two sheds jackson

It's this kind of self-pitying and carping that I think people are taking exception to, and not so much a difference of opinion. Your actual views (I.e that the club and it's supporters are too complacent, that Bailey is too soft as a coach and we need to replace him if we want to progress to the next level) are pretty mainstream on this forum and, if you'll pay a bit more attention, are even shared by a fair few senior members. You tend to get more flak because you get so indignant when people disagree with you. The other thing is, I could swear I've read some posts by you (please don't ask me to find them) where you have accused people who take the opposite view to your own (I.e, people who've argued that Bailey has us on the right track and can coach us to a premiership, but that we need to give the list a couple more years to develop) of having their heads in the sand. I'm not sure how you can reasonably argue that this is any better.

A grossly oversimplistic analysis. There are two key differences between football as an industry and banking, that really blow a hole in your Wespac analysis: 1) AFL football (or any major sporting code) is profitable purely and solely because of its emotional appeal. You can take any stream of revenue the AFL possesses -TV rights, gate attendance, AFL/club membership, merchandise- and whichever one you look at, you'll find the only reason it exists is because a shitload of people are emotionally invested in their club to the point where they'll pay money and sacrifice their leisure time in order to follow them. The sports market is unique from any other market, because it's the only one where the consumer is totally brand loyal to the point where offering the "best service" doesnt really enter into the equation when deciding which product to purchase; people who seriously follow football do not switch to another team when theirs is playing crap. It's the only market where consumers (supporters) buy the product (membership, game day tickets, etc) purely to contribute to and witness the success of their chosen brand, without expecting any kind of service in return; the success of the brand (i.e. a premiership) is reward in itself. Whereas with a bank, the decision of which product to purchase entirely comes down to who can offer the best service, and if a customer doesnt like the service being offered they'll switch to another one and have no emotional qualms about doing so. Put simply, the money a banker is making comes from a market that has absolutely no emotional investment in that individual, or in the brand he works for. Hence, they need not take emotion into consideration when looking at an offer from another company- they're not anwerable to anyone in that sense. Whereas the money being made by an AFL footballer, stems entirely from a passionate supporter base who have made both a financial and emotional investment into that individual and their development, and even moreso into the brand that he works for. In an environment where footballers give no consideration to this fact, and simply "go where the money is" (especially after only two years on the playing list), it will become harder for supporters to build up an emotional connection with the playing list and get excited about the teams development; it is ultimately bad for football as an industry and it is something the AFL should be trying harder to avoid. 2) Banks dont win premierships, and the prospect of a premiership often causes an emotional bond between player and club. For example; anyone who tries to argue that Nick Riewoldt does not love the St Kilda Football Club is absolutely mad, or has never seen his near Herculean efforts in big games or his emotional displays when he loses one. I would be shocked if Riewoldt has not received several, much bigger offers from other clubs throughout his career, but he has stayed with St Kilda because, having been there to witness the growth of a list that he believes can do it, nothing means more to him than winning a premiership with St Kilda. If what you were saying was right, then every player who ever recieves a better financial offer from another club would always leave; as it happens, they usually tend to stay.

You have a tendency to take left-field viewpoints, and then when people ask you to support them or even just explain them, you steadfastly refuse to do so on the grounds that you "don't have to if you dont want to". As a result, you come across as somebody who simply says outlandish things in order to get attention. Case in point, you've said that you believe Richmond are a serious threat to nab Tom Scully, and that if things pan out "a certain way" this year, there is a very good chance he will be a Tiger. Unsuprisingly, people have asked what information you're basing this on. Some people havnt even gone so far as to ask for a source, but are simply curious as to how you've arrived at this conclusion. Basically, you've responded to them by saying "I don't HAVE to explain myself! If you want to believe that everything is rosey at the club and that theres no chance Scully is leaving, then you can please yourselves, it's not my problem!". Now as you said, you've got every right to behave in such a way, but I'm sure you can understand how it makes you come across as somebody who simply makes wild statements to get attention. It certainly is. And, being a footy forum, most people come here to, you know, discuss footy. As in, one person gives a viewpoint, another person will say, "oh, really? and why do you believe that?", and the first person will explain how they arrived at said viewpoint, and attempt to substantiate the viewpoint with reason and logic. Next thing you know, you have a lively conversation. That's the whole point of a discussion forum; we say what we think and we explain why we think it. It would be pretty pointless, boring and ridiculous if everyone here just did what you did, and refused to expand on their positions when asked to on the grounds that they "don't have to".

You're free to post what you want, and people on here are free to think your posts are completely full of glib, attention-seeking tripe and utterly devoid of substance. What is the point in repeatedly making a bold assertion and refusing to try to substantiate it, other than to get attention?

If you've actually got something to say, then go ahead and say it. Don't make outlandish claims and then act pissy and indignant when people question you on them, and say "fine, don't listen to me then, clearly you blokes know better". You've basically come out and said that Richmond are a huge worry and that they have the "ways and means" of securing Scully, moreso than any other club. And then when asked why you think Richmond are in such a good position, you've refused to even remotely try to substantiate your claims, instead just repeating that Richmond are definitely the club to worry about, and that we have our fingers in our ears if we dont realise this. Why waste everybodies time by posting cryptic and inane crap? Why not either just write a post saying that Richmond are the club you're most worried about, and saying why, or just write nothing at all? Either would have been a hell of a lot better than what you've done.

Out of all the traditional AFL clubs, the Kangaroos are the only one whose moniker is "culturally Australian". Interestingly, the only other team who comes close to having an "Aussie" nickname is a "franchise club" in Fremantle, whose moniker is a tribute to the towns working class, port heritage (although they stopped short at calling themselves the "Wharfies"). The rest are named after abtsract concepts ("Blues", "Power", etc), religious icons ("Demons", "Saints"), or animals not indigenous to Australia. This whole argument is silly. Even if we go back 100-150 years ago, when clubs started getting their names, the "Giants" would have been a perfectly accetable one. If Checker Hughes had told our players to "lift your heads and show them you have the hearts of Giants!", we could just as easily be called the Giants. If that had happened, and if GWS had called themselves the "Demons", then we'd probably have a thread here, on Giantland.com, with everyone talking about what a soulless, Americanised name the "Demons" is. Clearly as coach of the senior playing list, this is the sort of stuff he's paid for.

I don't watch junior football and have no opinion on who we should take in the draft, but I get the feeling that in this years draft, off-field behavior might be more of a concern for the Gold Coast than it will be for us. The GCS have to create a team culture from the ground up. Apart from wanting to draft a talanted group of kids, they'll also want to be extra, double-sure that all the kids in said group have a good head on their shoulders. With no established leadership group in place, they can't afford to risk drafting a [censored] whose antics might rub off on the other kids and create a poor playing culture from the outset. And with their plethora of high end picks, they really don't need to take this sort of gamble, even for a player with significant upside. Our "no d*ckheads policy" may not be quite as strict as theirs this year, provided our FD feels we already have a positive, no-nonsense playing culture, a good leadership group and a healthy batch of determined young players who won't be influenced by the off-field antics of a new arrival and, in fact, will actually influence him to straighten up and meet the standards expected of him by the club. Of course it's all a matter of degrees; I wouldn't like to say what we should do without knowing how much of a [censored] Darling may be, or how good he is at football. I just don't think it can be so easily boiled down to "the Gold Coast have more picks than us but arent taking the risk, therefor it's not a risk worth taking". As I said, there are some pretty substantial differences in the state of both of our lists and in some respects, they need to be more careful than us WRT who they recruit.

The club is under no delusions re: its forward and ruck stocks. That is partly why we got rid of the above-mentioned players. We are looking for genuine, ten-year solutions to these problems. If we'd hung onto Robbo and White, they might have helped "patch the hole" for a couple of years (I have my doubts about even this), but they also would have taken up spots on the list which could have been used to draft two new players, as well as inhibiting the development of younger players already on the list. So your position is that if we'd kept Robbo, it would have hindered the long-term development of one of our most exciting and promising players, but that this would have been a small price to pay for the fact that in the short term, our forwardline would have looked a bit less crappy, but not much. David Hale really doesn't enter into this discussion. We went after Hale because we need a big, strong, stay-at-home forward to provide a physical presense and compliment our array of talanted athletic talls. Robbo would not have been remotely suited to this role even in the prime of his career. Even if we'd kept Robbo, it would have had no bearing on our decision to go after Hale.

There have been some pretty flimsy arguments levelled against Bailey's list management approach, but this must be the winner in terms of baseless, unsupportable drivel. When Bailey put this policy in place a few years ago, he did so because he didn't think we had a list capable of winning a flag, and thought the only way to win one was to rebuild from the ground up. Your Whites, Robbos and Yzes (in a nutshell; anyone not part of our next premiership tilt) had to go, so as to free up salary cap space and spots on the list, giving us plenty of room to recruit as many new players as possible. Hence, the policy will only be in place until Bailey thinks we have recruited a list capable of winning a flag. When we're pushing for a flag, we will have no reason to delist older guys with a year or two of good footy left in them, or to give games to a young player in place of an older guy who's playing better football. All of this would be abundantly bloody clear to anyone on the playing list, if not to all Melbourne supporters. I doubt that Davey, Jamar or Sylvia are going to jump ship out of concern that if they stick around they'll be "shafted" as soon as they turn 30, like Bruce, Yze, White, and (apparently) Alan Jakovich were.

In what sense was Jakovich poorly treated?

Why would you bother claiming there are other reasons for Travis being dropped besides poor form, if you are so upset by the very idea of saying what they are? Please note, this is ALL I am asking you. I'm not asking if Trapper can help us win 12 games instead of 8, I'm not asking if Trapper played well against North and Collingwood last year, I'm not asking if you should or should not believe everything you read in the paper, I'm not asking if you are the resident simpleton, or if you are being unfairly called such. To emphasise, I only want to know why you would say that there are other reasons for Travis getting dropped, and then refuse to name those reasons.

Look, you've said that there were other reasons -besides poor form- why Travis Johnstone was dropped on several occasion by both Matthews and Voss. Ox has asked you to elaborate on your position and cite what those "other reasons" were. If you're not prepared to substantiate your assertion, then whats the point of making it in the first place? And besides, what possible reason could you have to refuse to answer what was, in anyones language, a very reasonable question?

I define "being dropped for poor form" to mean "a situation in which a football player is not playing football as well as he should be, to the point where his coach decides to leave him out of the team, and invites a different football player to play football in his stead". I guess you've finally answered my question. Trapper was never dropped for poor form, because poor form doesnt actually exist. You might be the only person in Australia who would take this point of view, but luckily the idea is so far outside the realms of logical thinking that it's difficult to form an argument against.