The Chazz

Given the amount of Collins St finance gurus that would have to be MFC/MCC supporters, we need to find the most creative ones, and get them working with us. What do I mean by this? I'm told the Geelong Football Club have at least one gamin venue that they receive profits from, that is not "on their books" so to speak. Rightly or wrongly, even if the AFL change to rules with regards to gaming income, there will be clubs that will still make money from them. The other option is to create additional income streams. The Richmond Football Club are developing their Richmond Institute of Sports Leadership division. They are working in partnership with Swinburne University to offer a program that is partly run at the RFC, where they have access to all their facilities. I'm not sure what sort of financial agreement they have, or what financial benefit they receive from it, but it's becoming more and more popular each year. I do think we have an alliance of some description with the University of Melbourne, so perhaps there's an income stream there that can be explored. To raise more money for the club, on top of the dollars we currently give via membership, raffles, game day things, the club needs to offer products/services that we all currently pay for, and have our own option. But instead of offering its of little things that will make us bugger all, find one thing that we can do bloody well, so that we can build it strongly each year. We also need to find something that isn't just restrictive to Melbourne supporters.

That's the point that I am really struggling to understand, he didn't do a brilliant job, even when you take in to account the "situation". I will give credit where it is due. I just can't do it in this case, and am amazed that you can, not just with CAC, but PB too.

I rarely get things wrong when I do a "brilliant job", as you claimed CAC did.

So, are you saying that the recruiters can take zero responsibility for the playing personnel coming in between 2007-2015?

I'll go even further, of all the top 10 draft picks in 2008, three players never received a rising star nomination - Watts, Vickery and Hartlett. Hartlett was awarded the best first year player at Port. Watts is also one of two former number 1 draft picks to never receive a Rising Star nomination (the other being Paddy McCartin). Two of that Top 10 are current club captains, 1 has been a vice captain, 1 an All Australian, 3 are or have been in their club's Leadership Group, with 1 of those winning the Rising Star of the whole competition. So, your comment about 8 of the 10 clubs, in hindsight, got it wrong - I think it's more of a case that 2 clubs, in hindsight, got it wrong. True, the class of 2008 isn't riddled with superstars, but there have been many, many more than serviceable players graduate. Of the entire group that we selected, 5 in total, only 1 remains on our list (Nev Jetta, taken at 51). It's not about us being "experts". None of the critics are claiming they are. What we are critical of is that the guys that are the so-called experts, the ones getting paid top dollar to do this specific job for our footy club, they both failed time and time again. Use whatever excuse you like, but they still failed at hat they were employed to do.

Your continual defence of Prendergast and Cameron is admirable, but without doubt, the two biggest "busts" of the original top 10 would be Watts and Vickery. Even Yarran, prior to battling personal demons, played a lot of top footy at Carlton.

No worries Saty. I, like many, rely on your input during the preseason, and look forward to your reports. I just want to make sure I'm getting a close to accurate account with what you post (helps me feel like I've been to the sessions too!), and not your interpretation (where possible).

You originally said that BP was headhunted for a role directly related to recruiting. Your definition of "directly related" is clearly different to mine. BP's main role at Carlton would see him work a heck of a lot more with the coaches than the recruitment team. Where he would have some input in, in terms of player acquisition, would be tried players. This has nothing to do with drafting kids, which is what he failed terribly at with us. I'm trying to work out if you are related to CC or BP. Whichever one you are, Vogan is obviously related to the other. This clouds both your judgements, which means this discussion has ended. I'm not wasting any more of my time on either topic.

CC was our Recruitment Manager. He worked at Richmond, GWS and now GC as List Manager. Significantly different roles and responsibilities. BP went to Carlton as an opposition analyst. That's not related to recruiting. He's now at North looking after their academy, as well as being a recruitment "officer" (whatever that means). Please correct me if any of the above is wrong.

All players would be told of the things they need to work on. How would they know where to improve if they weren't told? My point was, Saty seems to think they are told of the consequences if they don't do what's asked. I highly doubt that would happen.

Pretty sure someone was posting here a few weeks ago claiming that our clash jumper won't be white. Didn't give it away, but I got the feeling it would be a red jumper with a blue v (opposite to our traditional strip). Can't remember who is was, but I think they post here a bit.

See what I've done above? The message is the same, but the outcome is different. All players would know what they need to do this year to improve. Some will indirectly know the outcome if they don't, others won't (just have to see this year's trade period to see that). I agree, no sugar coating with Roos, but he has a reputation of his people management ability. He wouldn't get that by telling a bloke 12 months out that if he doesn't do "this" then he's delisted. I don't expect you to agree, but have a think about it.

1. That's all us, the supporter, has got to base it on. It's also all that the industry itself has to base opinions on. We aren't in the meetings with coaches, parents, school teachers, etc. We don't get paid to make the decision at the time though. 2. Again, that's what they (recruiters) get paid to do. We're talking about the highest level of competition for this sport in the country. We hire people that are experts in their field. Compare the Toumpas v Wines situation with the Oliver v Parish. The criteria which we selected Toumpas on was clearly wrong. If we used the same recruiting principles in the Toumpas/Wines draft as we did in the Oliver/Parish draft, we pick differently. 3. WTF has this got to do with your argument? 4. It's the quantity of the duds, coupled with the quality of the picks that has been the issue during the CC/BP era. Recruiters that get the ratio right, they last in their jobs. Poor ones, if they are lucky, go from club to club in roles that aren't directly related to recruitment. 5. Again, a serious amount of the responsibility has to fall on the shoulders of the head recruiter. I'll leave this state here, and you tell me if our recent recruiters have done a satisfactory job or not... 10 of this years 18 club B&F winners were first round draft picks, with 6 players taken in the pick 20-40 range. That doesn't include Ablett (F&S), and Zorko (zone). In the past 11 years, we've had 8 individual B&F winners. Only one of them has come from the first round (Jones at 12), with 3 of the other 7 coming from either the rookie draft or preseason draft. A majority of B&F winners, and Brownlow winners for that matter, come from the first round.

Educated observation. Loved Kent prior to the day I saw him, lost a lot of respect for him after that day.

And Wells at Geelong? It's simple, if you do your job well, clubs don't get rid of you.

Definitely wasn't a clean up. Was more extensive surgery than that, but not sure of it was a full reco. And Saty, I would be astonished if the club has told him that "he has to put it together this year or the door will be beckoning". It would be a terrible way to start any player in a new preseason, especially one coming back from a serious should injury. All it would take would be a minor setback during preseason, then the mind will likely take over and pack it in. Players put that pressure on themselves, they know where they are at from a contract perspective, as well as a pecking order perspective. The club doesn't need to put extra pressure on them, especially 12 months out from a possible list management conversation.

You only need to look at Nathan Jones to see what the right attitude can do for you. Even in our dark times, he was a shining light. It's attitude, ethic and respect. Some have it in spades, some have it but don't do anything about it, others have NFI what it is. You clearly have an emotional attachment to CC and/or BP, I respect that. I have an emotional attachment to the MFC. But sane people would clearly be able to see our drafting was woeful during their tenure. If the Head of Recruitment can't take a massive amount of blame for that, then our discussion/disagreement can't go any further.

I appreciate that, but that has nothing to do with him, and the 16 weeks leading up to the shoulder injury. The post I was responding to seemed to paint it that the shoulder injury was a major setback for his season. It wasn't. Nb - I apologise if I misinterpreted what the poster meant.

I'm with you, Steve. I have no idea why he was dropped after that GWS game. His figures for that game stacked up pretty bloody well I thought. Will put it down to "development". The coaches know what they are doing. I personally have NFI. I remember watching a VFL game earlier his year, and specifically remember number 48 being a class above, without knowing who 48 was! Was pleasantly surprised when I found out it was Maynard. Just hope he can be more than that "too good for VFL, not good enough for AFL" player. If he can take the required steps to ensure that happens, he's been an astute pick up.

He hurt his shoulder in Round 17. There was plenty of season before that for him to show those "great" attributes you speak of, but playing at Casey with a serious chip on your shoulder isn't going to help your chances.

Drafting can still be hit and miss now. Yes, there's more research, more resources, and more professionalism, but what money can't buy is a crystal ball, and this is what sorts out the great recruiters, the good recruiters, and the crap ones. Regardless of how the club was in the 2000-2014 period, the recruiting efforts of CC and BP was a complete fail. One thing that the club doesn't have to spend money on to compete with the "big boys" is the attitude of the player. Mclean, Sylvia, Watts, Morton, Gysberts, et al, these blokes didn't have the desire to work their backsides off with what the club could offer them. They could still become great if they put in effort. They didn't.

And that's why I was content with what we paid for Lever. We are three years away from needing to worry about youth coming through.

HT, given you are from Sydney, it is little surprise a few of the locals on the street are losing interest. Queensland has won 11 of the last 12 series, of course NSW supporters are over it! That said, if you look at recent crowd numbers, I think they would show your comment to being quite off the mark. 2017 - 185,189 (Total crowd numbers) 2016 - 138,111 (Game 3 a dead rubber) 2014 - 180,432 I have deliberately left 2015 out because one game was at the MCG, which historically inflates the crowd size due to the popularity of the game in Vic. I've also compared 2017 with 2014 as both series had 2 games in Qld and 1 game in NSW. The stadium in QLD fills up at around 53k. Reality is, SOO is as strong as ever, which is amazing given Qlds recent domination. And while the SOO series is definitely more of a dream for a (league) kid growing up, the lesser players wouldn't call their GF ring "poor". Just have to watch how much it meant to the Melbourne Storm team this year.

Ernest, I wonder if the possibility of making the season a 26 week season (24 games, plus 2 byes), similar to that of the NRL, would make AFL clubs look at injury/player management differently? NRL rep players don't play the regular season game directly before the SOO, and depending on how they pull up, some won't play the game directly after SOO. Having that extra couple of games up their sleeves could give AFL clubs that bit of extra time to manage its players, while having an extra couple of games to "get a game back" if they are to dropout when players are being rested. Just a thought and discussion point. I'm fairly neutral about it, but it could be argued that due to the current length of the season, AFL clubs might not feel they have enough time to rest players at the fear of dropping too far off the pace and not having enough time to catch up.

I think Billy wasn't able to be developed as hoped (i.e. through the reserves), because when he first came in, he filled a need that we lacked. Because we had an increase in our depth in 2017, it allowed the FD to send Billy back to Casey to develop his game the "right" way. Basically, he's doing now what we were able to do with Hunt when he was first drafted. I'm not that fussed on who comes back early, etc, but as long as when they are meant to be back, they are 100% ready to go. I'll spew if some players aren't in top shape upon return. I'm still hurting from this season, so those that can do something about it better be too.