DeeSpencer

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.

It's not who we let go that was the problem. It was the how and why. For example the McLean trade for an extra pick in a draft when we had pick 1, pick 2 and all the other picks. Ok on paper it looked great getting in Scully, Trengove and Gysberts to go with Moloney and co. But clearly after McDonald was let go we needed continuity with some clearance winning and running midfielders. The fact McLean had a lot of issues doesn't itself mean he was right to be let go of. He should never have felt like we weren't trying to win, nor she he have had such issues with his speed and groins, carrying too much muscle to run at AFL pace etc. Took two years for him to come good again. Keeping some experienced players around even if they aren't ideal would've actually helped the development of the young guys.

I'll question his ability. His skills are great but there is so much more to footballing ability than skills. Hard ball gets are not all just desire, you have to have the skill of contested ball winning. Same with tackling, some players are naturally good at it, others aren't. But Roos will aim to build up his weaknesses and play him in a position where his strengths can shine.

Much closer to Goodes (but miles away in class) or an Adreas Everitt than Kennedy. Watts will be molded into a tall athletic outside midfielder who can run and use the ball. No coach in a million years will ever make him a big body clearance beast like Kennedy.

Good news that he's not going overseas either. 2 weeks at Byron should be more than enough for him to relax, especially now he can refresh mentally. A lot of it has been him not helping himself with his on and off field efforts but now he should get a real chance to prove his talents. I'd like to see him run a top 10 time trial. That would prove he's serious about making it as an AFL star not just a guy who floats between positions. If he's going to be an outside midfielder he will need that fitness as well. Look at the starting wing man from the grand final teams - Hill x two, Isaac Smith, Mzungu, Pearce, all elite runners. One thing Roos does well is he sticks with guys. Watts is bound to get a month at least of consistent footy in the same spot and if he hasn't proved himself by then it should be back to the reserves.

We've already got a guy who is absolutely perfect at that job and has slightly stronger hands and much better foot skills than Miller in Dawes. I don't think Miller will be working too much with key forwards, they are one group on our list who actually don't need much coaching. Despite Brad been 6'4 or whatever he was I'd like to see him work with our small forwards and those who rotate into the midfield about how they can lead up and get to open space as well. Guys play whole games at half forward (Tapscott, Bail, Blease) without getting out in space and getting the ball. Miller could teach Watts a lot about being physical and playing like a big man even if he isn't that big. Would love to see Watts suspended like Miller was a few times early in his career.

I've got nothing against Leppa but if he doesn't work who's next? Lynch? Power? Black? Mal Michael?

You've quoted an article saying Leppitsch twice and gone with Lepitch in the thread title? He should do a great job coaching Maloney

Who else got votes in that game? Sylvia and Evans (and Howe) were a great combination in the last quarter. Our big rucks got on top and those 3 really finished of GWS. But Byrnes' hard running kept us in the game for the first 3/4. Was very impressed with how he played that day. Unfortunately his consistency was there and I got the feeling he carried a few injuries as well. Let's hope he can be better this year, I actually don't hate him as much as I do the rest of the sorry lot that Neeld brought in.

So if we kept Neeld apparently we would've got one because we didn't make a coaching change? The AFL commission has rolled to the opinion of the clubs, which is the entire point of having an independent commission in the first place!

Bennell (with a knee injury) and Petterd both were rookied by other clubs. With our list in the state it was we should've rookied both of them and kept them. I think Petterd is a bit of a lad but otherwise not too much trouble and Bennell is a hard working guy. Both deserved more time with all the other trash on our list. Morton was contracted, to ship him off to any one else was a win. Moloney is still miles away from a two way running midfielder, I'm not convinced we missed him. Rivers would've been handy but he got shown up by Hale the other night. We would have had him in the team and Garland playing smaller but I'm not convinced he'd be in a winning team that has McDonald, Frawley and Garland. All in all Neeld's clean out was a failure, but again not really the problem. Regardless of how little Byrnes, Rodan, Pedersen and Gillies gave it was the guys we already had on the list that weren't up to it. Pedersen the biggest failure because he was expected to be best 22 and instead was miles from it.

Voss - out of a job Hird - suspended a year and his clubs a disgrace Buckley - hasn't achieved anything Yet we look at the grand final this week Lyon - journeyman player Clarkson - best thing he ever did on the field was belt a bloke at a London trial game You seem to think that if we load up on successful players as coaches then that will just bring success. That's not true at all. We need hard working and committed people to bring a culture of hard work and if they are skilled at their jobs then success will come. It's also a lot of anger for a development coaching role when Miller still has a huge gap in playing career than Greaves, Nicholls and Satterley.

Couldn't mark, couldn't kick and wasn't all that fast but he rocked up every week and did play some very good games. And was in the leadership group even when he was in the reserves. He'll be a thorough and hard working coach and teach guys how to prepare themselves. He'll also know how to deal with disappointment. He also went to Richmond where he didn't really improve much as a player but he led the way for some young tigers to play some very good football. It's also nice to bring back people who have left the club maybe not under ideal circumstances. It shows Miller doesn't hold a grudge and wants to help out.

She's not an elite investigative journo. If she was she would've handled the entire peptide scheme and the Age wouldn't have send their true investigative journo's Nick McKenzie and Richard Baker. And you are right, she sure does seem to have a great knowledge of what is going on within the AFL and Richmond. As a lot of people have suggested of late she sure seemed to collect a lot of leaks that most likely came from the same source. She's compulsive reading if over the top scandal is your scene. If you actually want to learn something about AFL or read something positive then you wouldn't read Caro.