Whispering_Jack

There used to be a television series entitled The Naked City that finished every programme with the following narration -"There are eight million stories in the Naked City. This has been one of them." Many of those stories were sad, brutal and/or violent but the show was acclaimed for its realism. That which you might regard as sad is to me the reality, as brutal as it may seem to you. Every year we see young men and women aspiring to reach the pinnacle of their sport and every year we see the majority of them fail. Tynan, Taggert and Gysberts are among the failures and their stories are sad but real. Whether it was injury, lack of ability or lack of will that caused their downfall, the fact that they failed to make it onto the big stage doesn't make it any less real or my assessment any less honest or any less applicable to Melbourne than any other club. As for Prendergast and Moloney, I can only say that their stories are the saddest of the lot and I feel absolutely nothing for them other than that I hope for the sake of others around him that Beamer has shaken his alcohol issues. Your final remark, which I find to be offensive and disgraceful, is what you should really feel sad about. Cheers

I'll give my improver as Jimmy Toumpas. One doesn't really need extra incentives to improve but this bloke has them all. He bore the brunt of the senseless debate as to whether or not we should have taken Ollie Wines instead of him which was unfair because they're not similar players and Toumpas was always going to be at a disadvantage because his pre season was affected by the fact that he was coming off two hip operations. It was always going to be much more difficult when your team is copping a flogging on a weekly basis compared to being a finals aspirant. So, with what appears to be greater support from the midfield, a much more settled club and a healthier start to his pre season, Jimmy has the opportunity to show us what made him a top five draft pick. Reports from pre season suggest that he's on his way to doing this. My slider is a player who I believe will be under pressure to maintain his place in the team and that's Jordie McKenzie. You would take him in your side for reasons of guts, determination and attitude but unless he works on and improves his disposal by foot, he will struggle to hold his place. I'm wondering if those who have been to training this far have noticed whether there's been any emphasis on this aspect of his game.

Speculation about what Jack Watts or any other player might have done proves neither your theory nor mine. Hawthorn might as well have sacked Clarkson for fear (well founded as it turned out) that Buddy would leave the club. Bailey lost a #1 draft pick but what did that prove about his ability as coach? What will it say about Roos if James Frawley moves on at the end of the year?Psych tests? Whilst I don't discount them by any means, I've seen competing psychologists in court at odds over the efficacy of various tests, their evidence depending on who was paying for their testimony. Clubs employ nutritionists, people with lab coats and laptops but in the end, it boils down to what the coaches do and how players respond. The players you've mentioned in this thread don't promote your case one iota. Two coaches and five years have yet to turn Jack Watts into the hard edged player we wanted him to be. Roos is taking a different tack and let's hope it works but there are no guarantees. In an earlier post (#48) you mentioned Josh Tynan and Luke Taggert. Really? The last of the Prendergast legacy who both had games in the Casey twos in 2013 and neither were picked up by other clubs when delisted. Not even as rookies. Don't start me with Gysberts needing love, affection, lots of watering, a sunny spot in the garden and loads of mature to nurture him. Brad Scott showered him with love and exactly how many AFL games did he hand him before giving him the shove? The piece de resistance would have to be Moloney who wanted out before Neeld walked in the door. A model player who admitted to having an alcohol problem and was lucky IMO to get away with no weeks club suspension for "that" incident. Who wouldn't love a coach and play for his heart out for him for no result while suffering from a debilitating cold or flu after that? A player with so much class that he issued that "karma" tweet which you seem to regard as some sort of badge of honour but which I reckon, sums his character up pretty well. Brisbane, which made such a good fist of retaining its young players last year, deserves him. To sum it up from an historical perspective: Back in 1978 Melbourne appointed Denis Jones (a good player under the legendary Norm Smith in the 50s & 60s as coach). Jones tried to coach his team in the same style as his mentor. The problem was that Smith had six champions and 20 or so darn good players at any given time and Jones had one champion and half a dozen good players at his disposal. Moreover, the other clubs had long moved on from the old style of game. Jones lost the players because they knew his methods were wrong and had no confidence in what he was trying to do. Much the same thing happened with Neeld but he had a range of additional disadvantages and circumstances facing him. As I said when I raised this, my view might well be a dissenting one. Some players were no doubt not particularly charmed by his style and his approach. You never expect that in a list of 44 when only 22 get to play every week but IMO the problem was always that the style of game he tried to instil wasn't right for the players he had at his disposal and further he was too inflexible in his methods to adapt them to this playing group. I will however, take on board your comment when I next speak with some of our players (they're not "contacts" by any means) but I wouldn't expect them to be monolithic groupthinkers on the subject anyway.

One area where we improved immensely is in the immeasurables - the little 5%ers in the field, bowling changes and field placements working, a lot of little factors that worked for us and failed for them which saw us building in confidence as the series went on while their morale dropped. This was much the opposite in the northern summer when everything seemed to go right for them - winning some close ones and the draw when it rained and we were on course for a win. South Africa will be a new ball game. We need to work on our poor starts to our first innings and that might involve some changes in our batting order. What to do with Bailey? What happens with Watto and his place on the batting order?

I reckon Josh is being on the conservative side which is the tendency of most club medicos as well as club spokespeople. IMO all three will be ready in 4 to 6 weeks but I'm not saying from when.

Do you mean "Big Bob" Johnson, "Tassie Bob" Johnson or "Robert Leroy" Johnson, the bloke who sang and played blues guitar?If you mean the third then I have to disagree. That Robert Johnson died at the age of 27. Probable cause of death - murder. On that basis, he's a slider. "Big Bob" is no longer with us, bless his heart while "Tassie Bob" just turned 76, so I have them all as sliders. Historically, Melbourne has usually fared well with a Johnson in the team, so I think our recruiting people would do well to scour the country for a Johnson. Anyway, that's my three sliders thanks to Biffen.

What I'm saying is based on conversations with players and other mainly anecdotal evidence to the effect that he wasn't an effective communicator in translating what he was doing at training and talks with his players to an effective, coherent game plan. As with all coaches who carry poor records with them, there will be critics internally on a personal level as there were with Neeld's predecessors. I'm sure you can enlighten me with some examples of how his relationship with players were so different at Melbourne where he was a senior coach than at Collingwood and at previous clubs (TAC Cup and country) where he was reputed to be good with his players? Why did we play just as badly (and in some cases worse) under Neil Craig after Neeld went? Did Craig also have issues with his relationship with the players or perhaps there are some issues with the qualities of some of the players?

Fox Sports News had a brief piece about our key forwards (Chris Dawes, Jesse Hogan and Mitch Clark) being involved in a "race against time" to be fit for the start of the season. Newsreader: Dawes won't begin full training until the end of the month following knee surgery, Hogan is also recovering from a knee problem while Clark is on the mend following a serious foot injury. That was followed by this grab from Josh Mahoney: "They're all on individual programmes and they're all targeted to be ready for the start of the season. Mitch has recovered (from his foot) really well and Jesse's been on a modified programme but the plan is to have them all up and going and as I said with Chris, if they're not ready and all three of them aren't out there in round 1, well it's not a big worry for us." There was also what seemed to be a much briefer item on Collingwood's training so I would imagine the producer will receive an irate phone call from a Mr. McGuire at some stage during the evening.

Permit me to be a dissenting voice on a couple of issues not because of the fact that there's a need to defend Mark Neeld/attack Dean Bailey but because there are some things that simply don't resonate with me. Firstly, the view that the players were flogged too hard in preseason training under Neeld. This flies in the face of comments from Neeld that the policy in 2012 and 2013 were to work to the intensity of 60% rising to 80% of the top clubs like Collingwood. This was said to be done to ensure that the players (especially the younger ones) were not subjected to potential injury from the stress and strain of moving too quickly into maximum workloads. The fitness programme was prepared by Dave Misson who is still at the club and working under Paul Roos. Moreover, looking at reports at the time on Demonland and in the media, I can't see many claims that the group was overworked other than in a few individual instances of players lagging at the back in basic running exercises and training routines. I heard no complaints from the (admittedly) small number of players with who I discussed pre season training both at the time and later in the year. Secondly, while I accept that by the start of the season Neeld no longer had the full confidence of all the playing group it's not clear that this was directly a consequence of his supposed "school teacher"/harsh approach. Again, it's not consistent with what I heard from the players at the time. I believe that rather than it being due to the harsh approach, it was more a result of a loss of belief in what he was trying to do. Neeld was given the task of hardening up a team that was known to be "soft" ("bruise-free") and below the required overall fitness; a team that fell apart in the face of pressure applied by the top sides. I can't see that Roos' aims will be much different although his methods and manner certainly will be. However, there will be times when Roos will find it necessary to work the players hard on the track and there will be other times when harsh words are required. I don't expect us to suddenly become a team of nancy boys who shun hard work or harsh words under Roos and I don't accept this was the problem under Neeld. IMO he simply wasn't up to it in his coaching methods and in getting his game style across (especially on match days) and the players knew this and responded accordingly.

Thanks Rob and 2c well spent. That view fits in with my experience of involvement with athletics. In general, on those occasions when we used to go for long training runs, the sprinters suddenly became scarce. There were a few exceptions and not surprisingly, those who also had speed and endurance, were the best all round athletes and excelled at other sports e.g. footy, soccer and hockey.The are a few examples in AFL, the most notable being Chris Judd who, when at his peak had that rare combination of speed and of endurance. Let's hope that Sam is able to improve his endurance so that he can step up in the game because he has the potential to be a dangerous player either around goals or coming out of defence.

By any chance, did you do any scriptwriting while you were at the ABC?

Chris Dawes says he would like to be part of the club's leadership group which is being worked through by Leading Teams in conjunction with the football department Dawes puts his hand up to lead Dees In the article, he says that he would like to see the LG reduced in size from last year's nine. I tend to think he's right but wonder at what the ideal number should be (if indeed there is in fact an ideal number).

Tweet from Jon Pierik of the Age Sounds like there could be a report coming up in his newspaper on the two training sessions and a sign that football's getting closer.Thanks to those who logged in their reports today. Interesting and yet disappointing to read those views on Sam Blease who seems to constantly struggle through pre seasons. Perhaps his muscle fibres are so predominantly "fast twitch" that he finds it really difficult to adapt to the sort of training indicated for AFL footballers these days - Fast and slow twitch muscle fibers. If there is anyone out there with knowledge in this area, I'd like to hear their views.

The 49ers take down the Packers 23-20 on a last-second field goal in the NFC wild card. Who's next?

Another side-effect of the Essendon drugs scandal: Essendon drug use sparks copycat rush I wonder if this is the first salvo of the Fairfax return of fire aimed at News Limited and Hird after the Chip Le Grand articles?

So will Mitchell Clark be our Mitchell Johnson?

Paul Roos not at training in the first week back in January? Meh. That's weather channel stuff. If he goes to Wimbledon for a couple of weeks in late June, I'll fire off a protest letter. Had lunch with a St. Kilda supporter who knows the family of one of our draftees. Said Roos has told them how hard they need to work to secure a place in the side in their first year and there are certainly no illusions about expectations for many games in their first season. Notwithstanding, he says that Roos is spending a lot of time with the younger players and has been pretty hands on with the players so far. I'm pretty sure Roos knows what he's doing and his support staff is well equipped while he's hunting rhino's (real ones) or recruiting African players during his break & good luck to him.

Now that the series is over we can return to the all important decision as to who will be our next keeper. Despite some concerns about his keeping I think Wade is still # 2 for the time being. What's the prognosis on Paine?

IIRC Petersen wasn't getting many games under Brad Scott at North. It's logical that he wanted to leave in those circumstances. So it's likely both views are right. He wasn't in the coach's favour and North were quite happy to let him go and Pedersen saw the writing on the wall and was happy to leave.

You've answered your own question. I think we don't disagree all that much. We weren't in good shape when Daniher left. You and Colin think it was merely cyclical but I believe the collapse came too quickly for that to be the sole or main explanation. I think it was because Daniher got stale after about seven years and wasn't assisted by either his board or his football department, especially recruiting. There was a period in those last couple of seasons when he became the spruiker for the club at fundraising etc. and while he did that well, it shouldn't have been a role that he had to play. Clearly, he's not responsible for us now and we had ample opportunity but failed to rectify the situation. I agree that Bailey wasn't up to it but I think that "trashed" is too harsh a word for Neeld who was given a major clean up job after 186 and it was simply beyond him. I think like you, that we're not as badly off after Neeld than many think. The debate here proves that its possible for there to be differing opinions of past events. There have been a number put forward in this thread.

To be eligible for nomination, a player must be under 21 on 1 January of that year and have played 10 or fewer senior games before the start of the season.Michie turned 21 in 2013 and is therefore not eligible.

Sorry but I beg to differ. Under the AFL Rising Star rules you have to have played 10 or fewer senior games before the start of the season in question so that means Dean Kent (15 games in 2013), Jimmy Toumpas (14) and Jack Viney (13) are all out of contention.

Colin. Did you actually read any part of what I wrote?

I don't think you're actually responding to the point being made. It's not that Daniher was a poor coach throughout the entire decade that he coached but rather that we were in poor shape when he ended his term. The ladder at the time told the story 2 wins out of 13 matches played in 2007 before he was sacked. You're right about all that followed including the botched rebuilds but it started in the last few seasons of the Daniher regime when our recruiting and list development was not up to standard leaving Bailey with an enormous task to get the club up to scratch. Incidentally, there are many at Essendon who thought the same of Sheedy's last 2 or 3 years which is apparently why PJ gave him the flick. My Essendon supporter friends also say he made a mistake with the person chosen to replace him but that's another story. The bottom line is that both coaches had passed their use by dates and in their final years of coaching left their respective clubs is difficult situations.

In that case, you'd think he would be an absolute monte for the NAB Rising Star.