hardtack

Gee, I knew we were in bad shape, but having these kids paying to play is going way beyond the pale!! Neeld should be stripped of the coaching position immediately!!

That's a reasonable gut feel as if I recall correctly, the club stated that he was being brought in purely as a forward and NOT with ruck duties in mind (or am I getting that mixed up with what they said about Clark?).

I know this will sound a bit sad, but I do get a little excited when we win those games... must be conditioning I suppose. Hate to think what my reaction will be if we do manage to beat a top tier team.

Pointless win? I wouldn't have thought there was such a thing as a pointless win... football is partly a confidence game and the more "pointless" wins we can get, the more positive experience it is getting into our younger less experienced players - they need that winning feeling, regardless of who it is against. Of course we must start winning games against tougher opponents, that goes without saying, but to describe any win as pointless is, in my opinion, well... pointless.

Agreed, and that is why I am rather surprised at how few here are suggesting Fitzpatrick get a call-up. He has done the "hard yards" at Casey and more importantly has been scoring goals... something we were sorely lacking yesterday against Carlton. Bringing both Fitz and Dawes into the side will both reward Fitz for his efforts and will take a lot of pressure off Dawes in his first game for the club... with both Fitz and Gawn up forward, Dawes would not be the only target. Magner should be elevated and placed in the midfield asap if Grimes is going to be out for a minimum of eight weeks as expected (and hopefully he will then be the promoted rookie come mid-season - they still do that don't they?), Jetta should come directly back into the side (not as a sub - imo, that should be Nicholson, TD) - it might also be worth considering bringing Toumpas back in for this game so he can build some confidence before the Richmond game the following week...plus the fact that he could not get a better education in the game than by playing against one G. Ablett Jnr.

I was waiting for that.

I take it you didn't see Grimes leaving the MCG in the back on an ambulance?

That's a no-brainer really... up until today's game, we were, I think, number three for inside 50 conversions. If we can play full games with the intensity they displayed in that second quarter, we quite possibly could become that "toughest side to play" that Neeld claimed we would become.

One of the best I've seen Jones play for a while as well... if the rest could follow the lead of Jones, Viney, Tappy and Garland, we would be much better placed.

I don't care if I'm accused of being overly PC, but please stop using this as a put-down!!

Funny how we don't see any positive comments about Terlich's effort

A void

Ok, I'll nominate Range Rover and his minions for the board, just so that we can start a whole new raft of threads just like this, calling for their sacking and calling for nominations for their potential replacements.

This whole replace the president, replace the CEO, replace the coach, replace the <insert target>, thing has become an absolute YAWN fest! All we see is countless repetition of the same arguments on both sides of the fence and the same agenda driven destabilisation proponents! Mods, I beg you, please shut this thread down!

Sometimes on these forums, I feel like I am already on that tour.

Just tweeted by MFC... Ins: Dunn, Strauss, Spencer, Viney, Kent, Nicholson. Out: Davey, Jamar, Rodan, Blease, Watts, Pedersen.

What, you want Col to let them kick more goals??!!??

Thanks for that... appreciated.

Ok, you win... lets abolish the role of captain and vice captain as they are obviously superfluous to what goes on on the field anyway, and simply give the two Jacks the new titles of MR and VMR (Media Rep and Vice Media Rep).

Yes, I understand all of that, but I started this thread in the hope of getting insight into whether there really is a disconnect between the coach and the players... there are plenty of other topics on this board if people want to vent about the club and supporters.

How did this get to 3 pages? (I know, I know... adding my post didn't help)

You are probably right about people not reporting much once the season is up and running, but I would have thought that considering the way things have been going, there might have been a few reporting on the state of the nation...but things went from calls to rally around the team at training one week, to crickets the next. On game day it's easy to simply say "the coach has lost the players" on the back on a seemingly lacklustre disinterested performance, but I would have thought that to get the best insight, attending training would be the way to go... this is where most of the interaction between coach and players and rest of football department takes place. So, on that score, I'm glad to here your view Satyriconhome, as I know first-hand that you do have contact with players and football department members at those sessions. Appreciated.

... no-one gets along to training anymore? Speaking for myself, but I'm sure others may agree, we interstaters genuinely appreciate any training reports that are posted on these forums as it provides more of a sense of involvement with the club where, obviously, we cannot physically show our support every week. Given all of the current talk on these boards, it would also be nice to get any (hopefully impartial) observations on the relationship between coach and players - is there a sense of distance, camaraderie, etc etc. I believe that there was a training session at Gosch's Paddock yesterday, but have seen nothing on here and only an empty topic on 'ology.

Zzzzzzzzzzzz

Ok, let's have no captains or vice captains at all... we can become an anarcho syndiclastic football club where everyone is a leader. The reason there is a captain is so that there is one person on the field of play who can take the responsibility of pulling the team together when things are starting to go awry. Unfortunately, it often happens that the added responsibility that goes with the position can detract from the players ability to focus on his own game... I see Jones as being one player who would relish the added pressure and raise his game to another level while inspiring his team mates.