Whispering_Jack

I think the problem some have with the broader issue of this thread is that they believe this exercise is some sort of blame game in which the discussion is necessarily centred upon who was the better or worse coach - Bailey or Neeld - or, more specifically, to what extent people want to create scapegoats. Rpfc demonstrates a good understanding of this when he talks of "eras" rather than of personalities because the other approach overlooks the basic cause and effect that led to our decline after a promising season in 2010. Instead of trying to exonerate one or other of blame, we should be looking at what happened between 2010 and 2011 that led us to become a team that exhibited such weak tendencies that led to the meltdowns against Hawthorn and the West Coast Eagles in early 2011. Hannabal might want to pin 186 on "toxic political machinations" but I would suggest the deeper problem was related more to the direction we were taking in terms of a style of football which would inevitably fail. We were good flat track bullies over certain sides like the Suns, a developing Richmond, against injury weakened interstaters like Adelaide and Freo at home but our style of game had been worked out by the better coaches. We were easy meat for the stronger clubs and we were mauled relentlessly by them. The thing that stands out is that when the chips were down we lacked in leadership. It's not the individual Green who is blame but the fact that out leadership group simply did not stand up at the time because there was never a proper succession plan put into place to develop strong leadership at the club. In hindsight, one of the problems was that we let McDonald go a year early. I was in favour of the move at the time but the loss of Junior, Bruce and Miller in one fell swoop left us with a large void in leadership that came back to bite us hard in the bum. The die was already cast but I think there were other mistakes of judgement made by the club during the early part of 2011. I'll focus on one of them and that was the situation with Brent Moloney and the night club incident which was poorly handled in that the discipline imposed failed to set the appropriate standards for a young team. IMO he should have been suspended for a period of weeks and lost his place in the leadership group for the remainder of the season. Collingwood reaped the benefits of that sort of discipline two years earlier and many at that club will tell you that the heavy sanctions on Shaw and Didak, whilst tough on a club into the lead up to the finals, was a significant factor in it winning its flag in 2010. Our failure to impose the correct measure of discipline on an errant team leader at the time was a mistake. In a sense, it provided empowerment that led to the involvement of the players in those "toxic political machinations" that occurred later in the year. I believe a more experienced and stronger captain like McDonald would have handled the situation better than Green and could have helped avoid the implosion that followed (there were of course, others at the club who also could have handled the situation better as well). So by the end of 2011, the club had a massive void in leadership and Neeld was brought in to regenerate in a broken club. The Neeld era was littered with mishaps and not helped by the fact that he as a coach was far too dogmatic in his approach and failed to demonstrate the flexibility required to bring in what was a fairly dramatic change in game plan. As it turns out, he made the same mistake as his predecessor in that the game was changing too fast and the things he was trying to implement were probably never going to work but he was limited in his choices for team leadership. Grimes and Trengove were thrown to the wolves but they are quality individuals who I believe will gain from the benefits of adversity more than from the hardships they and the team suffered during this brief era.

The fault with the censorship of words is with the programming. I haven't the foggiest idea why it would censor the word "idiot" on this site when we have so many of them posting here

The way this thread is going I'm not sure if we should be concentrating on round 1 v St. Kilda at Etihad or the Clipsal 500 in Adelaide.

I wasn't comparing. I was addressing the issue of appointing a captain at a young age. I disagree with your assessment of Trengove's maturity - I don't believe that was the problem. The difference was more a factor of other things such as the coaching and support structures around each of the individual captains. And don't discount Trengove as a captain again at some time in the future. He has all the makings and the inventive to push for the main leadership role at some time in the future.

As the opening post stated: Nothing's changed - Melbourne pleased with injured trio's progress.

Propaganda.I set out below my post from this thread on 23 August which deals with the Essendon claim about ASADA issuing incorrect information about AOD-9604. Even if the allegation were true (and to date no record has been produced) it would not be helpful to the Bombers' cause. The other aspect to this is the confusion about the actual drugs that were part of Essendon's programme. This article is a help - What drugs are they on about? That is also WADA's position and that of ASADA although there have been attempts by some to muddy the waters but the explanations on AFL360 by Gerard Whately and Essendon's consultant Dr. Garnham sound like spin to me.See also: ASADA'unclear on drug status' IMO whether ASADA lacks clarity on the status of AOD-9604 is totally irrelevant. The AFL Anti-Doping Code is what matters: Section 20.2 In performing its functions under this Code or otherwise, ASADA is not and must not be deemed to be the agent of the AFL. For the avoidance of doubt, it is expressly stated that ASADA has no authority or capacity on behalf of the AFL to: (a) authorise or approve the use of any substance or method prohibited under this Code; (b) give advice as to the application or interpretation of this Code; and © bind or commit the AFL in any manner. Essendon cannot therefore claim this defence even if could prove that someone at ASADA told Dank or anyone else before the programme was initiated (and I doubt such proof exists) for that matter that AOD-9604 wasn't a prohibited substance. Section 26.3 The WADA Code shall be interpreted as an independent and autonomous text and not by reference to the existing law or statutes of the Signatories or governments. Referral to a court won't help them unless we're talking about the Court of Arbitration for Sport (and I don't think CAS will show much sympathy for the bogus argument that the Bomber lackeys are attempting to foist on the public in this misguided PR campaign. Of even more concern to the Bombers is this one:- If you go to the AFL's charge sheet, you will find this point:- It might take time to put the case together, particularly if Dank refuses to co-operate) but if this single point is proved and evidence is produced as to which players had this stuff injected into them, then they might as well turn the lights out at Essendon (especially if the number of players is significant).

Wrong. You've confused Alexis with his brother Steven who has predictably joined the Cats.

Please me it wasn't Carey Grammar where Mark Neeld has the coaching gig?

And the winner is ... Jack Grimes and Nathan Jones. No surprises there ... congratulations to both - it's a great honour to lead the club.

Who's going to kick us off?

You presume a lot when you claim I draw an analogy with Collingwood. At no stage did I suggest the two clubs were identical. McGuire drew off his club's strengths and that's what I think our vision should be as well, despite that each club has different strengths in different areas.

And what would the consequences of that be?It's my understanding (and I stand corrected if someone can produce the figures), we were substantially in the red in 2008 when the Stynes Board took over and had somehow been managing to survive for several years despite that fact. My reading of the figures provided above indicate that we're now $3.27m in the black. I know accountants can do magical smoke and mirrors stuff with figures but you're right about debt per se being something we can live with - especially in our case where it's underpinned by $12m in property assets which appear to be conservatively valued. Collingwood was in a worse place financially than we have been recently when Eddie McGuire took over more than a decade ago. His board made some smart decisions on several levels and managed to build the organisation, helped by having a successful team (only 1 flag but regular finals appearances). They are now debt free and have been in a position for years to reinvest substantial profits into their football department. As much as I hate to say we should be like the Pies, that's exactly what we should be aspiring to achieve at Melbourne.

@SamLandsberger: Mark Neeld takes over from Anthony Parkin as Eastern Ranges talent manager in the TAC Cup.

A legend dies at 94. @nytimes: Breaking News: Pete Seeger, Songwriter and Champion of Folk Music, Dies at 94 http://nyti.ms/1i5XXTy

These are not the figures that I've heard mentioned and in fact, as I understand it, despite last year's losses, our net asset position is in the black. Perhaps an accountant can get hold of the actual figures and explain them to us or we could wait for the finance report at Monday's AGM. We should know by then.

Who's the bloke with RDB?

Understand the point you're trying to make and we all want to see a harder and stronger Watts but IIRC Gary Ablett was definitely fazed when tackled by Garland and McKenzie in the second meeting with the Suns last year up at Carrara. Of course, the problem was that the tackles that night weren't exactly legitimate or even in the course of the play but he definitely didn't like it.The other thing is that what you've described is what you would expect from a purely inside player but I don't think this is the role Roos has in mind for our Jack. Nevertheless, Roos will expect him to stand up and be counted when the time comes and he does tend to get that sort of commitment from his players so don't give up hope yet.

Zaharakis can't be ruled out just because he didn't like a prick. Let me rephrase that. He might still have taken part in the programme, it was just that he didn't have anything ingested intravenously via an injection.

What I like about a new season is that you know some teams are going to improve, some will go into decline and some will surprise but there's a lot of unknowns about which club will do what and Melbourne, because of its recent history of failure followed by the installation of a coach with a history of success, certainly comes into that last category. So being up here on the Gold Coast, I thought it would be a good idea to discover how an opposition side trains at this stage of the pre-season and to see whether I could learn something from the comparison. After a bit of a false alarm and some crossed wires yesterday, I discovered that the Gold Coast Suns were training this morning at Carrara. I was told that it was an open training session but it was actually closed. However, this didn't stop me because the players were training on a ground next to the main stadium and it was no trouble watching through a wire fence. My handicap was that unlike the Demons where I'm familiar with most of the players and I can work out the newbies pretty quickly, I don't have much of a clue about how to identify the Suns. I can report however, that Gary Ablett is training the proverbial down, Jaeger O'Meara is a big unit for a second year player and if the bloke wearing 28 was really Jack Martin then he could have some issues going forward because he certainly did not resemble the young indigenous kid who burned up the TAC Cup Under 18s a couple of years ago. There was a kid wearing a different number who did look like Jack and if it's him then he could give Jesse Hogan a run for his money in the competition to be the NAB Rising Star. Campbell Brown was definitely one player missing and the Suns look to have lost a bit of punch in his absence. But enough of that. Demonlanders aren't really interested in the individuals at opposition clubs. Did I see anything discernibly different up here to what I saw two weeks ago at Casey Fields? Not really. There were a number of drills involving running with the ball and short passing to both players on the move and stationery targets, some sprints and the standard didn't seem much different to ours. I didn't discern that the Suns were going through a change of style. They're still a young side that moves the ball well and, despite the presence of Ablett and Harley Bennell, they didn't stand out as a group any more than our players did at the session I attended. If there was one point of difference, I think it was that they seemed to have more of their players out on the track and less in rehab than we had but I don't know the specifics. I reckon if our taggers can put the reigning Brownlow Medallist out of business again when next we play, then we're a big chance. POSTSCRIPT: The actual office and gymnasium/indoor facilities are truly substandard for an AFL club. These are situated in huts and sheds at the side of Metricon Stadium and it's reminiscent of the facilities we used to have at the old Junction Oval (they even have what looks like a "vault"). Nevertheless, Gary Ablett came here - puts Chris Judd to shame.

Don't think I'm welcome there but I can reveal that at some time in the future the size of the training squad will diminish.

We had new players and were doing things differently last year and my judgement at least at this time and even after the NAB Cup triple header spoke improvement. We did fine against North Melbourne in the first game - would have beaten them but for the fact they got a 9 pointer when 6 points would have given us a win. Did OK against the Toigs given we had to play a fresh side with little break in sauna like conditions. Then a weakened side with few of our so called "better" players beat a far more experienced Port Adelaide in Renmark. Then the wheels fell off. How did we know at any given time whether we had improved or not?

We all know what a fit Mitch Clark and a fit Chris Dawes can do for the club. We also know that we need them ready and firing for Round 1 on 22 March. It's no disaster then if they each play part of the 28 February NAB Challenge v Geelong and follow that up with most of the practice match on 8 March v Hawthorn. I think it's fair to expect that Jesse Hogan would be available for those games as well as perhaps the first NAB Challenge or at least a half. It seems to me that the coaches and fitness people are managing the loads to individual specifications and this is borne out by a couple of experienced sports medicine people with who I discussed their situation.

sssh ... and don't you dare mention the jacuzzi.They just do their sport differently in this part of the world.

Thanks for all your reports folks. I envy you guys being able to watch the boys train while I'm stuck up here on the Gold Coast where things are so dull, colourless and boring. Especially enjoy Satyricon's in depth and up close reports - they're gold.

WARNING The content of this post might cause offence I finally discovered that the Suns had an open training session at Carrara so I hailed the big yellow taxi that passed by just as I stepped onto the sunny pavement outside the place where I was staying. The cab stopped with a jerk. The jerk got out and I got in. Boom ... tish. "Follow that car" was my command but it was a strange ask because the Gold Coast Highway in the middle of Surfers Paradise is now a one -way street and there was no choice but to follow. All roads led to Carrara where my assignation was to spy on a Gold Coast Suns pre-season training session and hopefully sell my secrets to the highest bidder. I was cleverly disguised as a local bodybuilder high on a cocktail of turps and steroids and, satisfied that the dark sunnies fully concealed my true identity, I gate-crashed the pre training press conference. I don't quite understand why they threw me out because I felt my hard hitting questions were good. "Excuse me Mr. McKenna, but what was Stephen Dank's role while employed at the club, who paid him and did his ... er conditioning methods play a part in Junior's Brownlow?" I tried to throw in another one about what it was like having Kim Kardashian's younger brother on the list but the security guards were dragging me down the corridor and it was no use because Bluey was already listening to a Dorothy Dixer from a young blonde reporter with the Courier-Mail. It wasn't fair - if only I had her body they would have been listening to me and not her. As my head hit the pavement outside the stadium, I swore that next time, I would bring the rottweiler for protection. I ditched the sunnies and the gold lamé jacket disguise into a nearby garbage bin and, finding a conveniently open side gate, I entered just as the players were coming onto the arena. You won't believe this but I think I struck gold. Instead of a training session for the Gold Coast Suns, I had stumbled on a full dress rehearsal for the Legends Football League, formerly known as the Lingerie Football League. I tried to avert my gaze from the sight that filled my eyes but the coach and players were all good sports and much more friendly than Bluey and the crowd from the Suns. Even invited me to the team jacuzzi after training. Ah Queensland! Beautiful one day. Perfect the next. I love this place.