Harrisonrules

For heavens sake please don't let this good thread degenerate into low level male mentality. Surely our supporters are above that. I value the thoughful, insightful and passionate contribution of some of the female supporters I know. Some were keen players in female football leagues, Some spend copious hours in supercoach and some I know love serious conversation about strategy, form, recruiting etc. Nothing to do with looks. For heavens......men lift your game

It's not about the coach. It's all about the supporters. We hang tight through thick and thin for year after year. Coaches come and go and change allegiance every few years with a change of club. Luck or good fortune is irrelevent. Bailey brought a philosophy. Premiership teams are built from young picks under 20, who quickly gain experience and 100 plus games bu the time they reach mid twenty. Within three years the board jettisoned his philosophy. They changed to one who didn't want too many young kids and certainly not lighter bodies. Committed to stronger mid 20 year olds even if still essentially playing VFL in other teams. Neeld is walking a tight rope because if his approach doesn't succeed he will be gone sooner than we know it. If their approach can't stand the rigours of lifes fluctuations it obviously wasn't good enough. And we the supporters suffer from it

Now list the mid runners and you'll see why we are only above GWC and GC

Personally I'm a lot closer to you than most others. A horribly unbalanced team of mostly good VFL players. Two years time when we are getting rid of most of them we will be horribly void of good smart young footballers. Neeld is pinning his career on a very risky path

Which Jetta should we have picked, Lewis or Neville? Next topic please....

They all retire to their soundproof sponsorship boxes or commmittee room

The underbelly lady of the AFL

I find it unbelievable to hear the fantasy drivell we get on this forum. 2010 ....5 wins 2011......4 wins (2 wins over GC) 2012......4 wins (3wins over GC and GWC) We have been diabolical Clark and Dawes are the only players that can seriously be hoped to impact on our output. Neeld has turned the club philosophy 180 degree around. From young hopefuls, to experienced bodied 'has beens' or 'could ave beens'. We have a top class VFL team. Even players like Dunne MacDonald have never been able to establish themselves at this level. We might improve to 6, 7 or even 8 wins, (GC GWC Port, Bulldogs? Richmond - without McMahon). Within a few years most of these good VFL players will be going and we will be rebuilding once again. Like Miller going to Richmond we'll soon find out that filling holes is basically futile. Forget the five year strategy, we are back on the 10 year plan, even if in the mean time we don't fall as low as we are now.

All inconsequential. Good VFL players that occassionally rise to the occasion.

Some of you liked him and good on you - including my daughter - damn it, we all have our favourites. (mine are Cook, Gysberts, Sheahan, and Morton) So if you are feeling bad I'm worse. Barty was one of the many good VFL players we have on our list (and who we have added to this year) who got more out of himself than he had. Good luck to him. He served our club well.

'Bounce Down' Shows the level of intelligence running the AFL You either bounce, or throw it up

Which week and against which team?

AFL team full of VFL players

Forget the size, just tells me how much this type of player gets the ball and what he does with it.

I'll help you get andy job you want, just don't play here.

Agree. Pick 27 is a different issue than FS. It just so happens that in our case 2112, the two coincide. No other club has any mechanism for bidding on JV now that the FS bidding has closed. How could the AFL ever say we are going to take a certain player off us. That's ludicrous. We take him with our next pick

Can someone please enlighten me. How many players do you need in a team not trying to win, before poor form becomes tanking? There is nothing black and white or for that matter red and blue in this whole issue.

To quote JohnMcEnroe.....ARE YOU SERIOUS

And who was coach

Some say he hates Melbourne. Maybe, maybe not, but his opinion certainly distorts his comments about the Dees. On SEN this morning he criticized Melbourne's approach to the trade period claiming we should have focused on the younger end of the draft. Naturally he was highly critical of us getting Dawes at 20. Thought Byrnes Pederson and Rae, meant that was basically what we had done. On quick reflection Hogan (17yr), Pick four (presumably another 18 year old champ), Barry (18yr at pick 13) and Viney (18 yr, yes pick 26 but generally regarded as a top 10 pick) would arguably be the youngest group of elite young kids ever picked by a team in the one year (apart from Suns and Giants) Can anyone think of a better 4 players all virtually under pick 13 having been picked by a team in the one year. What club wouldn't swap their picks with us this year if they had the chance Yes we could have gone for another young kid at 20 instead of the 24yr old premiership CHF, but I know what I would have done irrespective of whether we had to give pick 20 or 35 to 50 what Denham thinks he might have been worth. No wonder he's a loose canon journalist. Wouldn't be able to cope with the responsibility of the real world of football. BACK TO A BETTER FOUR UNDER PICK 13. ANY SUGGESTIONS?

I suggest you lighten up. The OP is right on. He acknowledges that if one actually follows the actual form then good on them, but the rest are modestly informed. If you're well informed, congratulations, why get upset...lighten up

I still see great hope for the future in Cale. Many have closed their mind with in my opinion little sound analysis. Cale has had a bad run of injuries at crucial times in his career which hasn't helped. He is an excellent runner both with endurance and good speed. Plays both the small and tall game. One of the better long kicks in the team ( regularly 60 mtrs plus}. In a team with miserable possession count, in his eight games this year ranged between 14 and 22 disposals - for an average of 18 per game. This puts 3/4 of our team to shame. The emotional rant toward him by so many on this forum says more about the lack of football know how by supporters than his ability. Neelds Collingwood game outburst toward him this year was one of the behaviours that revealed how he is still just a rookie coach with a lot to learn. To publicly chose one player for a mistake in a team riddled by them week in week out made no sense. Mature coaches don't berate players in public.

it's a pity. Some do support him and his type of player. Averaged 18 possessions in his 8 games this year - was fifth on our list at the time. We've got so little run and carry. Sydney had Lewis Jetta etc. running. I didn't see him crash and bashing, everyone. Football is so much more multi tasking and multi skilled than so many on this forum think. Neelds monochrome Collingwood coaching vision seems to have overlooked their team is full of hard running Pendelbury, Beames, Sidebottom, Thomas, Swan types. I've seen nothing at our club that suggests he's got anything that will take us higher than about 10th in 5 years. We seem to be losing Moloney, Sylvia, Rivers, Gysberts, Green, Jurrah. (Cook Morton) this year. Something's not right.

Footy is no longer controlled by the AFL. It is merely managed by it. The Game is now run by sponsorship, the chief sponsor is the TV, of which other media outlets are an extension of the TV sponsorship. Journalists are virtually owned by the media, hence the move from written journalists to TV performers. They protect the sponsor ship industry. The chief Media sponsor is supported then by the numerous other subsidury club sponsors. The AFL is merely an agent of the Sponsorship industry. If it thinks the commission is independent it is deluded. The AFL is totally depended on sponsorship. The chief supporter is the home viewer. They are the target of advertising. Hence the weekend timetabling of every match - wall to wall weekend TV football watching, to hell with the convenience of the regular attender. The faithful football attender/usually member is lowest on the totem poll. We are nothing other than emotional fodder for the home viewer and more importantly the TV sponsor, eg the closing of 3rd level Etihad stadium on smaller crowds, the seating of people behind goals whether they want to sit there or not. The best example is that of Grand Final tickets given first to Sponsors to give out round the office for that one game in September. Clubs get limited dregs. Treat the regular attender as a none entity and bingo the tide will eventually turn. I'm not surprised attendences are down WHEN YOU CHANGE YOUR CORE VALUES ULTIMATELY THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES. WHEN MONEY BECOMES THAT VALUE - IT WILL SHAPE THE ORGANISATION ACCORDINGLY THIS HAS HAPPENED IN THE AFL

It's not an unreasonable observation, but probably only one of a dozen other AFL lowlights, eg. Demetriou in Europe for 6 weeks midseason. It's easy to find others if one is bothered to go trawling. The problem is that most journalists are just other football followers who fight for the rightness of their own opinion when the reality is there are hundreds. Like all other people Mike has a string of bad decisions in life, far more than football. Why would one want to take his opinions any more seriously than any other? The problem is that Mike is the typical journalist who takes his own opinion too seriously. I dare say it was part of the other bad decisions he's made in life