timD

Wayne, we do not do the non-negotiables. We looke dlike we were last year, but this year we ahve fallen away so badly.

Our leaders finally played the way we've all dreaded that they could. It would not have mattered if Bailey was god's own coach, today. That said, that performance is so bad it almost beyond thinking that he could keep his job. I've been a Bailey fan, and I don't think that he has got a lot to work with but he cannot survive that sort of loss. In many ways he wil be a fall guys for a leadership group that cannot and will not put-up-and-shut-up. What chance to we have at keeping players or attracting players? Statements need to be made. The club needs to make them. If indecision remained, surely this will force their hand. Unfortauntely, the cleanup & cleanout must continue. We are in a desparate search for a heart, mind and soul atm.

Analogy, metaphor, hyperbole?

The real issue here is the loss of Bhima's training reports. How has the MFC allowed this valued resource to be lost? I demand answers! Typical of the cozy, late-sipping culture of loss-acceptance and self-satisfied inferiority to do nothing while the demonland milieu is deprived of Bhima's work. Damn you, Stynes, damn you! But seriously, Bhima, I really enjoyed those reports over summer - you kept my addiction fed - and I am very grateful that you put in the effort.

I've read this stupid thread far, far too many times. RR, you have nothing. Drop it. Your values have nothing to do with your behaviour here. Truth? To believe footy journalists is an interest in 'truth'? To be caught in the web of popular media is 'truth'...is following a value of 'integrity'? Can you hear the hypocrisy? Truth, integrity, honesty...and you hang with the media? You believe speculation? You are willing to imply 'stuff' about a player with no concrete evidence at all - on the basis of hearsay and self-interest (the media's) alone? AND you say that you value 'truth' and 'integrity'? Seriously. It is like going to see a stripper but saying that you respect women. Or saying you are a man of science but denying climate change. Or saying you support the footy club but questioning our young man's morals on the basis of gossip alone. The only truth here is that you value telling other people about your suspicion over 'holding true' in any way to your stated values. You are not digging. You are not investigating. This whole thread stinks. Why the hell did I even respond to it?

This does not unsettle anyone but you. You and others who find this nerve-wracking. The club will be planning for life with him and life without. Players will be getting onwith thier lives. I know I am, too. Kipling wrote a poem called "IF". The fist lines are "IF you can lose your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you..." and it goes on to talk about how to be a man. Tom's keeping his; you are losing yours and blaming it on him... I think it is relevant for most of the posters for this thread, Robbie. If you don't have the patience for it, tell a group taht will either (a) give you more patience or (B) actually resolve the issue. The thread will do neither.

CB, get with it. Collingwood, geelong and st kilda paly with loose defenders. If you are going to boast about insight, check your facts.

This has become so pathetic. Robbie, seriously, read what you are writing: tortuous, emotive guff that fails to make sense. tom has come out and said what his position is - funny that he should stick to it. If he is a young man with integrity, we have no reason to believe that he is going to do otherwise. He is acting as he said he is going to, without bowing to pressures. A good characteristic - kipling said something about this sort of behaviour.

Let it go. It is gone. It will never return. Too good for this sinful earth.

Firefly was so beautiful...and it makes me sad just thinking about what might have been.

You hang on to the Viney quote like a drowning man holds a life-preserver. Maybe you need to re-read it. Maybe even several times. Viney didn't say that no time had gone into the plan. He didn't say that insufficient time went in to the plan...he didn't say that parts of the plan were absent or missing. Bailey is trying to change the whole team. Now, to judge his coaching adequacy, you need to compare his performance to reasonable criteria. Is he turning over the list? Is he developing new players? Is he developing/improving older players? IS the game plan taking shape (and what should it look like, given the massive turnover of players)? What shape should the game plan be in given that its implementation relies on kids and an older group that has never demonstrated consistent application? Given you think that Bailey is too poor a coach to continue at the club, why don't you spell out why. As you have stated repeatedly that the forward press takes time to learn, maybe you could spell out the time the Bailey has had with this group of players to teach and implement it? If it takes 2 years to learn, then what time has Bailey had, with the group that we've been aiming to have, to actually teach it and have it learnt? Don't spare the detail. Oh, you can leave the "don't question me, I've written books about footy" stuff unsaid.

Cloke sure, but Dawes? One of them will stay at home - the flith a prety keen on the long kick forward. That will suit rivers.

Great read jack. Well done.

Insightful. Demanding. Challenging. Yeah. Nah. I'd come to expect an argument that was an argument from you. Another case of expectations having nothing to do with reality, I'd guess. You do not have an argument about bailey. Actually, you have nothing at all about Bailey. We've shown know that if we win the midfield, we'll win the game. WE don't even have to win it by much to win the game. Your issue with game plan is now a non-issue. Another development year half-way through. Perhaps changing coach will get dunn, bate, petterd, newton, maric to be better? Because that is the only way that any criticism of bailey that you bring will make any sense.

I don't claim to be a great (or even average) footy thinker, Bob. I guess it just struck me that WCE were crap and then they got their midfield back and whammo! We do not have a great midfield and in every game that jamar/moloney dominated, we did well...and when moloney fell off, so did we. Against adeliade, we were excellent. I remember seeing the defenders yelling at each other about who/where they were covering - I remember our forwards doing the same thing. They couldn't do it unless they were training to do it and getting it right on the day. I also don't think that it is just midfield - Bate and Watts have run around to good places and been fu..ki........ignored. Driving me bonkers. This might well be poor coaching or just a failure to have the group playing together long enough to get good at things. So, there's more to it than just midfield, but I think that midfield has the bulk of the responsibility for it. Age, inexperience etc play their roles in everything, too.

Now just stop it! It might also suggest that Moloney is playing a bit of a lone hand, and than when other players step up as contested ball winners, we might be able to cover for times that he is down and more consistently perform in the midfield... Nah - I reckon they are all just soft. We'll change that by sacking the coach.

Bob, are you suggesting that if we win the midfield, we look good and have a 'game plan'? Outrageous!

Akum, I disagree in part. You can fight when there is no plan, when you have noting but the will to just get in, get the pill or bury the man with it. You can look disorganised without a plan, and that can then impact on the opportunities to fight. BUT we had a man behind the ball. We had numbers and we failed to use them. Players failed to run - to work hard enough. Not all of them...but enough of them. Footy is now, more than ever, a team game. THe whole damn team needs to be moving all at once to create the play. Having the ball is just a bonus feature of a game plan. WE had players able to put in who chose not to. Game plans are not that complex and players have practiced them for years.

Hannabal, I think that the whole issue around Bailey is impossibly difficult to tease our - for me at least. GAry Lyon has written about our lack of mongrol in the contest - which has precisely nothing to do with the adequacy of a game plan...or does it? If the team won't fight, then the game plan won't survive. ON the times where the team fights, no-one worries about the damn plan. Frawley comes out and says that the team knows how to implement a press, but they are bad at it - is that b/c they are poorly taught or they lack the will to implement it? Against adeliade, we did it well...but then under pressure it falls apart. When you remember who we've lost and from where, it is interesting. We've lost our gorilla forward and a marking forward who have not been adequately replaced. We've lost skilful midfielders who have no been replaced. We've improved our backline in part, but lost nice kicking skills from it. All the replacements have not come on super-quick for one reason or another. I wonder if martin and cotchin had not come on for richmond, what people would think of hardwick's gameplan? I bet no-one even knows it. I think this emphasis on game plan is wrong - or perhaps misplaced. This to me is all about a willingness to fight and our ability to win the midfield and deliver cleanly off half-back. We do not fight. We are a weak football team - whilst individuals can show great character, as a team we are weak. I think that is generational and it will take longer than four years to change because it is the kids-becoming-leaders who must change it. Why were brisbane good - b/c voss would jam your head into a locker if you didn't go when it was your turn. They carried few passengers in the physicality stakes. Skills they could make up for - hardness they wouldn't. Kids need time to be big enough to be 'hard'. We need a lot of them. No game plan will look any good until we are hard enough. The question, and only question that I think Bailey should be measured against is: (a) how much can he do about this and (B) how long should it take? If you reckon that another coach can develop kids and induce a toughness into the side, then we should get them asap. My guess is that this process is going about as fast as it can.

Wrath, how about not hiding behind metaphor and hyperbole and saying what you think? Then no-one is hiding behind nuthin'.

There are a few conclusions that can be made about you from your post, too, sunshine.

WE'd lose nothing.

Must happen