leucopogon

He's had a whole preseason and half a regular season to prove me otherwise, it wasn't based on 30 minutes of football. Let's just agree to disagree and we'll see how successful Bailey ends up being at the end of his career. God knows, we're going to get 3 seasons worth of this crap out of him because we can't pay out a contract. I'll tell you now he's shaping up as the new Wayne Brittain. Never trust a career coach. Coaches tend to do better if they can rely on personal examples to inspire a team. Obviously a large part of the reason Blight, Matthews, Worsfold, Roos, Thompson have been so successful. What did Bailey ever do as a player, he was the Simon Godfrey of Essendon in the late 80's ffs. Edit. Sorry 45 hotgod, I meant to quote diablo

Well if Bailey can't be blamed, then I blame, Mahoney, Wellman, Williams, Bodan, the training staff and the bootstudder. Bailey's new catchcry: Bugger the result, just win the interchanges!

In a word yes! He's the coach, if he can't get them playing football that is likely to win games or at least stop a team from kicking ten unanswered goals in rapid succession, then it's his fault, the buck stops with him. P.S. I find it quite funny how people on these boards resort to name calling and derogatory remarks at the drop of a hat. At least there's some passion amongst the supporters, passion for in-fighting that is.

Well, where's the improvement? Where's the consistency? Where's the competitiveness? That quarter was Daniher-era-esque. Everything has changed personnel-wise, but everything has stayed the same.

F**K OFF with this crap about changing the name to suit the China experiment. What a pile of absolute crap. I say if we're gonna change the name change it back the Fuschias until we earn the name demons again. This club is rotten at the moment.

I'm calling for Baileys head, he's a complete hack!

Disagree with assessment of Moloney, he's slow and a depth player at best. Bell should be moved on ASAP. Bartram is a liability. I hope we can get a decent pick for Bruce at years end, frustrates the crap out of me. Besides those complaints, I really thought todays game was a brilliant effort. Backline was awesome except Bell. Woenemirri's a champ. I can't see how people think Jones had such a good game, he was thrashed by his direct opponent. Two gimme goals didn't cloud my judgement of his game. McLean's game was great and Davey's sublime until that brain fade tackle in front of goal. Much to like about the effort all round.

All I can say after the first half is: hahhahahhahahhahahhahahahhahahhahahahhahahhahahhahahahhahahahhahahahhahahahahhahahahahahhahahahhahahahahhahahahahahha If i didn't laugh I'd cry, honestly.

I think he was a Roos fan. I remember on the footy show they had a photo of him when he was a youngster in a roos jumper with his idol Wayne Carey.

I'm not in Demonland 1 but 3 and am loving supercoach, its the first season i've played. I'm Procrastinators and am doing pretty well leading our comp. Only problem is, I've used a fair number of trades already and the injuries have only just started! Yikes. I think I'll be coming back to the pack before long.

Everyone's favorite footy medico, Dr Peter Larkins (sp?) of course. Still think this penalty is soft as butter. He should have his wages docked as well. At least karma dished out that brute some serious pain and inconvenience because the tribunal sure didn't!

Villa could yet cause a shock for the UEFA cup spot, keep your eye on the Claret and the Blue!

This isn't a punishment, it amounts to essentially a one-week suspension or probably nothing as it would have taken 6-7 weeks for him to overcome the injury in any case. The tribunal has copped out again with Hall. Should have been 7 on top of how long it took him to get back from the injury I reckon. Pathetic! I don't think we've seen the last of the repercussions of this incident. I can seriously see the AFL bringing in a sin-bin or red-card type system in a couple of season's time. It makes sense for the Hall incident that he should be sent-off for the rest of the match after rendering his opponent unable to take further part in the game.

I'm getting so sick and tired of all this talk about break-even figures playing at the G. Why on God's green earth doesn't the AFL do something about this? This situation is like the music or film industry where major studios/labels produce say 16 films/albums a year, 95% of which will lose money. Luckily for them, its the 5% of output that makes bucketloads of cash allowing the company to cover the losses of all other endeavours and post a healthy profit year after year. By getting crap teams to play at the G, its like flushing money down the toilet these days. I know its our traditional home ground and everything, but the AFL needs to wise up and either just come out and say they'll bankroll whatever shortfall comes about as a result of the crap teams like us, North and Richmond not reaching the break-even figures at the G every season, or bite the bullet and play some of these games at smaller grounds with less overheads. AFL is a business these days, not a sport. So why don't they admit it and start managing it like one? What would the overheads of playing AFL at a smaller suburban ground like Princes Park, Whitten oval or Windy Hill (assuming they were brought up to AFL standard) be like compared to the MCG? I'm reminded of the music documentary DIG where a record label exec admits that most bands who are signed never succeed but nearly every single one of them could make money and do well if they were promoted according to their market and not all assumed to be the next pop megaband. In other words, don't shoot a music video for half a million dollars for a band that's anti-establishment, let them make money through well promoted tours and album sales. Rant over, I know I'll cop some flack for this too.

Totally agree with everything you've written here. I tried to compose something like this last night but was too shocked by what I'd seen to be able to think straight. I reckon the AFL will rightfully make an example out of this. And to Moose who thinks the "biff" should be brought back to footy, why don't you go and watch some Saturday Amateur crap where that [censored]'s the norm. Leave the AFL to the best and FAIREST players in the land.

That's a sickening piece of image. Can't believe I have this thug in my supercoach team! what a [censored]. If he gets less than 10 weeks for that I'll be absolutely disgusted. In my view it warrants the rest of the season off. If that happened anywhere else but on a footy field, he'd be looking at assault charges, conviction and a criminal record, which is what he deserves. Its king hits like those that kill people round the country every few weeks. Hall (and Staker) are just lucky there wasn't hard pavement or kerbing for his head to crash into. I just keep thinking to Dale Kickett getting 9 weeks in the Demolition Western Derby of about 10 years ago. But I can't remember which incident was worse. What's Hall's previous tribunal record like?

Tonight he looked like a rabbit in the headlights. Nathan Brown for the Pies looks like this years Rising Star (toweling up Pav and Brown in games 1 & 2, he'd have to be a shoe-in wouldn't he?)

There was an editorial piece by former Hawk and Docker Ben Allen in yesterday's West Australian about the challenge faced by Bailey following the thumping by the Hawks. His advice for Bails: pick the same side as last week and see what kind of character they've got. I think he's dreaming and wants us to get hammered by 100+ again.

No post this good should pass by without reply. Good on ya Demon Rob, very entertaining read.

Crikey, the whole competition would have to up and tank if we were to repeat this kind of effort. The more I look at our list, the worse I feel these days!

The only way we'll start getting good crowds is by playing exciting, passionate football. Based on last weeks effort, that doesn't look like its going to happen anytime soon.

God I hope not, doesn't he have a bunch of Daughters? No offence to the girls out there.

All this tanking talk and the way to solve the problem got me thinking. Anyway here goes: - Scrap priority picks in the draft completely - Expand the comp to 18 teams - Shorten the H&A season so each team plays each other only once (then reverse the venues every year) ---> So H&A season is 17 rounds - Top 8 play off in September for the Premiership as it is now - Bottom 10 play off in September for the top 10 draft picks using an adapted final 8 system as follows ----> Arrange the bottom 10 in reverse order (so 18th spot is the equivalent of finishing top of the ladder if you get my drift) ----> Now, week one of the "Draft Finals" (last weekend of August) is two elimination finals 9 vs 12 and 10 vs 11. The two losers are out and receive picks 10 and 9 respectively in the draft. First weekend in September sees the two winners from the previous weekend play another elimination final against teams in positions 13 & 14, while the remaining play off in qualifying finals (18 vs 15 and 17 vs 16). Qualifying finals winners get a week off while the losers play the winners of the two Elimination finals and so on and so forth until we get a winner who receives the number one pick in the draft. Anyone still reading? okay good. Advantages of this system Fixturing is much fairer, you can't complain about having to play strong teams twice in the year, etc Season shorter so potentially less impact on players, perhaps allowing them to extend their careers (in terms of number of years able to compete at the highest level). Longer off-season period more time for those on long-term injury lists to recuperate. More excitement for the fans, especially fans of the bottom teams as there is more at stake. Now the drawbacks Less home & away fixtures means less money for the AFL (this is a big one, the gate revenues from a full 5 rounds are lost in this system 40 games in total). Note however that this would be offset by 17 extra H&A games due to the expansion of the comp to 18 teams plus 11 extra "finals" games in the bottom 10 "Draft Finals" giving a total of 28 extra games so only a deficit of 12 games on the current system. Not too much impact. Plus, the fact the season is shorter would probably mean more interest in the fewer games and more finals games means bigger crowds I would think, or at least hope. Fewer H&A also means fewer blockbusters unfortunately so that would impact badly on revenue. Ticket prices likely to go up as a result of this. Talent pool of footballers diluted with more teams (but it's going to happen anyway so you can't fight it, also it just means more guys will get a chance to play AFL instead of lingering on lists for a couple of years and then being cast off, like Fergs, Godders, etc) Shorter season means less of the year for AFL fans to be obsessed with it all (I actually think this is a good thing, but I'm sure plenty wouldn't agree with me). So...dare I ask your opinions on this?

A bottom 8 finals series to determine the high picks is the way to go, I'm convinced now.

Okay radical idea number 2: Teams in the bottom 4 at the end of the Home and Away season, play a top 4 draft pick mini finals or world cup soccer style "group" series. It runs concurrently with the actual finals series and the final finishing order determines the order of the top 4 draft picks. Now that would be exciting. Compete for the spoon and then play in september for draft picks. P.S. if this ever got up, i reckon they'd need to scrap the NAB cup. This system could work hand in hand with Gouga's idea about the bottom 8 receiving picks 1-8 in reverse order to what they get them now. Instead of the bottom 4 competing for the top 4 draft picks it could be the entire bottom 8 playing a "draft finals" in september so all teams get to play.