hoopla

Yes ... but the Football Director's role is a non-Executive role : it's very much a part time role. Gary is preparing for a full-on involvement - akin to management role. Essentially Roos is correct : Gary is having to step in because the Board can't trust Schwab and Connolly to operate a cohesive football department. Surely one or other of Schwab and Connolly - if not both - has to go before Gary pulls back.

Yes.... he did it superbly (Only problem was that he should have mentioned the hypocrisy in other clubs carrying on about tanking. The only thing we did wrong was to wait until after Collingwood, Hawthorn ( yes Jeff!), St Kilda and Carlton before we did it!!)

Agree....why has it taken until now to come out And Moloney... Is he over whatever it was that prevented him getting one possession last week. What are our medical/fitness people doing?

More instability ..... another threat to club loyalty If Cameron Schwab is throwing up ideas like that ... he has to go

A good footballer ..... reaching his prime............the sort of player every club needs to win a flag.

Of all of the things that came out of yesterday's press conferences, surely one of the most obvious was Jim's ongoing health battle. We have heard his eyesight has been under threat - and his hesitancy reading his original statement suggests that it may be worse than we feared. He looked distracted .... and in pain. Yes - he was very upset about removing Bailey .... but it was more than that.Don reminded him that he's going away on Wednesday - no mention of why or where. There is no way he would leave now - if he had a choice Of all the things Gary said on Footy Classified, I thought the most significant - and most impressive - statement that he made was that "he didn't want to get involved - but that he would help Jimmy personally in the short term if he possibly could" Really Jimmy should stand down in his own interests. Perhaps it is only his spirit which is holding the club together - but the longer the rift beneath him continues the harder it will be to contain the damage when he is gone. Don - take charge; Gary - take over as Football Director until the new coach is settled ; Cameron - stay out of the football department ... or quit ; Chris - back up the new coach .. or quit. Jim - look after yourself

After all the speculation, Schwab has been given a one-year extension - hardly a vote of confidence!! Where are we going - what are we doing? The Board has given us a CEO with a one year time horizon. If having seen him in action- and counselled him on his weaknesses for over 4 years - they don't have faith in him beyond that - then I'd suggest he's not the man. If I was him I'd be looking around ......... unless of course I have no options ( which says something in itself) If it was anyone other than Jimmy, supporters would be looking pretty hard at the Board right now!!

Agree Come on Gary ... you don't want to coach - fine .... but join the Board as Footy Director. You have a big say behind the scenes : come clean - commit

Absolutely agree What disturbs me the most about the events of today is the rumour that last week the Board was leaning towards an extension of Bailey's contract .............. so that it has tipped its entire strategy on its head in the emotional aftermath of one game. What sort of immature Board does that? One huge loss can tip things over the edge ( as with Craig) - and perhaps it should trigger a review of strategy ... but how can it set a completely new direction within 24 hours - with emotion clouding its thoughts ? Immature ? incompetent? Explanation please

What's the real story? He should not have played .... but did he try to fool the doctors - or did someone push him out there against his will? Is this part of the mismanagement which has cost Bailey , for one, his job?

I'm as shocked by all this as anyone ............ and I don't know the answer ...... but disillusionment with administrators who threaten a coach you respect or operations managers who sack your captain with barely a thankyou.............. is every bit as likely to affect your commitment and concentration etc as frustration with your coach. Why does the buck have to stop with the coach - why shouldn't it stop (or start) a couple more rungs up the ladder ?

What an extraordinary statement! Why is Scott West any more of a strategist than the other coaches? He was a great tough in and under player .... that doesn't make him a good strategic thinker. To have dragged himself into a premiership forward line with limited natural ability, you would think that Josh Mahoney understands the game pretty well. As part of the coaching panel of the strongest defensive team in recent memory, Brian Royal ought to have a fair knowledge of defensive strategies in the modern game as well. I hope this post isn't another attempt at the theory that only champion players know how to coach.I have it on very good authority that Gary Lyon reckoned he learnt more about modern football during Dean Bailey's two-hour presentation to the original selection panel than he knew before he went in!How can that be......... Gary was the champion player? I hope no-one will suggest that we bring on Fev to develop our forward-line strategies!

This thread started off as a discussion about coaches ......... and its finished up as a discussion about the use of sports science and the interchange bench.Funnily enough, I reckon its about right - because on field success is becoming more and more about the ability of a club to put super-fit - strong and fast - athletes on the field week in week out than it is about the coaching talent of one man. Is Luke Ball( who couldn't kick more than 35 metres at St Kilda) now able to snap goals from 45 meters out on the boundary line because Malthouse is a better coach than Lyon? Is Simon Buckley now able to string games together because Malthouse is a better coach than Bailey? Our young players - Watts, Howe, McKenzie, Trengove, Scully, Nicholson and etc - are all developing under Bailey. Why disrupt that process now? If there is to be a change - then it should happen at the end of the season and not before...... and if there is to be a change it should take into account the ability to drive/coordinate the whole coaching team - including the player conditioning team.

Correct. How can the players be expected to operate under a regime which both applauds and penalizes the same action? How can the umpires be instructed to reward a tackle with a free kick which might win their team the game - knowing full well that the player stands to be disqualified from the next match ? Are umpires in junior competitions instructed to give tacklers their free kick before they give them the yellow card - or to wait until the tackler is allowed to return to the field? Tackles are either perfect or illegal .. they can't be both!

You're talking two completely different markets here. Demetriou could walk away from the AFL and get $2m from any one of a number of listed companies. .......... and the AFL would have to pay $2m plus to replace him with any one half capable of holding all the stakeholders together ( much less controlling the debt!)

Correction. If Spencer had been fit, he would have got the first game - and he might just have got the benefit of the doubt for a second..... but Max would have got the third ....... and he'd be even further ahead of Spencer than he is now - because we'd have had a recent reminder of how far away "Frank" actually is. Max is the man ( Make sure you catch the next re-run of "Some Mothers do áve em")

With finals now a realistic possibility you'd hope we'd get a bit of a last minute flurry before close on Thursday. Love to top 37000 this year........

Absolutely. Here we are comparing a potential Melbourne Cup winner with the local farmer's draught horse.

Good answer High Tower..... yes - credibility intact!

B is unlikely and C won't happen.Can we increase it by 16% on the back of A only?

Its been a while now since we heard anything about our 40,000 membership target. If the West Coast game didn't kill it, then I guess the Carlton game did. Still it would be nice to use the reserved seat for the Collingwood game to push things up to 37500. 36102 (as it is today) sounds like a clear failure .... whereas 37500 sounds like a narrow miss. For the sake of the credibility of next year's target ( will it sit at 40000 or lift to 42500?), I'd like to see one last big promotion on the back of the Essendon game. The fact that there hasn't been one suggests that the club believes we've hit a ceiling...... until we can realistically promise finals'action

Good on you, Stalwart............. your passion is obvious. However, I'm not quite sure why you raise the excruciating memory of 1987. With Flower and Wilson - and others - sore and injured, its drawing a long bow to suggest that we might have won that Grand Final ......... and let's not forget that we failed badly in two Grannies since (1988 and 2000). Over the past couple of years, I'd suggest that the Committee has done a marvelous job uniting the supporters. But when you start losing, people start asking questions and the media speculates ...and journos sense blood .... and divisions appear....... I'm not sure what you asking the committee to do. They won't unite the supporters by sacking the coach - unless they find a universally respected replacement .......and ( after a short honeymoon period) divisions will appear again ........ until we get to the top of the ladder. Unfortunately in terms of player maturity and facilities , we started miles behind ...... and despite all of the improvements this committee has made, the rich clubs ( esp Collingwood !!) have raised the bar even higher. The competition is intense. WE all just have to keep the faith.

Seriously ... do you want to try to give Carlton a fright or not? Have we got a better chance of upsetting Carlton with Davey or without him? The answer is obvious. Will the other players - including those lacking confidence - actually play better without Davey in the team ? Will Carlton be easier to beat if they don't have to sacrifice a player to shut down Davey? He's played 100 better games than the game he played on Saturday .... and its odds on that he'll play a much better game again this week.

These stats reflect the fact that the statisticians treat 25 -30 metre chip kicks to a teammate as effective.Credit to Barts for having the self discipline to play within his limitations. He has excellent defensive skills ....and must have been a walk-up start at selection for a while now. But on Saturday, he handed St Kilda 3 goals at key points in the game because of poor decisions and poor execution. If he gets isolated with the ball deep in defence , he is very vulnerable. He may be a good depth player for a few years yet - but I don't think I'd want to take him into a final.

I saw him for the first time last week..... and thought he was terrific. We know from the Youtube footage that he can really take a grab ... but what impressed me on Sunday was his ability to cover the ground, his clean hands at ground level and his skills on both sides of his body. With Dunn out I wouldn't hesitate to debut him this week. The Phantom ( who is gawn) dominated the ruck and got some critical possessions in the 3rd quarter. If he can just put on a few pounds and get the confidence to throw away that knee bandage, he could be a real force ..... and Blease showed his ability to break the lines with pace and long direct kicking. Most of the Melbourne listed players did something on Sunday - I reckon Gotch's summaries on the mfc website were pretty spot on.