Whispering_Jack

Never out and can't wait for the tide to turn.

That's not entirely true either. My information straight from Gutnick's mouth at the time is that it was for something entirely different.

That's not a "fact", rather it's a complete fallacy. By the time James McDonald "retired", there were no players recruited from Schwab's first stint still at the club. Brad Green (the next captain after Junior) was recruited to the club at the end of 1999 by which time Schwab was gone. We had an entire decade during the Daniher/Bailey years to develop leaders. During the intervening time the CEO's were John Anderson, Ray Ellis, John Phillips (temporary), Steve Harris and Paul McNamee. Of that lot, only Anderson and Phillips were any good but if you're relying on the CEO and not the coaches to develop on field leaders then blame them and don't revise or distort history.

Aren't the Bombers training at their new facility at the back of some industrial estate in the north western suburbs and a fair distance away from Windy Hill?

Why stop at 4 points?There's percentage and if Angus Monfries, now of Port, crossed the road from Windy Hill to that "studio" where it was all happening while the federal crime authorities were carrying out their surveillance, we might get the 4 points back from the Port Adelaide game.

Tanking culture - I would suggest that many of us supported whatever it was we did in 2009 albeit with great reluctance believing it would benefit the club in the long run as it did with Hawthorn (Roughead & Franklin), Collingwood (Pendlebury & Thomas), Carlton (Murphy, Gibbs, Kreuzer & ultimately Judd) & Richmond (Cotchin) before us. You can go back further if you like. It could be fair to say that the club's now feeling the effects of the AFL's selection of us alone as the patsy that has something to do with our current malaise but it wasn't Schwab who precipitated that, allowed it to go 7 months or encouraged disaffected ex-employees to come forward with their stories.Junior Mac was let go at 33 years of age. It was a match committee decision instigated by Dean Bailey. If there was a leadership void after that happened, the fault lay with poor recruiting and development from long before Schwab's return. Moloney was no leader - he confessed to having an alcohol problem after he was caught out having a night on the p1ss. As for Rivers - give us all a break but he was never going to be a leader. I would add that in my view our current problems are not related to the talent on the list. We are every bit as talented as Port Adelaide and we beat Essendon last year. The problem lies with the attitude of the playing group and its interaction with the club and the coach. I'm not denying that some of that might involve their relationship with the board and/or the CEO and administration. None of us mere punters who follow the club can be entirely certain on that issue (and I won't accept hearsay on hearsay and glib little second hand anecdotes from dubious sources) but the answers need to be found swiftly and the matter needs to be dealt with decisively.

Really? I seem to recall that in between Schwab leaving the Dockers and last year when they made the finals under Ross Lyon, they also sacked a coach because he wasn't getting them up to being a consistent finals team.

It's pretty obvious that the change will not come from changing personnel but rather from changing their collective attitude. The problem ATM is what's in between their ears. I'm not sure any more as to whether it's within the coach's capacity to effect that change.

Not idiotic. Just a lose/lose scenario. Happens sometimes.

That the club needs unity is obvious. It's a vital ingredient for a successful club and one that's been missing at ours for a long time. On and off for nearly 50 years. Nice sentiments in the OP. I'm not sure how to achieve it but I know for sure that a slash and burn approach won't help either. We need constructive thinking and not some of the destructive things that have proliferated on this site. I don't know what we should be ashamed of more - the abysmal performance of the team or the conduct and behaviour of some of our club's so called supporters.

Kim Hagdorn wrote an article for the SportsNewsFirst site - Neeld admits he's at a loss. He makes no mention of the alleged altercation even though he could if he believes that it happened. Therefore, I'm treating it as an unconfirmed rumour of the nasty type put out in the public arena by people who might not have the club's better interests at heart. Therefore, I'm closing this thread pending independent confirmation that it actually happened.

You shouldn't have any fear putting your own money into it then.

There's a game on tonight?

Yes, much of what's there is capable of differing interpretation depending on where you stand in all of this. Plus there are lots of other factors that come into play. But if we are going to sack the lot of them then what next?

I'm not sure what the percentage figure means but it confirms what we all saw last Sunday - a team that was slow both physically and in thought processes and reaction and no better exemplified by James Frawley who used to be good in both areas.

I like this and I'm sure the club will find plenty of fans with the $'s to put in for such a fantastic experience. I would go further and turn the whole event into a reality TV show along the lines of the Kardashians* and also introduce other novelty experiences like dinner with the Schwabs' which would be popular with some segments of the Demon supporting clan. You could get the experts from My Kitchen Rules* to judge the standard of cooking. Great idea and it should make back the $500k ripped off us recently by the AFL in no time. * no I don't watch these shows but they do provide part of the background noise when the wife does!

Doesn't this belong in the Drug Scandal - Essendon, Cronulla etc thread?

I don't believe Blistering was trotting out any excuses for Watts but rather, called for him and the whole team to extract the digit and do so on a regular basis. Watts actually did that when sent down back in mid season last year. Like most of the team he had a bad one last week and has copped a pasting which he deserved. Let's see how he responds.

After picking just 2 winners last week I'm supremely confident of making a comeback in this round. I haven't gone as far as tipping Melbourne to beat Essendon but even if we lose, we'll be in good company with the likes of St. Kilda, Carlton, Hawthorn, Brisbane and of course, GWS. If we happen to win by some miracle and Carlton lose, I might send a message to McLure on SEN asking him to call for Mick and Sticks to go.

It just shows how firmly we are in the grip of sports scientists these days. It appears that players are allocated their time on and off the ground and it seems to be set in stone. I'm of the old school that says that if someone's "on fire" you should try to avoid taking him off as much as possible in case you upset the rhythm of the team and the individual. Not only that but when Clark kicked that second goal, the opposition coaching bench would have been placed in a position of giving some thought to how to combat him and whether to make some moves in order to achieve that aim - moves might well have had a detrimental effect on Port. By taking Clark off, we removed that possibility, they kicked the next goal and Clark's two goals soon became mere blips on the radar rather than part of a strong recovery from a poor start. I also wonder about how coaches discipline players for making errors and departing from the game plan these days. At other times and in the more junior codes, you do it by "dragging" the players off the ground and giving it to them with both barrels. If a player drops his head like Pedersen or does a double fisted punch like Nicholson, how do you get the message across to them (yes I recognise they probably know immediately and there's nowhere to hide on the G). Perhaps the new fangled psychology goes with all this scientific methodology and demands that we shouldn't upset or traumatise the highly paid boys lest they break down in a screaming heap entirely?

Is Caro writing on the subject again?

You've been lucky P_Man. You and your dad had a special relationship - a bond involving your footy team. I didn't have that. My father was a soccer fan but felt that sport was mainly rubbish. I couldn't even play in my early teens but I managed to sneak away one season under the guise of taking guitar lessons (he could never figure out why I was such a shyzen guitarist after all that). I now go with both sons and two grandsons. We're all dedicated fans even after Sunday's game which matched the standard of my guitar playing. Condolences - I salute your dad and all fellow Demons.

Apologies.I forgot to add "hypocrite". Now do us all a favour and stay on topic.

I think Nutbean has succinctly responded to the gibberish above. Sniping, embarassing, foolish. Yep, you're all that and more. Cheers

Never mind about picking on other posters, hear me out on this. You infer that I had some ulterior motive in merging a number of repeat subject threads by claiming that you hadn't come across complaints about them other than here in this thread. Bollocks. I won't labour over the complaints by posters in various other threads that sprung up over the course of this week - you can look for them yourself if you're really more diligent and capable of finding things than blistering as you claim. It took me about one minute to find one example - Then there are comments scattered around the threads to the effect of "for this you need to start a new thread?" and people who have sent me personal messages and others who I have spoken with personally. You obviously missed them all. As a moderator I have a responsibility to everyone on the site and not just opportunists like you who come here selectively and do nothing constructive but carp and criticise the efforts of others. You can question me over my attempts to moderate this site but your log suggests that once the tanking furore ended in February, you didn't post until after Sunday's game which leads me to conclude that you're the one with the ulterior motive, zero credibility and a bucket load of gall.