad loss. All the best to her.

How did you guess? But I was making a broader point.

What I don't get is this: we expect players to show total loyalty and commitment to the club and the jumper; how is it that we are not expected to give them the same loyalty? That is why I hate this sort of talk. We owe one of our greatest, most committed, relentless and outstanding players the loyalty that he has shown us - by, eg, playing half a season in obvious severe pain in his dominant handballing hand. I know it is said that football is a business. Does any one of us really believe that? - that we love Melbourne for its financial bottom line? No, We love our club because we love our club because we love our club. It is not just a business. It is a passion and we should respect it and treat it as such.

I agree that this year there were a number of games where we fell down badly in that area (effort) but generally it has been our hallmark for 4-5 years now, and we have been the best at it. Is what made ANB so valuable and good. It is another word for" contest and defence ". I hope and believe we will get it back in 2025.