Bonkers

I heard on the radio today that the interchange free kick against the Cats in the last quarter also shouldn't have been paid. There's been a few doozies in the last two weeks of footy, none more baffling than the two awarded to Sydney for rushed behinds today & last week.

Coaching is about man management more than anything else. AFL isn't like sports like soccer where you can ship in & out players by transfer all in one, you have to work with what you have. When there is a problem with performance it's a lot easier to get rid of one coach than 20 players. If you can't man manage the majority of your playing list to get the best out of them the coach is the one to go usually not the players. If Roos or Lethal came in & did the same thing as what Mark Neeld did then we would have the same result, the thing is Roos or Lethal wouldn't be that stupid. Grant Thomas wrote an article on Neeld before his first game against Brisbane last year, in it he stated Mark Neeld may be the first & only coach to have ever lost his playing group before they've even played a game. At the time I thought typical Thomas dribble, but on reflection he was right. I don't think Roos or Lethal could or would ever do that.

Taken from the article "Drain has previously worked for Essendon, the Western Bulldogs and St Kilda at the top end, as either general manager of football operations, list manager or high-performance manager. He worked alongside Kevin Sheedy at Windy Hill between 1999 and 2002 when Jackson was Bombers chief executive." It sounds like a pretty solid rumour to me. Isn't it why we are here to speculate & discuss current issues regarding the club? It's no different to discussing Roos IMO.

There are strong rumours that Jackson has approached Matthew Drain to take the position of GMFO (general manager of football operations) according to Tony Sheahan & Greg Denham. He was formerly the head of football at Essendon during their last flag. I'm not sure if its been posted here already but Denham wrote an article about it 2 weeks ago. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/afl/experienced-administrator-matthew-drain-could-head-melbournes-football-department/story-fnca0u4y-1226660996530

Preaching to the converted mate. However if the club goes down that route again I'd like a better return from the players they pick up.

Were they Neeld's or Vineys? Also the recycled players from Afl clubs are probably fails at this stage.

Well said. I'm hoping that he will gain a yard of pace after he has a full preseason. Hip operation recovery is probably still impeding his running.

To say that Roos has been out of football is incorrect. He has been running the Swans football academy since he stepped down as coach. He may not be an assistant currently but the principles of footy will never change, game styles & tactics which can be adaptable however will.

IMO Neeld's defensive game plan sapped them of any confidence they once had. It's all well and good to say premierships are built on defense but when your a developing side copping floggings every week the players needed to feel good about something. I'm hoping Craig lets them attack & to try & kick a large score rather than focusing too much on structures. They will make mistakes but at least the players will have the chance to express their natural ability & hopefully enjoy playing the game.

That's right & in reality what we are asking/receiving is probably more than 3 Mill. It looks as tho they choose our coach, give us draft concessions & choose the board. The coach & CEO alone are probably going to cost the club 1.5 -2mil mil a year. We are facing a 3mil deficit this year so without the AFL's help we'd be looking vulnerable going into next season & wouldn't be able to pay for any of this re-structuring. We don't have much of a choice unless we want a bargain basement coach & CEO or the supporters want to shell up some of their hard earned again.

That argument is just plain wrong. Williams won a flag at a club which was new to the AFL. Sydney hadn't won a flag in something like 70 years when Roos took them to the top. Malthouse perhaps is half correct but Collingwood was a basket case when he arrived.We should be looking at candidates that we can build a club around & have vision past there own tenure in the hot seat which Roos has shown at Sydney by creating a great culture & continued success through never bottoming out for draft picks. Whilst Eade is a proven coach I'm not sure he would leave any sort of legacy at the club after his tenure ends.

Hypothetically the two positions would be President & Football Director. If we can pay Craig 400k to be director of Sports performance then why not absolve that role & pay someone like Parkin to be Football director. I'm tipping you could pay the presidents position less as there will be candidates willing to do it for free, however the paid position will allow them to invest their efforts full time.

Open letter from Jeff http://mobile.news.com.au/national-news/victoria/commission-needed-to-help-fix-melbourne-football-club/story-fnii5sd6-1226665870958 DEAR Melbourne Football Club members, With a few exceptions, you have been denied football satisfaction for more than 30 years. None of us can buy back time. We can learn from our experience, but we can only influence the future. And we need to exert that influence because the Melbourne Football Club requires a new agenda, a new energy, good governance and a financially successful business that can support its football department, coaches and players. A group of us have offered to provide that governance and energy. We do not think the Melbourne constitution provides for an extraordinary general meeting to replace the existing board with a new one. To conduct that meeting to bring about the changes we thought necessary now might in itself be a waste of time and energy. Therefore, the group that I have represented for the past week or so has decided to withdraw from the scene and re-evaluate the circumstances at the end of the year, when the annual general meeting of the club will be held, to allow the new chief executive officer, Peter Jackson, to get on with his job without distraction. But however good Mr Jackson is, no one person can deliver the changes necessary at Melbourne on their own -- the task demands a team of good people. Because the MFC has approached the AFL for more financial assistance, the AFL has the influence to ask for the resignations of all remaining members of the board and then put into place a new, smaller board, in much the same way that my government amalgamated councils in the 1990s. I have written to the chairman of the AFL, Mike Fitzpatrick, and offered this solution. In the case of the councils, it was out with the old, in with three or four commissioners for two years before councillors were re-elected by the ratepayers. Such precedent could be applied at the Melbourne Football Club if the AFL replicated their involvement in appointing Peter Jackson. The commissioners for the Melbourne Football Club should be appointed until the end of season 2015, as Mr Jackson has indicated he will stay for only 18 months, or the end of next season, and you don't want all officers coming up for election or replacement at the same time. I have written to Mr Fitzpatrick with our offer to assist rebuild the Melbourne club. I have pointed out the danger of the AFL and Mr Jackson appointing new board members who are simply subservient to the AFL, or people they are comfortable dealing with. That flies in the face of every definition of good governance. There would be no separation of the responsibilities between the board and the CEO, let alone the AFL. I have asked the AFL to respond to my offer by Friday this week, as I am due to travel overseas at the end of this month. I would cancel that travel if called upon to serve the club, as I believe every week is important to work with the CEO and start delivering change and preparing for season 2014. I fully accept that no one has all the answers and only teams of people can deliver good results. What I fear may happen is that decisions will be made based on personalities rather than outcomes. There are probably many better qualified people than me to lead Melbourne, but to date no one has offered, at least publicly. While Peter Jackson has been going about his evaluation of the club, and starting to announce changes such as the dismissal of the coach, Mark Neeld, true leadership starts at the top. You can blame as many employees as you like, but the buck always stops with the board. YES, some have expressed dismay and opposition to my offer to help Melbourne, and that is understandable. But at the end of the day there is a job to be done. A number of journalists cannot get their heads around the concept of how a former president of one club can do a businesslike job at another. But, with due respect, those journalists have never employed a person or run a business. They are commentators on life without responsibility. They simply do not understand the excitement and challenge associated with building a business. But this has gone on long enough. In my letter to Mike Fitzpatrick, I have asked him whether the AFL wishes to accept my offer to help or not. If the AFL rejects my offer, so be it, I will not pursue the matter further and leave Peter Jackson and the AFL-appointed board to do their work. Nor will I offer a running commentary on the affairs of the Melbourne Football Club in the genuine hope that this great brand and everything it represents can be rebuilt into a fighting force. If my offer, which is seen by many long-suffering Melbourne supporters as holding the potential for an exciting future, is too frightening for the powers that be in the AFL, I'll accept that. An offer made in good faith, if rejected by the AFL, is no skin off anyone's nose. Just let's hope those in authority get it right this time. The members deserve better than they have received for over 30 years. Have a good day. Jeff Kennett is a former premier of Victoria

It's all well & good to get the right coach, but without having a competent & success driven board willing to work harder & look to find a competitive advantage over the rest of the clubs, finding the right coach will mean nothing in the long term. Great clubs are defined by great people at the top with vision & without that, this club will go nowhere. I suggest the club look at making some positions on the board paid positions so that the MFC has a chance of growing rather than fighting for the scraps from the AFL's table. It would allow the club to better define its direction into the future & would put us ahead of other clubs in terms of professionalism in governance. We can no longer risk the future of the club by making stop gap appointments that are convenient for people on the board or relying on MFC board members recommendations to step up to the plate to fill board positions. The quality of people just don't seem to be there at the moment & even if they are how will we get ahead of every other club as they can only commit so much of there time? How will our board define a way to gain a competitive advantage over the rest?

Choco is a good coach. He did a pretty good job with the GWS kids & by all reports now at Ninthmond. His record at Port also speaks for itself. His main deficiency is that his tenures at GWS & Port ended badly & it's known he is a bit of a loose cannon if circumstances aren't to his liking.

Candidates should be spoken to regardless of whether they are contracted or not. If the club identify a coach they want & they are contracted its simple, talk to them in secret discussions & tap them up for the job. It happens in the EPL regularly, no party will ever admit it. It is now a well known fact that Man Utd tapped Ferguson & met him secretly in hotel rooms & relatives homes etc before he became manager. The same would apply for many transfers. Even Ross Lyon was tapped by Freo & they got their man.If the club identifies Eade as their man then do what it takes & disregard anything that Eddie says. Which is what the club should have done with Malthouse before all this Shite happened with Neeld.

Your missing my point. Roos has a wide knowledge of football & may have an opinion for example on who is the best footy operations manager available as well as some recommendations of the type of board structure he has worked under in the past. The only way he will come to the club is if the MFC prove to him we have a functioning admin & board. Giving Roos his desired footy department is a given. So if there are negotiations in place as GNF has stated, why not ask the question of what structure he needs above him to consider the position?

Mainly because of this sentence: How the club restructures itself, what personnel are recruited to the admin team will have an influence on his final decision. I wasn't being critical, there wasn't that much info available in the post so I asked the question.

Question for you. If this is true. Why doesn't the club let Roos have some input into the staff he believes are most important so that it will get him over the line.

Are people so afraid of making statements on what they believe or think because of the fear of being wrong or chastised? I don't really care if the comments are rehashed, IMO it's part of the reason the club is in the position they are in because the club hasn't been able to be held to account. The board under Stynes said they would be transparent, however as soon as something went wrong they went into damage control & were unaccountable. The club should be bold & state the direction they want to take if they genuinely believe it is reality & want supporters to sign up. The club needs leaders with a vision so that members can hope & believe again. 2 - 3 years to play finals is not far from reality provided the club sorts it self out off the field & finds a very good coach as Jackson said. The building blocks of the list are there & provided they find 3-4 very good midfielders in that period of time as well as a couple of small forwards why can't the club play finals? When Neeld took over we had 8 wins with a poor defensive game. The club should have progressed in the last 18 months but went backwards. I'm with Freeman that it is attainable to play finals if the right people are in place off the field starting from now.

If Roos coaches again it won't be about money. It would be about whether the challenge gets him excited & whether he is motivated or interested in coaching full time, the effect on his life etc. The club will have to sort itself off the field if we are any hope. One thing is for sure the club needs to find something that it aspires to or wants to represent because at the moment the club doesn't really have a football philosophy or identity. Roos would definitely bring this as he did at Sydney.

http://mobile.news.com.au/sport/afl/melbourne-powerbroker-geoff-freeman-says-the-stricken-club-can-play-finals-in-three-years/story-fndv8pdq-1226665261205 I liked what he had to say in this article. Thinks the club can make finals in 2-3 years.

It's hard to argue with anything that he says other than the training session which none of us know anything about. Melbourne could do worse than having him on the selection panel for the coaching position. Even though he can be a [censored] at times, he definitely understands football.

I'll name a few achievements:-30 year Casey agreement -re-alignment with the mcc -new training facilities -higher investment into the FD -improving the books with a $6 million dollar asset Those are a few off the top of my head. The real failures in hindsight were to allow Schwab to continue after 186 which has led to the current poor FD & on field performance. The club needs to be in the business of being the best at winning on field & sadly the board has made poor decisions in this regard or simply don't have the knowledge to make them.

The club needs to find a board member with football experience who can drive the club in terms of the football department. The current board are all highly credentialed in business but don't have any experience in being associated with a premiership winning club or administration. I realise this is not essential as the football department have the responsibility to do this, however I believe having a board member such as Dunstall at Hawthorn is a large part of their current success & the MFC could learn from this. If Leigh Matthews or David Parkin were available I'd like to see the club pay them to join the board or at least seek their advice to hand down recommendations to Peter Jackson.