DeeSpencer

Buddy finally attacked the contest and used his pace and size yesterday. But at the same time didn't have much impact on the game. He's out of form that's for sure. I disagree about not needing a great ruckman. Hawthorn did an amazing job in the first quarter at tackling and stopping Freo winning clearances but as the game went on especially in the third and start of fourth quarter Sandilands was smashing them. Mundy and Fyfe were the dominant mids on the ground. Unfortunately for Freo they just weren't switched on in the first quarter. They had some bad shots on goal and other chances were the final kick/handball forward went missing and with a 2-3 goal breeze at least were 2 goals down at quarter time. That's a huge deficit. Back to the Hawthorn list I'm not that overawed with their trading in. They had a dominant young team in 2008 after drafting and developing guys like Lewis, Franklin, Rioli, Roughead, Birchall to go with Hodge, Mitchell and Sewell. That had them so well placed for years to come that they were incredibly popular for any recruits. Burgoyne obviously wanted to go to Hawthorn. Gibson wanted to play with Buddy as much as he wanted out of the Hawks. Hale saw what happened with Gibson and wanted it as well. And freaking Gunston, got home sick after 1 week at Adelaide but of course only wanted to return to the hawks. And Lake was an absolute steal but not many other clubs wanted/needed him. Pretty much when you assemble the young talent the hawks did then all the out of contract players see a great opportunity. Their kicking skills are elite but Freo played into their hands at times when they rushed the counter attack into no one with an extra hawk defender. Hawthorns chip it around plan is actually a defensive plan as much as how to move the ball forward because it slows the game and lets defenders get in positions to minimise turnovers and damage from turnovers.

The insane work rate, tackling, physical efforts and ability to halve or win one on one contests were my impression from the grand final. Remember it was a very windy day which made kicking hard. Most of the hawks better kicking was from half back where they are elite but also incredibly disciplined and structured. They always have a man for the switch and instinctively go for it. Hawthorn are the best kicking side but it's only about 20% of the reason why they won the grand final.

I suspect it's more Mike getting back on the bandwagon. I get the feeling he misses the lime light since he's stepped down from full time herald sun hence why he still does open mike, OTC and the top 50 and often tries to provoke headlines. But even if he's jumping on it's still a positive sign. He's a guy who for the last decade at least he placed his professional career ahead of his personal team support which is actually quite admirable. Mark Robinson could take note.

I'm not a fan at all. But I want him to stay because at least he'll put his head over it and he showed this year that he does have some propensity to tackle. In no way do I expect him to ever become a super hard 2 way runner, be anywhere above average at clearances or actually make sound decisions with the ball consistently but if he can back up his second half of 2013 again I think that actually contributes something. The other option is losing him for nothing. It would be nice if the club could lock him away on a 2 year deal though without getting held hostage for 3 or anything like that.

Played mainly as a small forward and only really got going towards the mid to end of season IIRC. At least that's when he started to impact the scoreboard regularly. Will be interesting to see if he goes in any of the drafts. I'd suspect coming from a cricket background he'd be perfect to have train with a club before the rookie draft to have a closer look at - see where they can get his fitness before they take a punt on him.

A reunion with Dean Bailey maybe?

Probably because he got 30 touches almost every week for Casey and played more games than Gawn and Hogan and still didn't win the B+F. Magner's games looked good on paper but the Liston and even more tellingly now this B+F indicates to me he just wasn't making anywhere enough impact. I suspect even at VFL he'd be looking like the Matt Priddis of the team where as he needs to look like Sam Mitchell when he's in the VFL if he wants to be any chance of AFL.

Port lost D Pearce and Chaplin in free agency last year. Then were ready to sign Monfries. But they did the maths on losing Pearce and Chaplin and worked out for their sake they were better sending a pick to Essendon for Monfries (who gladly accepted something over nothing) and then receiving better compensation. Melbourne should've done the same thing as we lost Rivers and Moloney and brought in Byrnes. If we traded a late rubbish pick to Geel for Byrnes we may well have got better compo for Moloney and Rivers. I actually agree with compensation because the FA market place is so weak. Who were St Kilda meant to replace Goddard with? If Frawley leaves where are the good key defenders on the FA market? It's not EPL or NFL where you just sign a similar player from some other team on a big market.

Ok that legitimately saves this thread!

Agree with your point, but I'd say whist Freo will always have a strong base in Fremantle they really are the second Perth or even second WA team. I've never been there but from what I here Fremantle still has it township feel but it also a part of Perth. Geelong are really one out in maintaining a club based in one set community. I saw Freo fans campaigning to keep Freo's training base in Fremantle and I thought they were foolish. The hawks wouldn't be what they are today if they stayed at Glenferrie and same with the Pies at Vic Park.

Sydney board

All sounds like a great dream besides wasting a rookie spot on a guy who's background is so troubled he's unlikely to stick around long enough to provide any meaningful benefit to the side. How about club trades for 1 quality midfielder. Club recruits midfielder in rookie draft and develops him into absolute superstar like Kieran Jack.

For a part time job. Obviously excessive which is why Roos can't complain too much about the 55% pay cut they offered. But they were obviously willing to pay him overs to keep him involved at the club in some aspect. All clubs had access to the NSW scholarship program. The best 3 are Taylor Walker (by a mile), Craig Bird and Witts from Collingwood. Not sure anyone else has had any real success. That program is now being disbanded and Perris is one of the last if not the last remaining. The new academy program is a way for NSW and QLD kids to get access to elite coaching and development so more of them can get drafted. It's in place of the TAC for Victorian kids. Sydney and every other club will then have free reign to take these kids through the draft. Obviously the swans have their name on their one and oversee the program and therefore have better knowledge of those kids but it's no different to WA clubs having better understanding on the kids coming up through WA. The good ones in the Sydney program will get spotted by all clubs and Sydney might get a little advantage but will have to pay up the draft picks for it. And if more kids stay in Sydney from a NSW base that's not necessarily a bad thing. Ideally the swans academy gets taken away from the club and is AFL run but it's a more attractive and probably cheaper model if it has the backing of the swans. So scholarship system is out, swans academy is in and that's a good thing overall.

What the hell is a social club? Who goes to one? Is this still in the 1960's? We have coteries and we have bars at the MCG. That's where our power base is. We don't need a social club. It would be lovely to have everything in one spot and to have a place where we can make money from members selling food, drinks and functions after games. But lets focus on what we do have in great facilities at AAMI and our admin being inspired to work every day at the MCG and staying out of the FD's way.

By the way I've been sitting on this gem for a few weeks now. Was going to post it in its own thread but we'll give it a run here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Roos_(rugby_player)

In terms of current CHB's I'd say the best comparison is Luke McPharlin. He's had a poor year this year due to injury but McPharlin at his peak I'd say was similar to Roos. It's a bit over the top to say he completely reinvented the position. There were running defenders for years. But I think he took it to another level. He'll certainly instruct the likes of Frawley, McDonald and Garland to use their run.

1. Perris is a holdover from the old scholarship scheme. Sydney are offering him a 2 year rookie deal. Roos may or may not have suggested that he'd earn more money and have more chance to play if he was on the main list. Communicating this to a guy he helped coach isn't particularly poor form. The guy is set to join the swans but the swans shouldn't low ball him on the rookie list if his play is good enough for main list. 2. The new program is the academies. They are a free for all. Sydney get an advantage of seeing them first hand but all clubs have equal access to any of them. Suggesting Roos forgets about the good ones he's seen from this group is stupid. Roos has every right to go after any of these guys 3. George Stone is out of contract. He should go where he wants to 4. Stewie Dew: He's in contract so in some ways the club has a right to keep him. If it's just an assistant job he was looking for then he shouldn't even bother interviewing. If he wanted the senior assistant job and a run at a senior coach job in 2-3 years then you'd think a successful organisation would recognise his ambition and let him interview. Then again he's contracted and Sydney are a successful organisation. Who are we to judge.

If Roos stays he certainly wont take over Mahoney's role. Mahoney is an administrator. Sure he has to have football knowledge to the do the job but the best way of looking at his role now is CEO of the footy department. And he manages all his sub departments like recruiting, list management, sports science. Except he doesn't have extensive managment of the coaching and development because Roos has far great expertise there. So if Roos does stay in then yes I expect it to be a director of coaching role which will see him continue to provide leadership and insight to all the coaches. Most clubs are now heading away from hiring a coach as their director of footy ops and hiring a person with administrative skills. Such as Dan Richardson who seems to have done a wonderful job calling Dustin Martin's bluff at Richmond.

The term Director of football is used differently at a lot of clubs. Mahoney is the head of the football department on paper but also defers to Roos as required. That is a more than reasonable structure. They both report to the CEO. In turn the CEO (and probably the head coach) report to the board and some boards have a specific director of football. In our case I'm not sure if we do have that exact title of if we have a subgroup of the board who are the football sub committee. Greg Healy is on the board and I believe takes a certain role overseeing football but I'm not sure what that entails. Of course the President also comes from a football background. No doubt the Melbourne board would be keen for more football experience if we get the right person.

Read the article on MFC.com.au Jackson is his superior. He reports directly to him about what is happening in the football department. Then like any manager in a talent field he is in charge of administration in this case of the football department and oversees recruiting, list management, sports science etc. He's the go to man regarding organising the department and organising where the money goes. I'd say Viney as head of player development, Roos as an experienced senior coach and Jason Taylor as head recruiter are specifically involved in list management decisions but Mahoney would oversee the money aspects and contracts. Already he has signed up Watts, Gawn and Fitzpatrick. Personally I like the move of not overspending for a Walsh or otherwise for this position. Roos as the senior coach doesn't need someone to get in his way, he just needs sound people in list management and recruiting and we've got them in Viney and Taylor. After that we need a capable administrator to be Peter Jackson's deputy and it seems Mahoney has proven he can do it.

Seems like the answer is yes according to M Robbo on twitter

Not sure if serious.

Who's going to make a better wingman? Barry or Watts? Not sure I have a lot of confidence in either but we certainly need some players with some speed and skill on our list. Right now it's Blease and Barry and neither are near good enough to be consistent AFL players but lets hope we can develop them.

I'd say Roos mentioning it OTC is enough for an official announcement. I'd say he'd get a job somewhere else, maybe even at Brisbane (in which case they'd have to let the dust settle on Leppitsch's appointment first) and when that's arranged they'd be a mutual parting of ways.

Voss might have developed some young talent but Longer, Karnezis, Polec, Doherty and Yeo are all set to leave. 3 first round picks and 2 other quality picks all about to walk out. They couldn't all be homesick and they are all too talented to be feeling like leaving trapped behind a side that didn't make the 8 and started the season in a mess (after the NAB Cup). Voss was too stuck in his ways and wasn't a great coach. Let's see how Leppitsch goes but he certainly doesn't have the coaching pedigree of a Ken Hinkley. Or a Leigh Tudor for that matter who he beat to get the job.