Inner Demon

I've done some research and discovered the innovative work that Hawthorn have done in order to improve the profile, brand and support of their Club.

Can't agree with points 5 & 6. Our membership support structure is identical to Collingwood, Hawthorn, St Kilda, Bulldogs & North. They literally sit in the same room, use the same systems and the staff are even occasionally interchangeable. Our membership department does a good job. I also don't see why our 'sponsorship history' is poor. Or, indeed, what that has to do with club support numbers.

A list of clubs have petitioned for this spot every year for the past 5 years or so. For one reason or another, rightly or wrongly, Good Friday Football isn't happening on Demetriou's watch.

This is massive. Renouf's going to have to go solo. Advantage Jamar.

I'm really, really sick of this ludicrous argument of "in my job if I couldn't perform my nominated task I'd be fired/under review" being applied to elite level, professional sport. Sport is all about executing inherently difficult skills that are impossible to master at 100% efficiency. If it was nothing more than a matter of training up and then just performing the skill then it wouldn't be a sport. This is why your desk job is not watched by thousands of people. Apply this ridiculous thought process to other sports: Every golfer should hit every fairway & green and sink every putt. After all, they're paid enormous money and have professional full-time coaches teaching them to do it. Tennis players should never make double faults or make unforced errors. Aerial skiers shouldn't fall on landing. I could go on all day.

Back on topic: Nice initiative by Cam.

Which is why you need to look at the season as a whole rather than leaping to extremes after every game or membership update. It's like going to a construction site every day and screaming at the bricklayer about the living room not being ready. Progression is a gradual process over a period of time. You're not going to show up on Saturday week and all of a sudden all our problems have gone away and we're playing great football. You have to learn to look for the positive passages of play where things do work as signs of progression rather than see a mistake and turnover as a sign of regression.

The deadline today was for permanent elevations in lieu of Veterans List players. We have 2 already so no automatic promotion. There is no deadline for rookie elevations to cover LTI players. These can happen throughout the year on a needs basis. Once we come to selection for Rnd 1 if any of our rookies have earned a game they will be elevated. Remember, they won't be elevated unless they are being selected.

I'm going to hedge my bets between Jamie Bennell, Neville Jetta & Rohan Bail

Why? So when one of our players has an indescretion they throw the book at him??? No thanks.

You're suggesting an AFL player runs fast because he's scared of being hurt rather than because it's an important skill of the game??? Ridiculous. Yes, a small 1st year player who weighs about 75kg is occasionally going to avoid heavy contact because they will more often than not come off 2nd best and be removed from the contest. It's usually far more important for a speed player to stay in the contest than to recklessly create a collision.

And that's the only number that matters from an internal perspective. Whether they achieve promotional milestones isn't ruffling feathers, frankly, if they'd hit 30,000 by Rnd 1 we'd have been MILES ahead of the 31,000 target so it would've been champagne corks. If we can get to 27,500 for Rnd 1 that will be quite satisfactory.

In other amusing sponsorship news. The AFL Umpire sponsorship that has recently been owned by Playstation 3 has been picked up for this season by OPSM. Clever sponsorship, that will generate more than one headline.

Probably because we're not a competing tenant as such. We'll be using the facilities within the stadium, and the oval adjacent but obviously we won't use the actual playing surface there at any point.

A little birdie told you??? It's in the Herald-Sun - Link To clarify, the Club won't get any of this cash. We don't own the stadium, it's owned by the MOPT who also own Hisense Arena & Rod Laver Arena. We are just tenants. PS. I believe the 'luck has changed' quip might be referring to the "Lucky you're with AAMI" jingle.

Bennell is very exciting. A lot of people at the Club have talked him up to me over the last year. I can see the source of the excitement. He's got speed and some real class. His game against WCE last year at Subi was sensational. A very good trainer too apparently. Perhaps a step too far to rank him about Scully, Trengove & Watts as our most exciting recruit though.

So at a guess, we could potentially have playing, in varying amounts: Garland Blease Watts Bate Bruce Jetta Gysberts Fitzpatrick There's some cause for hope in there.

Only 250+ signed up over the weekend. That's probably a little below expectations.

The number should jump up a little in the next couple of days. Usually takes a couple of days to process all the sign-ups from the 'live events' like Family Day & Rnd 1. 30K was always going to be a bit of a reach for Rnd 1, but I can assure you that isn't a budgeted goal, it's a reach target. 30K is a milestone number that works well with a promotion, whilst it's obviously more realistic, there's not much pizzazz in pumping up "Let's get 27 452 members by Rnd 1"

Taking out LJ & Cale that group could probably play together by Rnd 6. It's not that long a wait.

Garland won't play Seniors Rnd 1. He's played a half for Casey since Rnd 1 last year. He's a Rnd 2-3 prospect depending on his form.

We beat Brisbane in the pre-season last year yet they played semis and we took the spoon. Sydney won their first pre-season game in Paul Roos' tenure this year. If you think pre-season results are a real indication of where teams will be by September you're just not paying attention.

Nope. Cats won yesterday. Not that it's at all relevant.

You know, when I think about it, you're right. I'll bet that poor Isaac Weetra didn't get a single written warning before his dimissal either. You've definitely hit upon a realistic and completely relevant problem with how our professional, full contact sport is run.

There's not enough time in the world to go through all the awful, mind-bogglingly ridiculous things said in this thread. The bit where a player missing one game through injury in his rookie year 10 years ago being used as evidence for a present problem was really special though.