Nasher

What pleases me the most about Jackson being on board is that he is not tied to the board. He is an experienced CEO who can provide a direct line in to the AFL; this means he's not only qualified to identify the issues, he's also qualified to report the problems at board level without fear of implications of his own job. I agree with what Jack said - Jackson's arrival is a signal from the AFL that they have zero confidence in the club to sort out its own mess. From that perspective I'm confident we'll see a way through now. I wonder how long Jackson needs to remain the caretaker of the club for? At the very least he needs to be involved in the hiring of the permanent CEO, but I think there is a need for him to see in a new board as well. I'd like to see him leaving a well oiled machine in his wake, but I expect that's too big an assignment for his relatively short tenure. To me this feels like the end of a long, bad relationship. We're emotionally exhausted and financially cactus, but the weight has been lifted and we can start to clean up the bloody mess. I hope so anyway.

What, we're up to page 2 of the thread and no accusations of agendas yet?

Cull the obvious spastics, but I find it very difficult to know where a lot of these players are at right now. So many are playing well below their best that the lines are so much more blurred than normal.

Your imagination is running away with you ;-)

Our list *is* bad, but it isn't 148 points to Essendon bad and it isn't 60 points to Gold Coast bad. We've got at least half a dozen players playing well below their best.

So proud of the boys today. Just couldn't fault their effort. Fantastic performance; absolutely no shame in being beaten by such a highly esteemed opposition. Well done lads, you did the club proud.

Didn't Walls and Swooper Northey swap roles between Brisbane and Richmond in the mid 90s?

These days it's not so much that I want to win, but I just want to feel like we could win. Sick of the feeling of predictable losses and hollow victories.

Redleg, I'm not sure we need to give Tapscott time in the middle to know whether or not he's got the tank to do it, and I think it would be an emphatic "no". The centre square is one thing, but there's a need to make it from contest to contest all over the ground, and I don't think he's up to it. Can you imagine him contesting in the centre square, then a few minutes later contesting in the forward 50, then a few minutes later contesting in the back 50? Additionally, his biggest strength is using his wrecking ball body in high-speed contests; I don't think he'd have the same impact as an inside mid. I think as his fitness improves there's merit in very short rotations through the middle, but I don't reckon Tapscott has a future as a midfielder. He's started to find his feet as a forward, so I'd stick with that.

All clubs supporters "eat their own" when the team is going badly. It's a function of the emotional investment people put in their footy teams. It's great that you have the emotional control not to get angry or upset or want to lash out, but don't carry on as if getting narky with each other or getting narky with the club when it is down is unique to Melbourne. It's not.

I don't think so Mark - Hawthorn play all their games in Launceston. Hobart is (obviously) the capital of Tasmania, and people from Hobart don't want to go to Launceston unless they're fanatical Hawthorn supporters. North play their games in Hobart and will get [and have been getting] plenty of support from the neutrals, and North has a decent following here anyway. I think it's a good growth strategy for them.

I also wouldn't be surprised if Magner wasn't promoted purely because the coach doesn't think he'll add much to the side. I really struggle with the Magner love around here.

I don't know if you've noticed, soxy, but Tasmania as an entire state is a *bit* more sparse than Geelong the city. Looking at the population of Hobart would be much more relevant.

As a Tasmanian footy fanatic, a Tasmanian footy team would get secondary support from me at best. MFC is the team that I barrack for and I can't imagine that changing; and most of the people I know who follow footy have their allegiances well and truly branded in. Hawthorn and North have brought footy back to the state. A few games here and there from these clubs is all the market here warrants, IMO.

I didn't comment on Viney, just quoted the stats. A quiet game is forgiveable, but the impact of it is heavily exaggerated when he's one of 10 people in the same boat. As for Strauss: agree that it's a long road back from where he came from, but I still stand by what I said.

Howe WOG for mine.

Haha. It's a contact sport, ump. Sometimes it is "rough". I thought it was a ripper bump, myself.

Only one player had over 20 disposals: Matt Jones. Ten players had less than 10 disposals: Byrnes, Bail, Viney, Spencer, Strauss, Trengove, Gawn, Howe, Grimes and Kent. Grimes is obviously excused, and I'll cut Kent some slack because he's clearly not quite up to spec yet, but the rest of those players were utterly sheet. I doubt Howe and Bail have played worse games since they came in to the side, Strauss just isn't any good, and what-oh-what the hell is wrong with Jack Trengove? Just way too many passengers today.

6. Garland - thought he was a class above all our other players today. 5. M.Jones - really starting to look at home. The most important thing for me is that he always seemed to be present in the contest. It's hard to see on TV how hard players work to be in a contest, but the sheer fact was he was on the screen a lot. Best game to date. 4. N.Jones - the ever reliable. Reverted back to some old "just bombing it" habits today - probably through lack of options. 3. Evans - really like how this guy is coming along. Adds vital run. 2. Frawley - Looked like the Frawley of old. Created out of defense and used his body to good effect against Hampson. 1. Sylvia - As said above, lots of gloss taken off the performance because he screwed up with the ball far too many times, but he is consistently getting involved which is an improvement on the past. Also considered Lynden the Tagger (anyone feel like we're going around in circles here??) and Tapscott.

So what about the rest, PSD? I've lost count of the number of soft efforts at attacking the ball, or giving options to use this year. I'm not talking about players who are so soft that it's embarrassing (JW, CM, LD et al.), I'm talking about players who simply aren't running hard enough. And I can't think of a player that I haven't seen cost us a contest at some stage this year. I include players like Grimes and N.Jones in that; players who I know will do better when their head is in the right place.

I agree deanox. Abridged version is that Jackson will be there to report the state of play to the board, prepare the job for the next CEO, and possibly play a big part in hiring his replacement. I'll be surprised if he makes any major decisions or changes. I also think his lengthy tenure suggests that it will be quite a while before we see any change. That probably includes the position of senior coach.

Stuffing up first round draft picks isn't the reason why our players don't work hard enough on the field.

Emma Q said he had nothing to worry about, so we put the torches and pitchforks away.

It isn't boring on here when we're winning, the over the top hyperbole just goes in the other direction.Actually, it's been so long since we haven't been carp that I've forgotten what it's like here when we're winning.

Heart agrees, and does so every week. Brain thinks we should stop letting those bloody chest muscles do the thinking.