Nasher

Reluctant to decide this early in the year.

See, this is yet another straw man and it's irritating. Just because I am not anti-Bailey does not mean I'm pro-Bailey, nor does it mean I'm happy. It just means that if you post silly stats or illogical arguments, I'm going to pull you up.

My deduction, we're winning more games each year. I really should find something better to do with my days off

How about we do it year by year in order? 13.6%, 18.2%, 36.4%, 40.0%. What's the trend here; which way is it heading?

I doubt it's anything more than just the coaches, with Dean having the final say.

Bub, anyone who watched us fall apart under Daniher in 2007 knew that any new coach was going to have a win/loss record that stunk on paper. Anyone who didn't would surely have known once we'd been smashed twice by over 100 twice in a row in 2008. I realise your position is against Bailey but that stat isn't helping your argument. It's just noise. On the topic at hand I don't know whether the right course of action is to keep Bailey or move on, but either way I don't see what is gained one way or the other by giving him the flick this early in the season other than appeasing the restless masses.

This.

My memory has it that he did and we were prepared to take him until Liam Jurrah unexpectedly came on to the radar. Brisbane took him at 5 in the PSD so that lends it some weight.

Every time someone at the club has to answer inane, repetitive letters, that's time they could be spending doing other work. And there would've been hundreds and hundreds of these to answer after Thursday night. As far as I'm concerned, the more pre-prepared responses they have, the better. There's also no way of being sure it's a "form letter". I'm picturing a young woman sitting at a PC, reading the same old whinge from emotional supporters over and over again. Of course she's going to copy and paste the response she gave to the last bloke three minutes ago. You guys who are writing letters aren't saying anything unique, you're just regurgitating the same thing every other supporter is saying, so I don't know why you expect a unique response.

We've got another coach in our midst. Dean Bailey.

Rogue doesn't seem to be around so I'd better fill in. This is a straw man.

Now I'm even more embarrassed for you.

I'm embarrassed for you.

Indeed. Even those with long memories still have short ones when it suits them. This the worst I've ever ever ever felt! Since like, last week! C'mon lads. This loss sucked - big time - but I've felt worse footy related pain in the last three years alone. You can't tell me this feels worse than the consecutive 100 point drubbings in 2008, for example. If this is the worst you've felt in 47 (or whatever) years then you're blowing this WAY out of proportion.

The sad thing is that we played what I believe was our best available 22 against West Coast. You guys can all drop Bennell, Wona and Gysberts if you want but it's not exactly striking at the heart of the issue is it? This is just stuffing around with 0.1%ers - the real problems with this side can't be addressed by shuffling around the 18th-21st players. The real "problem players" were our senior ones - Green, Moloney, Davey and Sylvia specifically, and since there's no chance they'll be dropped then I'd forget about trying to solve our problems with team selection. So for me it's Dunn out, Petterd in. Exactly the same as I said last week. The reason I elect to persevere with the names mentioned previously but give Dunn the chop is because the others deserve some benefit of the doubt due to their level of development. I've given up on Dunn as being any part of our present or our future so I'd be getting him out of the side ASAP.

This is being a tad disingenuous.

Uh-oh, inconsistency!

My Football Club Effing Sucks - DA called it MFCMCS, but it's not specific to the MFC, all clubs have these types of supporters. These are the people that believe that everything and anything is wrong with the club and if there's nothing real to criticise, they just make stuff up. This one applies to all the people who were having a moan about our 90 point win against GC.

I doubt Barry gets paid anywhere near that much. Edit: And even if that were true, do you really believe that someone who earns $200k+ a year has no short term accountability? I don't know what his performance criteria is but there's absolutely no chance that we've got a bloke running around on that kind of salary with nothing whatsoever to answer for. If we do then this club is run by amateurs.

I'm struggling to come up with a worse, more simplistic description of Barry's job than this one. It's more like spending half your life either on a plane or sitting at a footy ground in the middle of winter watching a bunch of 17 year olds run around, then taking what you're seeing and having to apply your imagination to picture what they're going to look like at 25, work out how the game is going to be played when they're mature (~10 years away), then hope you got it right. Then you've got every a-hole amateur recruiter in the country who thinks he's an expert giving you his "advice", you've got to find the balance between taking the advice of others and backing your own instincts, and THEN you've got half the supporters of your club ripping in to you about decisions you made years ago. I don't reckon anyone in our current FD has ever been under more pressure than Barry was when he took Watts at pick 1 a few years ago, and this decision is being put under scrutiny again and again and again, and that's just ONE decision. To me the job of being the chief recruiter sounds less like a good gig and more like slow burning torture.

It was a block. Reckless at absolute worst and a few points, but nothing in it for mine.

rpfc invented it I thought but you've got the definition right DA. It's also the "it's been bad for the last 40 years therefore it's going to be bad forever" mentality. Being convinced Tom Scully will leave when there's no evidence whatsoever to suggest he will is a function of MFCSS. Being upset over the side's dreadful performance on Thursday is a function of being a normal footy supporter and has nothing to do with MFCSS.

The thing is that footy fans as a whole are generally clueless idiots, and I imagine that those making the decisions realise this. If the club deem that sacking Bailey is the correct course of action, then fine, I'll back them in, but if they did it on the back of a few emotional supporters having a good old moan about one poor loss then we're in worse condition than I thought as a club.

I've got to say that I'm as disappointed as anyone with the result, but the angry mob with the torches is giving me a smirk too. People powah!