sue

I suspect (but have no evidence of course) that this is partly the AFL's doing, hence the about face. If after publishing his letter, Don talked to the AFL and they say - 'we'll help the club in a big way by $ or whatever, but you need to sack the CEO (for real reasons or just to show you are doing something)', then an about face is on the cards, especially if the CEO goes gracefully as he has.

Agree. At the very least it forces the opposition's coach to make a quick decision about what to do about the player. If he goes off, the oppo coaching team has plenty of time to think what to do by the time he next goes on.

Some of you blokes remind me of the quote from US soldiers in the Vietnam war (I think): "In order to save the village we had to destroy it."

thanks - yes I did miss it.

HG: Did you miss my post asking why you revealed you were Col Galand's brother? You've replied to posts since then, but not to my query. I'm not having a go at you, genuinely asking and concerned about the consequences. Edit to add: But less concerned given your last post.

HG: Why have you revealed you are Col Garland's brother? Whatever serious things you plan to reveal that you think will help the club overcome its problems, how does that help?. Perhaps you will say that would have become clear to everyone anyway, but would it? Why make it easy for journos to make trouble for your brother? Could you not have published whatever you plan to without revealing that?

sorry BbO, but I'm not being an apologist for the club. I just don't see how any organization could respond individually to any of the points raised by you and others in this thread which would presumably be in our individual emails to the club. In any case, I know what our response would be to such a response, no matter what they said. We'd say: "we've had enough talk, do something on the field for a bloody change". So what's the point of expecting an individual reply - we'd just be wasting someone's time who hopefully would have something more useful to do than stroke our egos. Protesting myself - I just won't hold it against the club if I don't get a personal reply. We've got a lot more important things to hold against the club at the moment than their PR skills.

Just tell me what you expect in a reasonable response? I can undersand your frustration, but what can you seriously expect the club to say that would make you happy at this time? Other than platitudes, all they could say is something dramatic like 'Yes, we are sacking the coach' or some other drastic change. If they make decisions like that in response to emails from pizzed off members, then I'd be really pizzed off.

That is a bit silly. What would you expect to be in a personalised email? "Dear x, the details in your email prompted us to realise that all we had to do was X. With thanks, MFC." If they knew the answer would they be telling anyone personally? Since they clearly don't know the answer, all you can reasonably expect is platitudes. Register your dismay by all means, but it is unreasonable to expect a meaningful response other than the platitudes which most of us could compose.

Doubtless there are many deficiencies, but I'm with those who point to lack of confidence, both personally and in your team-mates. It affects everything - even skills suffer if you are hesitant because of lack of confidence. A lot of the other stuff would take car of itself and we'd be going a fair way to being competitive if not world-beaters if players had even a smidgin of confidence. For me the million $ question is how do you instill confidence when you've lost badly for a long period of time. Neeld or someone must find the answer to that.

It's always refreshing to hear from people with a heart. None of us really knows what's going on in his head, but I wouldn't be surprised if the state of his (now unlikely) AFL career is creating deep depression. Any of you blokes who in your youth dreamt of becoming a footy star can possibly imagine how it would feel without invoking anything related to his very unusual background.

Excuse my ignorance - while I can see some are 'naturals', why is kicking the one skill which can't be improved by coaching? Genuine question.

More ... Jurrah misses drink driving hearing

I agree with everything you wrote bar the first sentence. My motivation for getting involved in this rather pointless argument is that I'm sick of some supporters saying everything MFC has done is wrong and using JW v NN as yet another an example.

As usual it depends on the circumstances. Some players have a much greater likelihood of wanting to go home than others. That must be taken into account and balanced against chest-beating about a great culture to retain players etc. In any case if you took away NN's looks, they'd be far less fuss about him. He's good, may become great, but I personally don't see he is exceptional yet (except in a PR sense).

A player who is developed at one club and returns to his home to be a star at another club is not a plus for the first club. Does anyone think that having NN at the club over the last few years would have made much of a difference? Sounds like NN would have been back in WA by now whereas we still have JW. Therefore unless JW was a complete dud (which he clearly is not) choosing JW was a win. Why argue about it.

I thought this from McLardy's speech was extremely interesting: “The AFL found out during the investigation that the Melbourne footy club can be a formidable force when challenged, and we will continue to fight for our due respect in this competition.

I've lost track of the order of events, but is it not likely that if it had been thrown out at committal stage, Jurrah might still be at MFC?

Must be a mystical force in the universe. I was thinking of starting a cheer-up OldDee a thread myself today. Old Dee, the last GF I was at was in 1964 so I could be as depressed as you. But cheer up, the wheel is turning.

Agree. To those who say we can't play 2 games in Darwin because we need to start winning now, surely this deal is up to 2 games NEXT year. So we have all year to start winning.............. :>)

Sounds OK to me as long as those matches replace Etihad ones and are scheduled in a way which doesn't destroy our chances in the subsequent games. I hope we can make the AFL accept that in return for us bringing the NT into their empire.

"Time to build a bridge"? Even if for some unfathomable reason forum members wished to let bygones be bygones, are you seriously suggesting that if we all post nice things about her she will suddenly become a friend of the MFC? A very odd one-sided bridge. That is so silly that I'll be generous and assume what you meant was that we should just ignore her and then we'll all feel better. I will do so when she ignores us.

Oh dear. Some say they can't see a game plan and you say Neeld's is unworkable. Would you care to explain to us what the supposed game plan is?

Gosh, if that is right it must be even more depressing to be a Port fan. Anyway given our influx of new players who haven't played much together, and maybe no Mitch & JT, I still think odds are pretty even. So I'll be keeping the razor blades in the drawer till later in the season.

Why is beating Port supposed by some to be so easy that we'll be wrist-slitting if we lose. Every game will probably be a struggle this year.