drdrake

In business you need to do what is best for your business, if bringing James McDonald back will help our team move forward you bring him back. Also as other post James to me would bring back some very good qualities that would improve any AFL club.

It's going to make for an interesting spring. The next post will be Morton is gone

We read and hear that one reason the club is not unified is because to the way we treated James McDonald. Here is an idea lets get James back to the club, appoint James our Director of Football or make him our midfield development coach. I'm sure if the right people speak with James they can get him back to the club and if the rumours are true that he is one reason Tom Scully is going to GWS bring that reason back to our club. James may need some talking around but as a past captain of our club he must also be concerned.

We not only need a head coach but all our assistance coaches should be gone. I would love to get Gavin Brown then add Dean Laidley, they would of worked together at Collingwood, and to help unify our club bring in James McDonald as our midfield development coach.

CS was contacted to our club until 31/10/11, so his contract was going to expire and a new contract had to be agreed upon by the 31/7/11. The club waited until the last day to offer CS a new 1 year contract, to me this is a little alarming. If the club was happy with CS why wasn't this done earlier, something stinks. Moving forward our great leader is sick he needs his mates to help him out. Good on Gary Lyon but we need other people that can help to get our club back on track to get involved. In all honesty the decisions that are to be made by our club over the next 12 weeks need to be the right ones or our club will be returned to the basket case it was 3 years ago.

What is currently our biggest issue, to me it is hardness at the footy, when the game is on our terms which I believe free flowing with minimal contested footy we look like a very good side. Make the game about contested footy and we get opened up. Two coaches that are mentioned Eade and Williams look at the way the teams they have coached played, very similar to us at the moment, free flowing high scoring rather than a defensive team. Both these guys are wrong for our club and will not give our team the hard edge we need. Eade this year hasn't been able to implement the press with the dogs and that is why they sit below us on the ladder. Williams lost the plot at Port and I wouldn't have him. To me no point having an experienced coach if they can't bring what we need to the table.

Collingwood, Carlton, Hawthorn, West Coast in recent times have all tanked to get priority picks or better draft positions, you can add in St Kilda and the Western Bulldogs as well.

Sorry I meant to finish at 2007 the last draft Craig Cameron was involved in. So in 8 drafts or approx 56 picks(including rookie/preseason)you are happy with 10 players that are half decent, no stars Frawley is the closest we have to a star.

Thats why four of the top 5 teams tanked to get priority picks over the past 5-6 years.

Really, I think the current recruiting team has done a good job, the one prior to this one was absolutely woeful. Craig Camerons last draft Morton, Grimes, Maric, Cheney, McNamarra at years end there is a good chance we will only have 1 player from this draft on our list, the year before I think only Jones is still on our list. This is the problem with our club we don't have any players 23+ that are good AFL players. Our recruiting from 2000-2008 was very poor. On Saturday it was the under 21's with a number of older passangers. If I had the power as a coach rather than a board I would play players in the positions they were drafted to play, we need to stop trying to make players something they will never be.

To me the club is doing what the club should be doing in regards to selection. Maric, Strauss, Nicholson all need games to hopefully improve and give them the experience that will make them better footballers for us in 2012, Dunn and Bate need games to allow our footy department to make a fair assessment on their futures at the club. On Bartram if we can get Grimes and Strauss playing well and kicking the footy in our back half we can afford to play him as that real defensive back pocket. Bartram is our best defensive small no question but his skills let him down, if we can get other players in our back half that have good reliable foot skills we can afford to play Bartram. Strauss came into our club with the skill set we needed, we have to give him games to see if he can apply those skills. Same goes with Maric, we have seen is a few games this year that Maric has the potential he just needs to gain the confidence and consistancy, he can't get this being in and out of the team. He was good against Port, like most of his team mates bad against Hawthorn so he gets another chance and for his sake I hope he gets to play out the rest of the season at AFL level.

For me I think Bailey will get a two year contract, if the club does this the club needs to ensure we put better assistant coaches around him. For Me Bailey keeps his job but Royal, Williams and Mahoney don't.

For me I would like to see us line up, I'm leaving Scully and Maric out as I don't expect either to be at our club next year. Strauss Martin Frawley Grimes Rivers Garland Trengove Sylvia Gysberts Howe Watts Tapscott Davey Jamar Jurrah Gawn Moloney McKenzie Petterd Jones Green Morton

1. We continue to develop our players by getting more games into Blease, Gawn, Strauss, Howe and the other 20 players taht should be our future 2. We show improvement no more 8 goal losses 3. Col Sylvia signs 4. Win our last three 5. Play Taspcott in the midfield 6. Don't put a loose man in defense.

I find it funny that Garland has leaked goals for our last three games but we want to drop Nicholson and Strauss. Frawley was good on Buddy, hard to keep the best forward in the comp quiet when we have no pressure through the middle and turn the footy over off half back. For next week I would like to see us line up as Strauss Frawley Martin Tapscott Rivers Garland Trengove Sylvia Scully Howe Watts Petterd Green Jamar Jurrah Gawn Moloney McKenzie Jones Gysberts Dunn Nicholson

The reality is we are not improving, in 2010 we had a few games where we got smashed, this year every game we lose we get smashed. Our inability to stop teams scoring against us is a major concern, it has been a real issue since the first game Bailey coached us. I don't expect us to win every game, but I do expect us to improve every year, to me 2010 was a much better year than 2011, we saw improvement we at least competed against Collingwood, Bulldogs, Hawthorn(second game), St Kilda, Fremantle(Subi). This year we get a couple of goals behind and he throw the towel in.

This could be said for the other 21 players that played yesterday

I thought you could trade future picks, Compo picks I know do not come into calculation for Father son, just like priority picks.

My plan again, in 2012 we are getting Jack Viney under father son, from early indications it will cost us our first pick in the national draft which doesn't include any compo picks we may receive if Scully goes. I am 98% Ox confident that for these 17 yo kids you can sell future draft picks, and there has been recent articles in the media about GWS wanting future picks rather than players. The plan involves us trading our first round 2012 pick to GWS add a player to help may be one you mention. If GWS accept this our first pick in the draft excluding compo picks will be a round 2 pick which would be given up for Viney. We then have what should be two of the best 17yo committed to our club this year plus the compo picks we will get for Scully should he go to GWS which should be 2 picks inside the top 20 picks. Once again I hope Scully stays, but if he goes and we can pull off the plan we are going to get some very good talent to replace him. My plan hinges on the ability on trading future picks to GWS that aren't compo picks, but reading the Adelaide article and a few other things I think we can do this.

I still believe that if we lose Scully, I will be upset but will also move on quickly, we can have a massive win from the compo picks we receive. I have posted my plan a few times and this plan would see us getting Viney, O'meara or one of the 17yo picks up for grabs and maintain the compo picks we will get if Scully does go which should be around pick 10 and around pick 20.

We all need to understand that for the club to offer the same as GWS each player on our list would need to take a $11,000 per year pay cut. Forget the pacts of the past they are not relevant in this instance. I'm sure in a couple of years the group that will stick together will form similar pacts.

It is funny the whole Bruce thing, we retired McDonald to make a spot on the VL for Brad Green, if the club knew Cam Bruce was leaving McDonald would have been playing at our club this year. Bruce cost McDonald his spot at the MFC.

Lets make it simple for our players, our main strategy is to kick more goals and points than Hawthorn

I think Maric has all the skills to be a very good AFL player, he just needs to keep working on his defensive side and keeping involved in the game for longer periods.

One on one I think for this game no Zone one on one. What the Hawks do is chip the ball around we need to man them up and not allow them to have a high uncontested mark number.