Curry & Beer

like Scully and Trengove did?

wtf do you think we've been doing? Watts, Trengove, Scully, Morton, McLean, Sylvia, Toumpas - all of them went within one spot of where the so-called experts expected them to on draft day. The top 5 is very obvious every year and we haven't made any 'shock' choices in this regard.

Putting our gameplan/coaching aside for a moment to look at the list.. At the moment we have 9 players on the list worthy of being in an AFL side: Clark, Dawes, Frawley, Garland, Grimes, Howe, Jamar, N.Jones, Sylvia (a couple of those are dubious too) The next rung down are just battlers, some may have a brighter future ahead, but it's not looking great : Bail, Blease, Dunn, Evans, Gawn, Terlich, Jetta, M.Jones, T.McDonald, McKenzie, Nicholson, Strauss, Tapscott, Trengove, Watts (15). After that we have the kids in Viney, Toumpas, Hogan, Barry and Kent If we are to get anywhere near becoming a good side we need at least half of these blokes to go up a peg in the very near future Given our current rate of individual improvement it is impossible to see that happening Get whomever you like to be coach, they will not get far with these individuals and their deficiencies in skill, heart, athleticism and brains

ouch

the worst part is this: if you are a player, either about to be drafted or potentially moving clubs, how would you like the prospect of going to the MFC? - extremely poor track record of developing talent, even when given the best quality draftees, means your potential as a player is unlikely to be reached - what appears to be years of cellar-dwelling ahead - what appears to be a spud coach - what appears to be a dysfunctional administration and divided and dwindling supporter base - despite (sort of) making some inroads in recent years, substandard economics/facilities/staff etc - shown nothing but disrespect from the football world - terrible crowds and fixturing meaning you never see 'the big stage' - low profile club means less opportunity for endorsements, post-footy media career, not being in the paper etc - money (the big one) undoubtedly we are lacking here since the paper-bag/VISY nature of the system makes a mockery of the salary cap what do we have in our favour? The fact we play at the G and the fact we have a long history, that's about it. No longer can we talk about the upcoming stars on the list because we have shown our ability to actually turn these players into superstars is severely hindered what needs to be considered here also is not just players wanting to come here, but given all of the above, do we wonder why there seems to be a lack of passion and effort shown by those currently wearing the jumper? of course, pretty much all of the above doom and gloom can be turned around fairly quickly if we start winning, but gee we seem pretty far from that right now. The next couple of years is very dangerous territory in terms of who comes and goes, and whether we have any hope of building a quality list that actually give a stuff about the club.

what the last bunch of posters have discussed is the no.1 issue for me. It has the thing that has me stumped and despairing the most. leading, manning up, running to space, chasing, applying pressure what I cannot fathom is how these obvious flaws are not being worked out. The crazy thing is that you can do these things if you have no talent. You can do it if you are 5 foot nothing or 7 foot. It's not something that the coach has any control over. It's something you learn as a 10-year old just starting footy. Why IN THE NAME OF GOD can they not do these things?

hey mate can you expand on this? Is it fact or speculation

yes in the MCC against gold coast it was a horror movie unfolding in front of us, but everyone around me was either completely poker faced or laughing with each other. That is not to say these people don't have passion, quite the opposite, there has been too much negative energy expended at this point there is none left to give. Very strange environment, like a funeral for someone that everyone hated

I too am in previously uncharted waters... I never thought I would be here. The last month or so I am ashamed to admit I have stopped going, and today I didn't even watch on TV. Of course I checked the score but wasn't at all surprised to see we were in it for 35 minutes and then got absolutely slaughtered. Every week you can't help thinking that maybe something will click and we will actually play 4 respectable quarters of football, but this mob just refuses to do it. After previously asking for leniency on Neeld he has lost me, we just seem to be getting worse and worse. The last 3 weeks we have lost by an average of 89 points, that is an utter disgrace. However, the worst part is that there is nobody really making a fuss of it, we are so beaten down and jaded by supporting this club that the passion, even the negative passion, is fading. This failure for me to participate would have been unthinkable even a year ago... in fact I have gone several years without a missing game in Victoria, even at the cattery. I am paid up and I am on this site just about every day.. but I have plenty enough on my plate and plenty enough stress and sadness to deal with in daily life without having to deal with how [censored] we have become. I really hope that I am in the minority here, and I am not indicative of the supporter base, but it looks like year after year of pain has finally caught up with me and the level of commitment I thought previously to be unshakable is clearly coming undone. We are in a diabolical situation.. with all the challenges we were already facing we just REALLY didn't need to go backwards on the field and go back to the worst (or close to) side in the comp and everybody's whipping boy/laughing stock. I have a terrible feeling there will be no bouncing back from this as a club... and if quality players walk out as rumored.. it's over. I can't even envisage what kind of miracle can bring us back from the dead.. we need a superstar coach and a superstar player or two.. but it's not going to happen. Nobody wants anything to do with us and understandably so. It might be possible to throw money at the issue but we don't have any so we're stuffed there too. Hard times indeed.

another spitroasting comin up

We have a real chance to get an elite talent that will become a superstar just like Cale Morton, Jack Watts, Colin Sylvia, Tom Scully, Jack Trengove and Brock McLean

I assure you I don't find it fun at all. There are so many fabricated garbage opinions fed to us by the media and opposition clubs.. that is one thing. What I can't stand is our own supporters adopting these "myths" (correct rjay) as if they were facts and potting the club for them.Watts' debut was an attempt by Stynes to generate some publicity and passion for the club, and was engineered by the revered Jimmy Stynes. There is nothing wrong with that, it is us trying to raise our pitiful profile in the public arena, something every person on this board would agree is an important things for us to do. The way it was handled does not have the slightest thing to do with where Watts is at now, to say otherwise just shows a lack of common sense and logic. What else? Neeld's recruiting? Yeah that's right let's just join the media and pot his so-called 'moneyball' strategy that apparently hasn't worked. Never mind the fact that he gave up almost nothing and has brought a handful of decent assets to the club, and in one draft we secured Viney, Toumpas, Hogan and Barry. It is the same garbage about bagging Prendergast because of Morton, even though picking him at 4 was an auto-pick that every single club in the comp would have done. I've already mentioned this 'alienating the senior players' rubbish, this is the group of players that have been universally blamed for our woes for years. Most backed this approach at the time, but now we are on the bottom of the ladder everyone looks back and goes 'gee that was the wrong thing to do'. These myths go on forever. Look I am obviously not blindly defending Neeld or the past and present club in general, how can I with the rubbish they are serving up. I am just saying it helps nothing to perpetuate these fairy tales about was and is going on at the club.

and BTW the censored word there was a 5 letter one starting with I.. yeah that really naughty one.. you must be having a laugh DLAnd

more revisionist BS, show me your post from around that time that did not approve of it keyboard warriors around here get everything right years after it happens and BTW Watts is a footballer, you don't play a game of footy and get traumatized for life because of it, what kind of idiot believes that oh the opposition tackled me, better not play good footy again ever you people blow my mind sometimes

he got tackled, bounced straight up to receive a free kick.. you call that getting 'smashed' ? what game were you watching? perfect example of the utter tripe peddled by the media which is inexplicably and ashamedly attested to by our own supporters for some horrible reason

i don't remember him being publicly humiliated I remember a kid having a quiet debut while we got smashed which is not in the slightest bit unusual Please describe to me how you have reached this conclusion

can't remember who made this point the other day.. 'alienating the senior players' has become one of the key lines for anti-neeld sentiment. It should be noted that the shortcomings of this group (the senior players) has previously been considered the number one reason we have been so bad the last 6 years. There is a definite contradiction there.

For that comment, I would comment on the size of your plums, but I might have to talk about watermelons instead

to be fair, there was fire when we saw the smoke about Tom Scully

it might not be great for us though when his family has him committed to an insane asylum after leaving arguably the power club of the competition to go to the biggest shambles since Fitzroy

post of the day, if not week

of the 25 named I count 6 good players, 6 OK ones and 13 not up to it in some betting agencies Hawthorn is unbackable what an effing disgrace we have become this will be a 120+ flogging and Neeld's last game surely

don't know .. but I do know that whoever it is will not be able to make Lemonade instantly and will therefore be crucified by all and sundry\ and around we go again

how is it possible that Goodes and O'Keefe continue to put in best afield performances regularly, at age 33 and 32? at Melbourne our players are good as finished at about 28