Its Time for Another

Just had to add an extra post so it is the 7,000th post on this thread. OMG

And this is on this thread because

His fall in form was caused by being an onballer who has to run all day who missed the whole preseason while he was on a modified program due to an achilles injury. Then had groin injuries during the season which have not been operated on post season. Not sure what that means for this pre season. Without a fitness base he will always struggle. With it he will be a weapon.

Right now, the Club needs wins more than making money at the Gate. The psychie of this team has to be fixed with a few early wins, otherwise it will stay in the black hole dug for it over the past couple of years. Get a couple of wins, team starts to believe in itself, supporters start coming, sponsors start coming on board, we get a better fixture. I say take the wins and suck up the commercial pain this year.

Just can't comprehend this. Give us an even break for promoting the game. But oh no, screwed again. Makes no sense.

Pretty impressive list. Just shows you the lack of science in recruiting or they all would have been much higher.

For the past three years leading up to round one I've said the same thing. "At least we won't be as bad as last year." I'm not going to say that anymore even with the Messiah at the helm. Players will be learning the 7th new game plan in 7yrs. Plus around 7 players they haven't played with before. It will take time. I have very low expectations for the first round, especially after the past two years. I don't want to feel that gutted again when I think they might have a win first up. If they do I'll be ecstatic but I'm not going to expect it next season.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that Port are going to do heat training like we did last per season & Burgess is proving to be a guru. So maybe something in it.

I know a bunch of the kids in these videos. One group is U12's the other U14's. If he can do this with kids that age what is he going to do for our guys.

Spoke to a certain development coach about his trade. Said it was because of attitude issues. So it's won't. And I would say Nth found that out this year. There will be no way in the world he will be rookied by D's.

Towers hasn't played yet. Hvroat showed a bit. I hope we're right about Dawes.

I don't agree. The Pies drafted Broomhead with the pick we gave up for him. Ever heard of him? If you look at the next 7 or so players in that draft who we could have picked I haven't heard of any of them doing anything this year. A pick is only worth who you can get with it. A point Mr Barrett will clearly never understand. If Dawes gets over his injuries he could well still prove to be the best option with that pick.

Roosy on OTC last year said that all the fitness work is done pre Christmas and if a player missed that training they never recovered the fitness base for the year. He came in with that knee problem he got before last year's finals and clearly was hampered by it ever since. Hopefully this is the same problem and they will fix it this time. One injury often leads to others, so lets hope that's the case here and fixing the knee will stop other injuries. Better to get it all fixed than keep having ongoing injury issues, even if it means a lack of a fitness base. He will probably stay home deep in the forward line next year with Hogan doing more of the running up field as he did at Casey this year. So won't be as critical as it would even have been this year. Certainly not as critical as a midfielder or other runner.

OMG!!! I have been loving reading this forum about the trade rumours etc. Please oh please stop hijacking it to troll back over the Scully crap we've all written and vented a thousand times before. There's still another thread eslewhere for that. Don't ruin a great forum.

Man Oh Man!! This trade would mark the official end of the Norm Smith Curse if it comes off. I can't see it happening but I'm going to be smiling at the thought all the way until 2pm on Friday. That's a lot of smiling for this old Dees Supporter. And if it doesn't happen I'll still be smiling at what they've achieved already. If it was to happen they will definitely be in for a ruckman. Who would you rather lose Spencil or the Russian. I reckon I'd rather have a fit Russian helping out for the next two years. He's a better ruckman then Spencil and by then Gawn Dog will be in full cry. I don't think Spencil is going to get much better and he'd be good for them as he's young and more importantly cheap. I wouldn't want to give up Howe or Toumpas. They are the future. But on the other hand I live in Sydney and wouldn't mind watching Howe every week. But on the other hand it would kill me not seeing him with the Dees. Ah life, it's so complicated.

Point was in response to question of why he isn't talking out loud at the moment. Answer, because he doesn't officially start as Coach until 1 November. Doesn't mean he isn't working away behind the scenes but does explain lack of public statements. Mind you, I don't hear any other coaches speaking during trade week either. So not a big deal. But he didn't LOSE.

Haven't heard this mentioned anywhere else including Trade Radio which just started at 3pm.

Wrong. He doesn't start in an official capacity until 1 November. He has had other contractual obligations stopping him from officially starting till then. That hasn't stopped him from being involved eg the trip to Perth reported in the papers but not in an official capacity. So he can't comment officially until his job starts on 1 Nov.

This isn't all it seems. He is one of the absolute top individual development coaches, specifically around skills. He had Kennelly living with him when he first went to the Swans and drilled him non stop for a couple of years and we all know the result. I would say this is his greatest skill. He hasn't done any game day coaching for over 10 yrs and even before that did more analysis work than actual coaching. What's happened here is that the plan was to have Dew doing this coaching role and Stone was going to probably head up development with his peerless skills development. Because Dew has fallen through they have thrust him into a game day role because he worked so closely with Roos in the past but not as a game day coach. Not sure this is as great a result as it sounds. He's been a long, long, time out of this level of the game and the midfield is where most of the strategic changes have been happening. This clearly indicates the succession plan is dead for the first year of Roosy's reign. I assume this means Roosy must already be looking to a 3yr stint not 2 anymore. Maybe with a great year of improvement next year he might get his appetite back and it will turn into 5yrs and another exclamation on top of the Premiership dias. "HERE IT IS!!!!"

As I understand it, Neeld etc created a questionnaire with something like 15 criteria for a Captain and everyone had to give a score out of 10. They then added up the scores and the two Jack's ended up with the equal amount of most scores. On that basis he appointed them. I'm not disputing that was the process or anyone lied about it. The point is, he created that process and has to take responsibility for it. What he should have done IMHO is done that as one part of the process and then had the coaches make the decision. This is what Roos and the Swans do with Leading Teams. The Jack's clearly tick all the boxes personality wise etc but you couldn't say that either of them had earnt the role at that stage on the basis of their playing careers and surely that should have been one of the main criteria. Trengove was clearly too young and inexperienced and didn't have nearly enough playing experience. Grimes might have been old enough but also didn't have enough playing runs on the board for the role at that time. No reflection on either of them. It clearly effected both of them adversely and they were both put in an impossible position trying to lead by example in a team in a complete melt down mode while still learning how to play themselves. They just didn't have the experience for it and Neeld has to take the blame for that squarely on his shoulders.

Agree with most of this. His role as Neeld's mentor appears to have been an unworkable position. It was set up with a complete conflict between his role to support and develop Neeld and his other role which was to act on behalf of the Club in overseeing Neeld. I asked him about his role before the Sydney game last year and he said Neeld had done things he had advised him not to do. He didn't say what that was but I'm guessing appointing Trengove as Captain would have been one. Clearly Neeld's behaviour lost the players, I've been told from day one. What was Craig supposed to do about that. Support and Develop Neeld day to day but go to the Board and say this bloke is not up to it. It obviously didn't work, we know that now. But maybe it was never going to work through no fault of his own. I'm sure as he has a contract at Essendon now that MFC wouldn't have paid out his full contract. I'd be guessing they would be paying the difference between the contracts if he is getting less at Essendon. Essendon have limitless amounts of money for Football Dept spending so they can afford to have Craig doing whatever he is doing. We have very limited amounts of money and in order to pay Roos overs have had to cut back on many positions in the FD. We couldn't have afforded to keep Craig and I'm sure they didn't have to pay out his whole contract. Roos will be doing his role anyway. Frankly as much as I think very highly of Craigy I'd rather have Roos mentoring his successor. Personally I wish Craigy the absolute best. From what I've seen his contribution to all areas of the culture of the club was enormous. Eg I remember photos of him turning up to the dawn ANZAC service with some of the players amongst masses of extra's he contributed to the Club. He deserves to be treated well.

Nasher, Demonland, thought it was about time I put my money where my keyboard is. Just signed up for a Lifetime Membership. Least I can do after 7yrs of your much appreciated hard work by you guys.

Just to clarify. He is a Swans Academy player not a NSW Scholarship player. About 5 years ago the AFL set up an inducement for the Swans and Brisbane to put a big investment into the Greater Sydney region and the equivalent for the Brians in Qld to identify and develop young school age players I believe as young as U9's from areas where there should be lots of talented players but who have no contact with AFL and therefore go to Rugby etc. The inducement was if they trained them up in their Academy they could have them with their last draft picks. As an example the Swans paid Roosy according to that article $300,000 a year for the past 3 yrs and a bunch of other coaches and staff to train over 500 juniors through the Academy in the hope that at the end of that enormous investment of money, resources and time they might pick up a player. I don't believe they have picked up one yet out of probably over 1000 players who have gone through the Academy. So if Perris is one of the first, or "the" first it isn't surprising that the Swans are just a bit [censored] that the guy they paid $300,000 a year to oversee their investment, right at the end when it's about to bear it's first player, try's to knock the player off. This system is entirely different to the NSW Scholarship system which doesnt' involve this type of investment. Personally I find it hard to believe that someone of Roosy's calibre would do this. I find it much more likely that the scenario above is correct and the player has already said he won't accept going on the Swan's rookie list and on that basis Roosy has then said to him, he might be interested in taking him at Melbourne. Colless has probably got this wrong. If he goes into the Draft and he is an untried Swans Academy player, I'm not sure what pick we would give up for him and whether some other team would get him before us anyway. Roos can't control that. So the inducement is hardly saying to him just agree to come to us and we'll take you.

And he got rid of Davis and Hall while they were still seasons away from needing to retire. As far as I am aware Shaw was never a DH issue and Everitt only played a handful of games because of injury and form. But he wasn't a Dusty off field.

That makes sense. NOT!! There was an article in the last week saying two St Kilda players have just cancelled a planned trip to Las Vegas with Martin after Watters told them it wasn't on. Especially after the problems created by the setting the dwarf on fire incident. I would have thought Dusty would be the last player on St Kilda's mind with all their current and ongoing off field problems.