Whispering_Jack

I'm not so well informed but I don't think this means curtains for Tim Harrington because PJ said he was happy with our 2012 recruiting. I don't think our last two recruiting gurus will be invited back any time soon. As to the coaching and football department, I would imagine that over the next six months we're going to see some new faces and perhaps some new positions created and others made redundant. And you can back it in that there will be changes at board level but nothing radical like a former state premier.

No worries Redleg. I assume Briefed is still running at Flemington tomorrow and you're happy with the overnight rain?

Absolute disgrace in today's Herald Sun for Kiss of Death to predict a win to Collingwood on Queens Birthday. This has certainly influenced me to change my mind about the result. KOD never gets it right.

The main impression I got from Peter Jackson was his resolve to address and repair the issues confronting the club. He didn't sign on to the end of 2014 if he thought this couldn't be done. He stressed that it was a club problem and not one that boils down to any particular individual. Jackson said that the structures at football department were not right and he repeated the comment made previously about the CEO having four different people reporting to him and that this was problematic. He said that the club had invested for success but it certainly didn't come this year and was never going to come right away looking at age of the list. He said he didn’t feel the decision to appoint Jack Grimes and Jack Trengove (note PJ – it’s not Trengrove and a repeat will bring a rain of tweets from Supermercado upon you!) was in itself wrong but he asked where were the players like Mitchell or Ling with the experience to support them? Jackson added that the club’s problems go back at least three or four years and are due to poor list management back then. There is therefore no short term immediate fix. He said bringing in some of the older players introduced recently was OK indicating that he understood the need to bring such players into the club for what they could bring with them. He believes that list management is the most important function at a football club. He is confident that the current list and recruiting management is much better than it has been previously and believes we made some very good recruiting decisions in 2012 and will get better. He added that we're a nice football club but we need to be ruthless like Geelong is now compared to how they were around 2005-6. We need to be an elite football organisation that demands success as do clubs like Geelong. On the club’s financial position PJ said that it had made modest profits in recent years but when the wheels fell off at the beginning of the season and crowd numbers fell, it impacted drastically on our financial position. Crowds of 13k v Gold Coast of $28 v Hawthorn (their home game) are not help to our bottom line or those of other clubs. PJ was positive about our ability to turn things around both on and off the ground. We can restructure without impacting on our ability to do business. We do need support and next week he has a meeting with the AFL commission and will present a plan. We have the support of the other clubs which don't want to see any club struggling with crowds as low as 13k. He added there will be an announcement at the weekend about a review of the Board. He finished by saying we were not a basket case and he regarded it as the best challenge in football. Peter Maynard who works in the sponsorship area pointed out the mutual benefits of our partnership with the NT government. Disappointingly, the club's attempt to lure South China Airways to sign a lucrative sponsorship agreement (which was under negotiation for two years) has collapsed. The club only received that news recently after talks stalled in early April.

One of the points made at this morning's Melbourne Business Community Breakfast by CEO Peter Jackson was that the club's financial bottom line is being impaired by poorer attendances than those for which the club had originally budgeted. My view is that those supporters who are therefore shunning the club be it for whatever reason - the team's performance, the president, coach, players, football department, club psychologist, whatever ... it's not really helping the cause and making his role as CEO in restructuring and reviving the club all the more difficult. I know it's a tough gig but we're not always going to be traveling as badly on field as we are at the present time. My view is that you can't claim to be a part of any future success if you don't support your club in times of difficulty. We should be out there in force against Collingwood on Monday.

Spoke at Melbourne Business Community breakfast today. My impressions and some details of his talk to come later ...

They crumble and take spin early

Kennett has just announced the names of two of his running mates, Attila the Hun and Benito Mussolini but i think it's a ploy to make his board look more moderate.

Oy ... we're about to be Jeffed? I'm against it.

Changes passed in Parliament will make Fawad Ahmed eligible to represent the country in the Ashes series. A chance? Fly him over ASAP I say.

I remember Hassa being interviewed on World of Sport when he came down from Merbein. He was a real country boy but he not only made an impact early in his football career, played in a few premierships and captained the side but also rose to important positions in industry. A well deserved award for a brilliant footballer and a great and loyal Demon.

We need to look at where Daniher left us when his coaching stint ended and the fact that he's been out of the coaching caper for so long. Pass.

Pardon me for starting a football thread but ... Here's some great news for fans of Sam Blease of which I am one. Neil Craig is suggesting on The Craig Report that Sam Blease is a chance to play against Collingwood on Queens Birthday after a good display for the Scorpions when he not only was good offensively but also strong in his defensive work. It's an area that Blease has been known to be deficient in the past and it seems that he's finally starting to get on top of it. We really need his pace and smarts around goal in the second half of the season.

Certainly when discussing whether to sack the coach (this week at least). Anyhow, I'm so taken by the genius of the song that I'm going to use it for my preview of the Collingwood game this week. I'm against it.

Just out of interest. Has the Andrews Report been released?

Let's face it, many in the media are inflicted with the same negative tunnel vision mindset that a lot of Demonland posters seem to have adopted in recent times. When it comes to anything to do with the club at the moment, they're reminiscent of the great Groucho Marx playing Professor Quincy Adams Wagstaff in the classic movie Horse Feathers:-

Jarka - this is what I said in the Foundation Heroes thread - you might have missed it:- No further comment is needed.

It's said that those who win wars write their history and this is a clear example of that saying. Cameron Schwab was forced to resign as a result of our abysmal on field performance which most of us around here have identified as being due to a number of factors ranging back some time and encompassing different boards, different ceo's, different coaches and playing groups. He might well be responsible for many of the failings that we now see and he certainly took the responsibility when he accepted the inevitable and resigned but now he is the scapegoat and the bunny responsible for everything. Peter Jackson expressed the view that Schwab's system of having four people report to him was problematic from his viewpoint but that's his way of doing things. It doesn't make what Schwab was doing necessarily bad or evil as some are suggesting. No doubt many systems put into place by Jackson at Essendon are still being used by whoever is in charge there and we've seen how perfectly things are working with the Bombers. Similarly, with some Freo fans allegedly saying bad things about Schwab. Others still recognise that he took them from being a financial basket case and a non entity on the field into a finals side and I doubt they would be the strength they are now without his input at the time. Schwab's gone now. The exercise of reinventing history to satisfy one's bloodlust is truly futile.

Jim Cardwell. Unfortunately passed away more than a decade and a half ago.

At last, we've got them rattled!

After the game you might feel like going for a walk down the street.

Two inside 50s to 11 at the halfway mark of Q1.

I don't think that the MFC plays with a lack of heart as much as with a lack of experience, size and strength. I happen to agree with Mark Neeld when he points to the lack of games in the legs of our inexperienced team compared to the opposition. However, when you get to the VFL, our players actually not only can match it with opposing clubs in terms of talent but also in experience, size and strength. It's no coincidence that Casey's worst performances occur when it has less MFC listed players as it did a fortnight ago against the Box Hill Hawks when they were down to 10 (or 11 if you count Jesse Hogan). At other times, the number has been up as high as 15 or 16. On the basis that you're only as good as your bottom six players, this definitely makes a difference with regard to the structure of a VFL team and its capacity to win games. What critics of the alignment often fail to understand is that because the MFC has been performing poorly and has had high injury numbers in recent years, we have a higher turnover of players between AFL & VFL teams meaning we get less players qualified for the VFL finals (because they have played more than the required numbers at the more senior level). When you then have a few players who have to go for early surgery to ensure they have a decent pre season the following year (eg Fitzpatrick & Spencer last year) the armchair critics whose understanding of what's going on is only superficial, squeal like stuck pigs that the relationship must therefore be dysfunctional. If the Firtzpatricks and Spencers of the world missed out on a substantial slab of their preseason because they delayed their surgery, the naysayers would be complaining as well. As far as keeping your promising young players down in the VFL is concerned, I think that's fine to an extent but eventually they need to be rewarded if they continually show good form. I think things will improve after the AFL bye and that the make up of the team will gradually change for the better with the return of some of the better players from injury and the elevation of others currently earning the keep at VFL level.

I looked at the VFL ladder this morning and noticed that the Casey Scorpions are on top. That might be a bit misleading because some teams have played one game less because of the bye and the uncompleted round. Casey were also the minor premiers last year. I only wish that the effect of the alleged dysfunctionality on the Melbourne Football Club was the same as it is for the Casey Scorpions.

Essendon is a "well cultured" club?