Whispering_Jack

The ultimate responsibility for a team's performance resides with the coach and the onus is on Roos as a very highly paid employee of the Melbourne Football Club to perform in his role. If he fails and you're looking to cause and effect then you can apportion blame elsewhere and upon a number of shoulders but Roos shouldn't get a free pass because of his past deeds or his current reputation if he's not producing the goods.

On another aspect of the fixture, I was in London a week ago and there was a NFL game played on the Sunday for points at Wembley Stadium which attracted a crowd of over 80k (in opposition to some better publicised soccer fixtures). The game was between the San Francisco 49ers and the Jacksonville Jaguars. Kudos to the NFL for ensuring that both clubs have a bye on the weekend after that fixture. I'm not sure whether our club asked and were refused or whether nobody thought about it but I would have thought that if you have a fixture that caters for one or two byes a year, this would have been automatic.

I think there have been some good points made above and it's reminded me of the fact that many years ago, there was a fund in place whereby monies were taken out of the takings of every game to be shared around the clubs at the end of the season. In other words, the clubs that attracted the bigger crowds were fundamentally subsidising the weaker clubs that failed to attract the numbers to games. Back in those days, Melbourne had a successful team and, having the G, attracted the larger crowds so in effect, a proportion of our gate money propped up those clubs, some of which are now among the stronger clubs in the competition. Of course, Hawthorn wouldn't give a rat's about us now but they probably owe their existence to the fact that we accepted that sort of equalisation all those years ago. Now they sneer at us with contempt when we ask for help.

G'day Smithy. Hope all's well up there on the Coast. Next time you're in Melbourne, why not try the MCG tour. I did it about a year ago with the grandkids and there are pictures in every nook and cranny. I think one of the problems these days is that people just aren't interested in our history any more. The other resource to try is DemonWiki - it's one of the sites listed on our links section and run by Supermercado.

Do they publish the full stats from the Draft Combine?

Not giving anything away but ... yes ... well known.

Spoke to one of our players today who described himself as being "completely energised" after his first meeting with the new coach. Hope that's the case with the players across the board.

Won't argue with Peter Ryan's analysis. He's usually a fair and objective observer but I reserve the right to be an optimist and I reckon we'll get some pleasing results in 2014.

In the end it doesn't matter how much time one gives to decide whether BP was wrong or right. Someone else else has the job now. In any event, it's a fairly subjective matter and on the evidence before me, it's a thumbs down to him based on the evidence at the present time. That's my view - others are prepared to wait until the fullness of time or perhaps the 12th of never to decide. If I'm wrong, I'll happily come back and apologise to Prendergast but don't hold your breath waiting. As someone said elsewhere, it was vital for the club to nail the 2008 and 2009 drafts and we didn't. Hawthorn did nail it in 2004 and then picked up more handy players after that to land a premiership in 2008 and again in 2013. Collingwood did nail it in 2005 and then picked up more handy players after that to land a premiership in 2010. We got bubkas in the same time frame when our time came and that's my opinion of the worth of the person in charge of recruiting. Our failure to recruit at anywhere near an acceptable level in that decade assisted in the downfall of at least two administrations and two (edit: three)coaches and left us supporters to carry the burden of the pain and embarassment that followed. Wouldn't it be wonderful if people could only give the same latitude in terms of time for the others who took the blame for that pain to do their jobs properly that is being advocated for Prendergast?

Somewhere in that list of cons, you need to look at what the effect on the club would be if he went off the rails again and reverted to his worst behaviour of last year. The effect on the other members of the playing group, distraction of the club and club resources, effect on sponsorship agreements and the like. Other clubs that are more stable are in a much better position to deal with such things than us. We're still partly under AFL control and are coming out of a lengthy period of instability and still have to contend with an investigation into our former doctor's association with Stephen Dank. I'm all in favour of giving second chances to kids whose lives strayed off the rails but there's far too much at stake at our club for the risk to be taken with this player. If North think they can handle him, then good luck.

Fair enough. We can agree to differ on those points but you do make a good point about people rushing to judgement when it comes to football. Because the sport is so competitive and the craving for success is so intense, the industry can be brutal and people often won't have the time to achieve their aims. We see that on an almost daily basis in this game whether we're talking about boards, coaches, personnel and players.

Thanks goodoil. You've made a good case but in justifying his record I don't think it's fair to juggle the selections in 2008 to support a better outcome. We were wooden spooners that year and had a priority pick so in order to assess them you have to take them as they came out. The reality is that leaving pick 1 aside, the next four were all ordinary picks that ignored better credentialled recruits across the board and Jurrah and McKenzie fell into place in the PSD and rookie draft. The fact that the Scully pick has resulted in us getting the benefit of a much delayed compensation bonus doesn't speak to the efficacy of his drafting prowess. As I mentioned in my earlier post, his best effort came in 2010 when after completely stuffing up pick 12, he finished with a 50% success rate. He had a bad rap in 2011 because he lost the first pick (but had minimal input in Clark's recruitment) and the rest of his picks were in the speculative zone. Even then, that's what recruiters have to deal with - sometimes you get the early picks and sometimes you don't. I think his "wins" were definitely Howe and McDonald but he still comes out on the negative side of the ledger. And yes, I agree that the Hawks and the Swans have had their share of recruiting failures but they've also had more rolled gold successes as well. Prendergast still gets the thumbs down from me.

You forgot to remind me about the banana fritters.

Thanks for that. As much as I was appalled by some of the tactics of propaganda and misinformation about AOD9604 adopted on AFL360 by both Robinson and Whateley, Mark Davis' attack on them in his column is way over the top. Interesting that he's also had a dip at Demetriou about the AFL chief having a giggle about the dwarf incident.

I'm not sure but there is a possibility of a breach of the Telecommunications Act. However, if that was the case then Demetriou would be going elsewhere than to Robinson's employers. The complaint is possibly more likely to be about an alleged breach of journalistic ethics or protocols in place between the AFL and the media.

The article is about an investigation being carried out by the Herald & Weekly Times into whether Robinson played a recorded telephone conversation between Demetriou and himself to other sporting and media figures. The conversation centred on questions Robinson put to Demetriou about the Essendon doping scandal and in particular about an allegation that he tipped off former Bombers chairman David Evans before the club "self-reported" for the use of performance-enhancing drugs (the allegations have been denied by both Demetriou and Evans. The tape, which allegedly contained threats and expletives from Demetriou, has been destroyed. Robinson has denied playing the tape to others and it appears that the investigation (undertaken by Adrian Anderson) has not uncovered any evidence that the journalist shared any of the information on the tape as claimed.

Anyone know what these tweets from the HUN's chief football writer are about? Not as if Robbo hasn't been involved in enough controversy this weekend: AFL boss says journo shared tape of expletive-riddled tirade

... and a special award for the first report that says player zz is training the house down.

Oh well, I think I must have offended our friend the big frog. This thread is such a cut throat business. Redleg. I think we're off to Chinese for dinner tonight. Remind me to order banana fritters for desert.

We know that recruiting is an inexact science but if the best BP could come up with was a 50% "success" rate after three years then it's nowhere near good enough. He really had to do better with his first pick in 2010 because, although punters like me might have been satisfied with the AA CHF, from information and intelligence apparently available to people in the recruiting industry, some aspects of Cook's psychological make up were overlooked and he should never have been taken with pick 12.Add this to the number of other fails with his early draft picks, one can only conclude, that this bloke was a disaster (and that's without taking into account what has to be regarded as the hostile evidence he was said to have given to the tanking enquiry and stories of poor interreaction with other staff). A club's recruiting people are said to be every bit as important as the coach so I think Chelly had every right to question how it was that this bloke was appointed in the first place.

I know I've said they shouldn't be read but here's another Phantom Draft. This one's by Paige Cardona

I think he's already well into that if you take note of what Roos has brought into the club in terms of the coach and his assistants and who we've picked up in trading and who we've let go. The blow outs predominantly come from our poor midfield set ups and personnel. Opposition teams will no longer be able to waltz out of the middle without a hint of pressure on their tails. That was what happened often last year, particularly when we tired and had players without the necessary physical and mental attributes to run all day in the middle. Although hardly used in a midfield role at Melbourne last year, James Magner is one of those players who, whilst having the ability to get the pill, doesn't have the necessary skill sets to play a meaningful role in the midfield. Neeld communicated that to him but I don't think Jimmy quite got it and if, as reported, Chocco Royal told him otherwise, it speaks for that person's credentials as a modern day midfield coach. I don't think we're going to see more blow outs this year even though we will most probably need at least a full year under the new regime to get the ship in order.

OK. I'll go with the big draft rumour of the day. Rumour has it that after taking advice from the club's consultant on draft matters, a Mr. Prendergast, Melbourne will pass on pick 9 due to a lack of suitable candidates for the position. The following potential candidates were considered but found unworthy:- Acres - concern over shoulder injury Aish - too outside Billings - probably out of our reach Bontempelli - tall for a mid and might not fit the bill Boyd - can't fit him into the side Crouch - lacks the necessary athleticism Dunstan - one sided, poor disposer of the ball Freeman - query by some on disposal Garlett - too much of a behavioural risk Hartung - too small Kelly - definitely out of our reach Kolodjashnij - name too hard to pronounce Lennon - tested poorly and not really a midfielder, more a half forward Rioli - too fat Salem - didn't do enough at national carnival Scharenberg - a utility, not a mid Sheed - one paced and doesn't tackle enough Taylor - midget, no defensive game No decision has been made as yet as to whether the club would utilise pick 40 (which of course, now becomes pick 39).

You do realise that as a current guest of Her Majesty at Port Phillip, Vanderlay is the only draft candidate who is truly "inside"?

The comment by Apocalypse XXXI about one of this year's draft prospects doing pre season training with Richmond raises the matter of the AFL's permission to train list which comes out every year around this time and gets changed on a regular basis until after the drafts are done and dusted. I suppose these things need to be done officially and clubs want to look more closely at potential players but I wonder if it's all really worth the trouble? How many of these blokes actually end up being drafted at the club they train with? What do clubs do about protecting their intellectual property (tactics, player positions etc.) during the period? And then you get situations like the one we had last year where Jack Hannath spent time at the club, was set to become a Demon and then discovered the Dockers came over the top and drafted him. Understand that this was part of the system and, with hindsight could have picked him up in the PSD if we had the space given up by taking Tom Gillies, but I do raise it as an issue with this period of pre season training.