bing181

That's the issue right there. They're professional, high-profile footballers (with wages and responsibilities to match). They're not "who amongst us".

Wondered how long it would be before you'd pop in.

That would be ... "pissing THEIR pants WITH laughter". (No need to thank me.)

For interest's sake, current membership. We ain't doing too badly at all. Current Membership totals as of 19/12/2012. Collingwood - 55,000 - (Target 75,000) West Coast - 44,443 Hawthorn - 42,729 - (Target 65,000) Essendon - 31,369 Richmond - 28,889 - (Target 60,000) Carlton - 26,810 - (Target - 50,000) St. Kilda - 20,715 Melbourne - 20,145 - (Target - 40,000) Fremantle - 20,000+ (as of November) Geelong - 19,883 Adelaide - 17,000+ (as of 4/12) - (Target - 50,000) North Melb - 18,203 Sydney - 16,000+ Western B - 15,970 Port Adel. - 14,826 Brisbane - 12,493 Gold Coast - 6,714 (Target 10,000) Greater WS - 6,179 (Target 10,000)

Sure, but there's a difference between hard and suicidal. It depends what "proof" they have.

Therein lies the problem in this argument. First up, there's the assumption that Bailey was winning against "better teams", which is just not true. Adelaide at the MCG in 2011 was as easy as it got. West Coast and Richmond in 2010 were woeful. With one or two exceptions, which a few people here still want to take as some kind of norm, we only ever won against the "easy" teams, and were roundly thrashed by the better ones. For where we really were, have a look at our results against a mid-range team like North in 2010 - 2011. Lost every game. Secondly, the list was worse under Bailey? Not in reality. How many of Bailey's wins came with Garland and Rivers in the forward line, and Spencer as first ruck? Many of the players who performed well for Bailey's wins were unavailable or out of form and heading for the chopper under Neeld. Where were our leading goal kickers from 2010 and 2011 (for example)? Gysberts, Sylvia, Martin, Jamar, Watts, Petterd, Jurrah etc. were all solid (or important) contributors to those Bailey wins, but all were injured or paying the price for being injured for long periods in 2012. Throw in others effectively missing or out of form, e.g. Green (getting to be passed it in 2012), Moloney (lost and confused) and even Scully (useful in 2010) how did Neeld have a better team? Or, to put it another way: if Neeld's list was so much better than Baileys, how come we let a third of them leave?? As for the rest of your post ... it's possible, in a discussion, to hold a certain view, without automatically negating the opposing view. Saying that Bailey's team and wins were poor, isn't necessarily saying that in 2012 everything was hunky dory.

You mean the record where we never beat ANY of the Victorian teams (except the odd fluke and our yearly wins against a developing Richmond), and where a lot of the wins came from beating out of town teams at the MCG? Throw into that the odd interstate win (Port in Darwin, Lions at the Gabba) and you have Bailey's wins. As for the 6% against non-startup teams, even that's a stat of your own fabrication. Go back a few years and Richmond were as bad or worse than GC or GWS, and some of the others at that time weren't much better - it wasn't for nothing that Freeo, Adelaide, Essendon and the Dogs all sacked their coaches. Your stats don't really tell much of a story, yet alone the whole story.

I would have thought so as well. Initial prognosis was that he would start running after Xmas, so he seems to be a month or so ahead of schedule ... FWIW.

Didn't we already do that just a few years back?

Correction: We had the 2nd pick in the PSD but chose not to use it. We took Terlich with our last live pick in the draft. To put it another way, we rated him higher to us than anyone who would have been available in the PSD. Hard to see where the problem is ... or could be.

Robbie Campbell. Ex Hawthorn. Rookie'd in 2011.

Because, as we all knew, we were crying out for a KPF - or KPF's. He was the only left at that stage of the draft. No accident that one of the first things Neeld and co. did was to move mountains to get Mitch Clark - and follow it up with Dawes and Hogan. Wtih Cook, we were addressing a (desperate) need. It didn't come off - in the short term at least. On the other hand, could be interesting to revisit this thread in a few years.

No it's not. What you omitted from that is "ditched talent that could be developed ... at another club after having been ditched by Melbourne". There's no guarantee that they could have equalled that development at Melbourne. As an Exhibit A go over to one of the North Boards, and see what Gysberts said about training at North ... he was surprised it was so demanding. So maybe finally the penny will drop for Jordie G. Pity he had to change clubs to realise that you have to work hard to succeed.

Top 4 actually. AND the coaches award. It's a wonder you can sleep at night.

Just when you think you've seen all the tasteless, insensitive posts ...

Fourth in the Bluey, Coaches award, never say die, one of the first picked every week ... Obviously the professionals at the club see plenty in him that you can't.

Not to mention, adding to the possibility that one of our rucks will be useful as trade bait next year. If we picked him up, can't imagine we'd keep Gawn, Spencer and Hannath over the long term, and we still have Clark, Fitzpatrick and some pinch-hitters (Sellars, Pederson). Surely one would go.

Yes, but similar (same) for all athletes at an elite (professional) level.

Agreed - but also, reading an article like this, only brings home how much work goes on behind closed doors, and how little we really know/see of the players.

Yep, we'll just have to cancel the entire pre-season.

Not if they're not fit enough to implement them, or the other team is fitter and thus better able to implement them.

So you didn't mean exchanging the "P" for another letter, one a little earlier in the alphabet? Under the circumstances, perhaps appropriate.

It's an interesting point, much discussed within marketing and advertising agencies ... but a hard copy version is a completely different reading experience. There are still many people (me included) who would prefer to have and hold the real thing, even if the info is available online.

Only in your case.

You were saying that over 3 years he had become a plodder. A plodder doesn't come at the pointy end of a club TT, matching or bettering his PB. As for the rest, you're just guessing. You have no idea what caused his foot injury, and equally because you have no idea what monitoring (or not) was being implemented, you aren't in a position to say whether that implementation was "proper" or not.