Its Time for Another

Watts stated that his agent was o/s on a break and on his return he thought his contract would get sorted. I seem to remember hearing a similar thing about Hogan who has the same agent as Jack Martin who has extended with Gold Coast and was the other U17 signed at the same time as Hogan.

Very surprised more haven't raised this prospect before. If you were Roos and you had the opportunity to walk into Essendon with where they are at or walk into Dees which would you take. You wouldn't know the answer to that until you knew the outcome of the investigation. If half the list gets banned for 6mths you might not take it but on the other hand the Club is very strong, stable, heaps of resources a very good list on the verge and low expectations for next year if they get hit with sanctions. I would say he's very comfortable where he's at now unless something very enticing comes up. MFC wouldn't be enticing right now. No Board, No Footy Dept Head, No List Manager, No midfield, Questionable financial viability. I'd say he and probably the others being discussed would sit back and wait before they even consider it. See if there is going to be a decent Board appointed who have enough knowledge to help the Coach and team become successful. See who PJ appoints as Footy Dept Head and List Manager. They could appoint people he or the others can 't work with for some reason. Who knows. But you'd think they would all sit back and see who gets appointed to all those roles before making any decision. Interesting Corey McKernon on Open Mike said last night he should have left Carlton as soon as he found out that Pagan was appointed as coach. This might well apply to some of the appointments being made and some of the coaching prospects. Who knows. As for Williams. A complete nut job as far as I'm concerned. Neeld has shown that the role of a development coach is very different to a Head Coach. His first actions on winning a Premiership were to jump up and make a derogatory gesture directed at the team's main sponsor. He decided to announce Dean Bailey as MFC's next coach instead of allowing the MFC to do it. Bizarre, unprofessional, irrational behaviour. Says it all as far as I'm concerned. No Williams for me.

This is absolute crap. He walked into a team that had just had 6 key players retire including Paul Kelly, Andrew Dunkley, Troy Luff, etc etc. They had at best, a very workman like midfield against arguably the greatest of all time at WC and manufactured a Premiership.

I booked a trip up there in Feb when I was foolishly optimistic about this season. Went anyway. Had great time other than the game. Dawes was incredibly disappointing. He can't hold a mark to save himself. Seems to be too slow to get enough of a break on his opponent to take a mark so that it can't be punched away. By coincidence I sat next to the GWS forward scout at the airport the next day, his comment was that Dawes can't hold a mark and looks slow. He's had plenty of game time to be match fit by now. After seeing him live I'm beginning to have my doubts. If Clark comes good next year and Hogan and Howe are in there and Fitzy keeps improving why did they recruit Dawes at all and for way more money than anyone in the industry thought he was worth. More list management nightmares perhaps.

And he's about to have at least 2 more at WC, assuming he lasts beyond this year.

Kiss of Death!

There has been comments in the press saying that Viney and Neeld were arguing over last year's draft. Do you know what that was about.

I agree for the long term this is probably more important than the list. But this Club is dead in the water in every respect until the team becomes competitive and that will only happen with an improved list. Hopefully with the right people in place the right recruiting decisions will be made and we'll start climbing out of this hole. In the meantime the Club should be on a life support footing. There's not much point having people working on commercial, sponsorships, community relationships, memberships while the team is this unattractive. I'd put all that money into the Football Dept until it is competitive and then worry about everything else.

Like what?

I'm not sure what the disorder is but there definitely is one.

Eade is another nut job. Rumour has it that he had alienated the Swans playing group so much that Paul Kelly, no less, went to the Board and said it's him or me. When Roosy started coaching he said he had a notebook he had compiled while a player that had all the things in it he wanted to remind himself not to do if he ever coached. You can rest assured a lot of them came from Eade. He used to scream and players and humiliate them in front of the playing group. Didn't get anywhere with the Dogs. Not an inspired development coach. A great tactician with an experienced playing group which he wouldn't have at the Dees.

I doubt Roosy would be too concerned he would be doing any damage to the Swans over the next 3-5 years by coaching against them.

I wonder if the Club ultimately paid overs for Dawes and Clark in the long term. I suspect it is more like they were effectively paid a front loaded signing bonus for the first couple of years and then the back end of their contracts for the last couple of years will be what they should be paid going forward. If the money was there and there was plenty of room in the salary cap what was there to lose by paying overs in the first year or 2. It meant we got two players we wouldn't have got otherwise. Other teams needed them as much as we did and we beat them to them. Journo's can say what they like but they have no idea of the intricacies of the needs on each list. Dawes value is worth a lot more to MFC at the moment than it would be to other clubs who don't need key position players. So who says we paid overs. I bet Carltank wish they had the salary cap to get him at whatever the cost. He would have been worth even more to them than us.

Point 3. List isn't as bad as it's performing. We have MIsson and the facilities to build a list. A lot of the culling has already happened. A priority pick would be a great help but I don't have any evidence we'll get one. We need 5. We need ready made midfielders not more kids. We have the money but someone like Roosy might get some over the line.

Wait and see what happens this weekend.

You're probably close to the mark. I hadn't thought about it but his 6mths ends 1 Nov. That's too late for any major decisions about the footy department. Eg replacing the coaches or any other staff. So who is going to make those calls and when. If he doesn't make them while at the Club when are they going to be made. It will be too late if a new CEO is appointed over the summer. Can the coach survive if they are still playing like they are now by the end of the year. What is Jackson going to do about that. He can't do nothing. Also going to be interesting to see what happens with the Board. I'd be surprised if there isn't a new ticket seeking to be elected. I read a rumour somewhere about Greg Wells putting a ticket together. I wouldn't think there will just be a smooth transfer to McLardy's preferred successor. How will that all play out with Jackson who is only in an interim position.

We should be hearing about this in the Press instead of those booing, spitting supporters. But of course we won't.

Were they playing in the middle of that hurricane. Now that would be exciting to watch.

Know what you mean. We can only but hope that the new facilities and the huge resources in the FD now will make sure that the lost development won't happen anymore. No matter how Neeld goes between him and Craig and Misson they seem to have the knowledge of how to set up a modern FD and what the competition wide benchmarks are to achieve success. I haven't had the confidence in that for a very long time. Probably not since Barassi and it took 7yrs for the Barassi 5yr plan to bite in '87 and he was long gone by then.

Wrong back at you. If Buddy hadn't missed 3 of those very gettable goals the Hawks would have won. He had an off day. Just like Sydney in '06 when Hall had an off day and missed a couple of sitters. They both were unstoppable at the critical moments but missed their opportunities. If they had got them they would have been the difference. Hall was the difference in '05 when he had an on day and kicked 3 clutch goals and they won. It took Hall probably 2-3 yrs to recover from his performance in '06 and he ended up changing clubs. Buddy's first game on the weekend apparently was a bit of a shocker. Wonder if the same thing will happen to him this year and he'll move on.

Thus Neeld's comment when Hogan was drafted that he was a player you could build a team around. Elite mids and goal kicking mids are worth their weight in gold but have a look how many of them there are in each year's draft and how many there are in the league compared to elite key position players like Hogan. Say no more.

Our midfield isn't going to be B Grade in a few years time with the players we already have. We will still probably have top 5 draft picks for the next two drafts so plenty of opportunity to pick up some more A grade mids. Key Position players are a rarity. i'd take one as good as Hogan over any mid any day of the week. It's very evident over the past 7 or so GF's that if you don't have the forwards to kick goals when you get the opportunity you don't win. Doesn't matter how good or bad your midfield is.

I wouldn't complain if that was his contribution with the same impact in our next GF

Hope you are right WJ. I must admit I'd much rather just be talking about footy. Bring it on. I suspect we've got one more year of pain to go on field before we start to turn that corner. Let's hope Neeldie gets to coach a Club that doesn't have crap going on off field on a permanent basis like since he arrived.

I don't know about the rest of you but I'm really appreciating Demonland at the moment. I am isolated in Sydney with very few people to talk footy with, little own, Dee's supporters. It is a great comfort to get on here and read so many posters who are thinking exactly what I'm thinking. I don't have a lot to add on this topic that hasn't already been said. But I have been thinking about the outcome of this latest investigation. Their powers include the ability to have offices of an entity removed. As the evidence apparently only leads to Connolly, who is no longer involved in the FD and Bailey, who is no longer at the Club. I suggest they may decide that the perpetrators are gone so the need to remove the licences has gone, so no loss of licences. I don't know if they have the power to fine the Club but I suspect loss of gaming machines would be pretty extreme. If that is the consequence the Club may not last the year. As I have posted elsewhere. I don't know the impact on the valuation of the Bentleigh Club if the licences were lost but I would imagine it could be in danger of being worth less than the debt sitting on it. And that debt was being paid for by the pokies. If they go the Club might be insolvent as soon as they are taken away. That would force the Directors to close the doors immediately or they would be personally liable for all the debts of the club after that time. I have no idea about what the Gaming Authority has done in the past but here's hoping it doesn't get to that and they decide at worse it was related to two people who aren't involved in football at the Club anymore.