Slartibartfast

People keep talking about Toump as a HBFer but I worry a bit about his man on man stuff. If his fitness is up then defensive mid playing/high half forward primarily between HB and FF is where I'd think he fits best. Go Toump..... love ya!

Thanks Saty, TDI or whatever. Really appreciate the efforts. Might see you down there before Christmas sometime.

Fund raising is a soft option to the extent that it can mask the need to get the business in order as it is not repeatable. It can give a false sense of security. It's soft because building a competitive and sustainablel business model is difficult. It is legit, I'm not arguing it isn't. But the funds raised must be used efficiently and in our case I don't think they were. But we can differ, that's fine.

Not unless he's going to play in the seniors. Promoted rookies get paid more.

I'm not sure whether you're being argumentative but I think you'll find that Jackson has wiped very significant amounts from unnecessary head office salaries which were established by Schwab in "the worst economic environment since the Great Depression". haha - WHAT MONEY? That money. But the point is pretty simple. If you think Jackson is not as good as Schwab then you'd argue for Schwab. I contend that Jackson or someone of his ilk would have done a much better job with the resources at his disposal. That would have resulted in either no need for the debt demolition or a much better outcome as a result of the debt demolition.

I'd have done what Jackson is doing. Spent money where it's needed and not on administrate head office. And I'm not saying I could do it. I think the CEO role at a footy club is a very difficult job. Jackson is showing us just how it's done and how poor our previous CEO's have been.

I'd be against Dunn being in the leadership group as I don't believe leaders go around taking cheap shots at team mates during training. But what this discussion does show is that we have few natural mature leaders and that is a worry for such a young group. I'm firmly in the camp of not promoting young players and think someone like McKenzie may be considered. He's borderline 22 but if he spent most of the year at Casey that might not be such a bad thing. He's also highly respected, a very hard worker, pedantic in his preparation and recovery and if the leadership did impact him it's not as bad as impacting Tyson or Tommy Mac. I doubt Garland will be omitted and think Cross and Dawes will join it. But really there aren't too many good choices, from the outside anyway.

The debt demolition was a very successful fund raising exercise, arguable the best the AFL has seen and I'd think it was "best practice". But reality is you can't have a debt demolition often and the money raised was squandered. At the end of the McLardy/Stynes/Schwab era we were in as bad a financial position as when Stynes took over. The previous administration get full marks for being able to raising the money and a very low score with how they managed it. Jackson at least realizes a club can't sustain itself by going to the membership and asking for funds. IMO whilst it was done beautifully the debt demolition was the soft option and poor management.

Nobody will be upgraded until they demand a spot in the team and from what I can see it's unlikely a rookie will do that in the first half of the year.

I agree Casey is a soulless place. And you're dead right in that when Springvale went to Casey there was naturally little if any local support and it would seem not much support has transferred from Springvale. Competing with a strong local club is an issue but many people support both local and AFL footy. Chris Connolly was the main facilitator for Casey and he worked very hard to establish links with that community. I don't know what is being done now. But reality is you're selling a concept and when the concept is to go to a soulless ground where you can't see much and the footy is often poor because of the windswept site you're making your job much harder than it should be. Prahran would be great Redleg and I'd like to see us comsider the Richmond Footy Ground. I don't know if the MFC has any information and I was all for giving Cranbourne a go but perhaps it's time to reassess the idea of playing at Casey. Pity we have a 20 year lease. That seems madness in retrospect.

What do you mean by "house divided"? I'd contend that under Gardner's Board we were united in house. The only times I can recall (in more recent times) the house being divided was under the last administration where there were splits throughout the club personnel and under Gutnick we had a divided Board It goes without saying that we have struggled financially for years which is why of course Ian Ridley recommended we merge with Hawthorn. He contended we couldn't compete or exist under the structure of the day but fortunately on more than one occasion the AFL has helped us survive.

Perhaps so Saty, but certainly it wasn't the case with Ro. Very nearly ended his career. And why on earth would you rough up Viney? Like he needs to be taught aggression? Watts yes, Viney no. And it's one thing to go hard, it's pretty gutless to put your knees into someone. Whilst the coaches might want them to go hard I doubt they envisaged it needing someone to brake it up.

I see Dunny hasn't changed. In preseason of 2013 he cleaned up Ro Bail when he was competing in a drill. Bail was wearing the vest that indicates he was injured (recovering from concussion) and should not be involved in body contact but Dunny couldn't resist cleaning him up despite the playing group knowing Bail's condition. It was very late as well. Nearly ended Ro's career. I've never seen the need for this sort of thing at training. Dunn typically picks on those where he has a physical advantage. He tried it with Chappy in the 186 game at the end of the first quarter and ended up on the ground in the fetal position with Chappy standing over him laughing. Dunn was very good in the first half of last year and saved his career. Strange how his form slipped as soon as he re-signed. I can never reconcile the really good work he does with the disadvantaged and the gutless stuff he does on field. I hope he grows up.

I've been to Willy on a cold winters day. But you can sit in the stand and get a reasonable view. There is a little stand at Werribee you can sit in and that gives you a reasonable view. Frankston is not flash but on the outer side up on the hill it's ok. And it's got lots of character over there. Sandy was good because the ground was so small. Not good for footy development but good for viewing. I don't know the dimensions of the grounds but Casey does seem big and has big boundary's as well which just compounds the problem, it's not sheltered at all by terrain (not any hills around) and the trees are so far from the ground that they provide no protection so the wind impacts significantly. I've seen a lot of games at Casey and just couldn't find a good vantage point. I go to all the grounds you mention plus Coburg, OO and Port because I get to see a bit. IMO Casey is the worst. But I haven't viewed from the social club - that might be ok.

One of the major issues for me is that the Casey ground is such a poor viewing ground. It's large, with a large camber and you can't really get high enough to see much. And if there is the slightest breeze it turns into a tornado at Cranbourne. All in all it's probably the least inviting ground in the VFL to watch footy from. Hence small crowds, even for the locals who don't have to spend 50 minutes in the car to get there.

I never used the word in this thread. Jabber used the word "group-thinkers", I didn't.

Thanks for your input. Can you show me where I used "groupthink" in this thread? Frost went from someone we wanted to a terrible trade because we paid too much to someone who was really good all pretty much following what happened. The point I was making was that as The Saints are now rationalizing McCartin over Petracca we did pretty much the same with our picks and the Frost thread is a good example. You really need to stop telling me to drop groupthink particularly if I don't use the word or the concept in a thread. I accept that you don't think groupthink exists here. I do. I can live with our differing opinions.

Wrong. McDonald was in the first rookie draft taken at pick 78.

Yes. http://demonland.com/forums/index.php?/topic/37395-welcome-to-the-melbourne-football-club-sam-frost/page-9 And onward. I'm surprised you couldn't do this yourself, but then again, perhaps not.

That's about as fickle as the Demonland thread on Sam Frost. He went from someone that wasn't worth a trade (we'd pick him up in the PSD for nothing) to someone who was better than James Frawley.

We couldn't have ever got McCartin but. Just sayin'

Ok. Can we agree that I'm immature, you are a pedant and we've both been unnecessarily personal. It's probably all true and I can live with it. Can you?

Prepare for the "unnecessarily personal" defence. I've had it. It doesn't hurt unless used in response to RPFC when he is "unnecessarily personal". He doesn't like being called a pedant. BTW, bring back Olivia. Please.

It's not just trading and it's not just drafting. Hale, Gunston, McEvoy, Gibson, Burgoyne, Lake and Spanger - all traded in. All in the Premiership team. Ceglar and Simpkin made significant contributions. 9 players in Hawks best 25? And they've just got Frawley and O'Rourke. Do both, make good decisions, get value for money. Don't ignore one for the other. I think we've done that in the last few years.

I know he was rated by some much higher but I'm just interested that as one of that scarce breed of talls who are hard to find he was passed over by so many. Hopefully they all made a big mistake.